Taking the reader through the geological and social history of the catastrophe, as well as lessons in the science of volcanology, Tambora shows the writer’s passion for history and adventuring as he rides a motorcycle across the island from west to east.

Pugh’s is a rollicking insider’s view of local and expat life in his host country and the many layered dimensions of Sumbawan culture — the strict practice of Islam, the inhabitants’ friendliness and helpfulness and the natural calamities they face.

With the eye of both a geographer and a sociologist, he observes the livelihoods of the people, the food they eat, the clothes they wear, the crops and livestock they tend, the vegetation and the landforms he passes through.

In a factory in Sangoro, Pugh witnessed fishermen harvesting jellyfish that swarm in the ocean shallows each November, a messy and odorous industry packing bells ( jellyfish heads) into plastic drums for export to China.

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There is a fascinating account of the horse racing culture in the capital city of Sumbawa Besar, where stallions are ridden bareback by child jockeys as young as 4 years old. By seven, the kids are too big to race the small horses.

Also noteworthy in the province’s capital is Istana Dalam Loka, elevated on 90 teak pillars, it is the largest wooden palace in the world.

The writer’s meeting with an elderly princess in Bima, on Sumbawa’s eastern end, is touching and intimate.

Succumbing to neglect, the two-story palace she was raised in was built in 1927. It features a veranda supported by thick pillars. A direct descendant of Bima’s sultan, who was ruling at the time of the eruption, the gracious old lady gives him a sentimental tour around her own private museum.

Pugh interestingly compares Tambora’s eruption, which was thousands of times bigger than other colossal eruptions of the world’s supervolcanos, including Thera in Greece in 1628 BC; Samalas on Lombok; Kelud in Central Java; Vesuvius in Italy; and St. Helens in the northwest US.

He goes on to postulate various tumultuous scenarios if another major eruption the size of Tambora ever occurs, citing Washington state’s Rainier, Japan’s Fuji and Mexico’s Popocatepetl – all overdue to explode.

Pugh’s Tambora stands out among other histories because it’s the first in the guidebook-cum-travelogue genre. There have been many accounts written about the catastrophe, but usually only as a chapter in a broader story about volcanoes and disasters.

Online information is even more abundant. Many websites mention Tambora, but they all seem to mesh together as their authors used the same research sources. Everyone, for example, seems to have come up with their own death tally, anywhere from 90,000 to 150,000.

The most useful aspect — the meat of the book — is the information about getting to and climbing the mountain.

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Most visitors join a tour group from Bima and drive the coastal road for three to four hours via Dompu, along the Sanggar Peninsula.

Another option is to hire a boat from Sumbawa Besar across Saleh Bay to Calabai, from where a car or motorbike can be rented to Pancasila.

In Pancasila, Tambora Guesthouse is an old coffee plantation homestead near the tiny village of Oi Bura, the area’s only dedicated tourist accommodation a short ride from Pancasila. It also offers a pickup service by motorcycle taxi.

Pak Saiful’s guesthouse is on the far side of the football field. On the wall is a surprisingly accurate GPS-based chart showing walk times and distances up the mountain.

At your accommodation, leave the telephone numbers of those who you would like the authorities to contact if you get lost or into trouble. No park fee or entry permit is required to climb the volcano.

There are about 50 guides, most of whom live in Pancasila, who take turns leading climbers at a cost of between Rp 150,000 and Rp 200,000 per day.

Sole climbers should hire two; one can be a porter who carries food, water and camping equipment. If it’s the wet season (December-April), the trail to Pos I is overgrown, wet and slippery and obstructed by fallen trees.

In the dry season, this trail is clear and it is even possible to ride to Pos I by trail bike, which cuts 8 kilometers off the hike each way, saving six hours of walking. Water sources are close to the first three posts.

If you start your climb from either of Tambora’s guesthouses at 7 a.m., it takes one-and-a-half hours to reach Pos 2.

Get up at midnight for the final climb from Pos 3 to Pos 4 and Pos 5 in pitch darkness to reach the flat-topped summit as the sun breaks over the horizon.

Stand agape on a high plateau looking down into a vast crater with a green lake 800 meters below on the crater floor seeping gas and clouds. Not a hospitable place during the day as it gets very hot.

As with the ascent, the descent back down to Pancasila is like running a 21 km obstacle course, a 12-hour slog on a narrow trail through razor sharp brambles and stinging nettles, but with splendid views of hills and valleys to either side.

Dominating the slopes below the tree line are Casuarina trees with alang-alang grass, edelweiss; also wild pigs, deer and monkeys.

The heavy-framed Pugh reports that he arrived limping into Pancasila “like an octogenarian completing his first marathon”. He also wryly noted that the Indonesian guides do the 42 km climb up and back in their rubber sandals.

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