About one hour by car from Surabaya you will find the city of Mojokerto and just east of this the Trowulan village. Trowulan was in the 14th century the capital of the great Majapahit empire, once the mightiest kingdom on Java and the first to control the entire Indonesian archipelago. Majapahit's rule lasted from 1294 to the beginning of the 16th century. The Majapahit palace was supposedly a large structure surrounded by high walls with guard towers.

Malang is located between two massive groups of mountains with Semuru, the highest mountain on Java, and the national park Bromo-Tengger to the east. The climate up here is relatively cool. The Sungai Brantas river floats through the city, which were founded by the Dutch at the end of the 18th century as a center of tobacco trade. The Dutch had an important military base here until 1949, and Malang was the capital of the district of the same name.

Madura is a large island on East Java, 5.290 square kilometers, about 160 km long and 35 km wide. It is separated from Surabaya by the narrow Madura strait, and is administered as a part of the East Java district. Main income is fishing, salt, cattle and agriculture. The local capital is Pamekasan.

Bromo-Tengger national park is located on East Java, about three hours by car from Surabaya. Tengger is a huge, old caldera with the Bromo volcano inside. The smoking cone of Bromo raises from the plain of this 10 km wide caldera, but is not the highest mountain inside. Side by side with Bromo are also other mountains like Gunung Batok (2.440m) and Gunung Kursi (2.581m). Bromo (2.392m) and the nearby Semeru volcano, the highest mountain on Java (3.676m), have during the two previous centuries had at least 100 eruptions.

The small town of Batu is located about 15 km northeast of Malang, and is a popular place for vacation and recreation among the local population on East Java, at least those who can afford such a luxury. The climate up here can be very pleasant. There may not be so much to do in Batu itself, but the surrounding landscape is beautiful.

Surabaya is East Java's largest and Indonesia's second largest city with a population somewhere between 3 and 4 million. Traditionally the city is one of the most important commercial port and trading center in South East Asia, it's harbor is Indonesia's second largest after Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, protected by the Madura island just east of Surabaya.

On the easternmost part of Java there are three volcanoes that all are nature reserves; Bromo-Tengger, the Yang plateau and the Ijen plateau with Gunung Raung to the extreme east. There are also three additional reserves in this area, all located by the coast; Baluran animal reserve at the north east part, the most easily accessible, the Alas Purwo reserve on the south east part and the Meru Betiri reserve at the south coast.