An early morning trek to the top of the outer crater of Mount Bromo, in Eastern Java, produced the most amazing photography of my trip.  Mount Bromo actually is a steaming active  volcano situated in a large outer crater, and is part of a chain of still active volcanoes on Java.

 During the day, the outer crater is an ashen moonscape in which sits a somewhat ghostly Hindu Temple. 

However, in the early hours of the morning, mist fills the outer crater transforming this moonscape into a stunning lake of cloud from which emerges the inner crater, often giving off quite a bit of steam.  In the background, another volcano in the chain lets fly some ash. 

I shot about 12 pictures and got three or four nice ones, of which this is the real stunner of the bunch.  My scanner is not so hot, but hopefully it will not interfere with what you see.

Steve

It was 1996, a golden age of travel in Asia.  The Asian tigers were reveling in their newfound, though  illusory economic mid 90s economic boom, no one had heard of SARS or Asian bird flu yet, and Al Quaeda had not become of the common vernacular.

In March of 1996, I quit my job working as a CD-ROM producer in Boston, sold my car and the great majority of my belongings and set out on a 7 month odyssey across the U.S. and Asia from Japan to India.  I set out with a friend in a car that we got from Auto Drive-away  - a service that hooks up people with cars that need to be driven to distant places in the US (http://www.autodriveaway.com/).  We got a Ford Escort from Boston to a dinky military town south of Tucson, AZ.  We took the Greyhound (a story all it's own) from a roadside bus stop to Phoenix where a friend of mine let us crash. Then we got another drive away - a nice Honda Accord coupe that got us to San Francisco.  Once in San Francisco, I was pretty much done with automobiles - from here on out is was all planes, boats and trains.  A plane to Japan to meet an old school mate in Tokyo. A boat from Shimonoseki, Japan to Pusan, Korea. A boat from Korea to China. Trains all around China. A night bus from China to Hong Kong.  A plane to Indonesia. Buses and trains around Indonesia.  A boat to Singapore.  Buses through Malaysia to Thailand. A plane to Vietnam. A spooky van ride to Cambodia.  A boat ride up the Mekong to Ankgor. A plane to Kathmandu. A long bus ride to Varanassi, India. An overnight train ride to Jaipur.  A bus to Pushkar.  A  Taxi ride, sick, to New Delhi.  A bus back to Kathmandu to recover.  Planes from Kathmandu, to Seoul, to LA to Dayton, OH and finally back to Boston at the beginning of October 1996. Countries covered in some fashion:  Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal,and India.

I had been intending to go all the way around through the middle east and through Europe, but I got sick and travel weary in India and decided that was a good enough adventure for one year.

I came back with many great pictures taking with my trusty Yashica T1 point and shoot, and I will post as many as I have time.  While the information is now nearing being 10 years old, I am happy to share these experiences.  As my time will be limited I will start with the highlights as I may not end up getting to all the different experiences I would like to share from this adventure.

First stop on the highlight reel - Indonesia........