Yogyakarta to mount Merapi by scooter, possible?

Upvote:3

I did it, on the back of a moped. So there should be no problem if you are alone on your scooter.

As I remind it, it is less than 3 hours

Upvote:3

Well, you can't drive right to the top, obviously.

But you can certainly drive up to the roadheads on the slopes. It's a short, straightforward run up to Kaliuramg. Otherwise you could make a pleasant loop along the road linking the main Magelang road with Boyolali, passing between Merapi and Merbabu, via the trailhead village, Selo. This is a really lovely road to travel along, and would make a nice day trip.

Upvote:4

Just confirming: Selo village is where the hike to the top of Merapi starts.

Probably the nicest itinerary:

  1. Yogyakarta to Borobudur, takes around 1h (you can stop here to enjoy the temple)
  2. Borobudur to mount Merapi (Selo village), takes around 1h30min

The road from Yogyakarta to Borobudur is very good.

The road from Borobudur to mount Merapi (Selo village) is a typical Indonesian country side road, it's not amazing but it does the job.

Borobudur to mount Merapi (Selo village)

We were told by a local living in Selo that the best way was by avoiding the main road as there would often be lots of traffic. Based on that advice, I followed his directions & it went very well.

Here are the few towns you need to go through: Borobudur -> Muntilan -> Talun -> Klakah -> Jrakah -> Selo

For some reason, many of those villages didn't turn up on Google Map. However, I also use an offline map app called "citymaps2go", and they showed up on that one.

Ride during day time

No problem at all.

Ride at night

I did this ride partially at night. It was fine. But it gets quite cold, especially when starting going up. Bring some warm clothes, you will need them for the hike up mount Merapi anyway.

Motorbike rental

It's easy to rent a motorbike in Yogyakarta for around 60'000 IDR for 24h. Just ask a few different rental companies.

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