The Karimunjawa islands are hard to get to, and very hard to leave. Not just because they are beautiful, sparsely occupied and teeming with sea life, but because the Java sea often puts paid to ferries being able to visit, particularly in the rainy season. I was lucky in getting out to the islands, with a very calm and sunny sailing from the north coast port of Jepara, but I had to return early, on a very choppy voyage, with warnings of bad weather and likely ferry cancellations likely to strand me there for up to a week. The locals told me that two weeks of isolation were not that unusual!

It has been 24 hours since I climbed up, and then into Kawah Ijen, and despite much washing of clothes and body I can still catch the faint smell of sulphur. The volcano is in far east Java, active and overdue an eruption, with the last major one being in 1936. What brings the more adventurous traveller here is the unique 'Blue lava' at the base of the crater, and the Sulphur miners who work in some of the hardest, and most dangerous, conditions in the world.

Surabaya, the largest city in East Java (with a population of 2.5 Million) is a stop off point on the way to and from Bali. It is worth hanging around for day or two to explore. Here are my top things to do in Surabaya.

40,000 people lived and worked happily in 14 villages on the edge of Sidoarjo in Java, Indonesia. Surrounded by rice paddies and close to the sea it was a fairly quiet place away from the major city nearby of Surabaya. Until May 2006, when PT Lapindo, a major oil and gas explorer (who included Santos, a large Australian company, as a shareholder) got permission to perform an exploratory drill nearby.

Singapore has recently been named the most expensive city in Asia, overtaking Tokyo, and I was flying there and stopping over in transit for 12 hours on my way to explore the volcanoes of Java. I wanted to do it as cheaply as possible. Here is how I did it.