Rudely awoken by the alarm (I lie – I was already up) our driver is here at 23:30 to take us to Ijen. He warns us the road “is not good” but it’s nothing like what we found on Sumatra.
It takes 2 hours to get there and once we’re out of the car our driver organises tickets, tells us not to bother with guides and we’re off.
Advertised as a 1 hour walk I think that’s underestimating it a little. We’re used to walks being over estimated but in this case it takes us almost 2 hours. Guys with trolleys keep passing shouting “taxi taxi”. Later do we realise that miners make a lot more money dragging a tourist up than by bringing sulphur down the hill.
About 10 minutes before the top the smell of sulphur gets strong and gas masks are sold. We strongly suspect some enterprising individuals are burning sulphur to encourage people to buy masks.
Then we’re on the rim and we start to descend. At the first viewpoint you can see the blue flames. Another half hour down we’re about 100m away from them. I go down close to see the mining operations. Pipes have been inserted into the sulphur vents and gas and liquid comes out into a pool where it solidifies. Miners break the sulphur into slabs and take it up. Driver tells us they get 800rp per KG which is about 5p.
Emma really starts to detest the smell and gas masks are uncomfortable at the best of times. The dilithium mines of Rura Penthe are a holiday compared with this. I take Emma back up and Jane and Alex go up a bit slower. As we go up the wind turns a bit and the vapours come our way. Not pleasant and Emma’s in a rush now. We get to the top and have to wait quite a while before Alex and Jane turn up. It’s a long walk down but at least we’re clear of the smells.
Back at the parking our driver is waiting with fried banana, coffee and soft drinks. We also eat the cakes from Fatima’s. We’re all pretty exhausted, but fortunately a light morning programme has been prepared.
We visit a stream of Ijen water that looks green and tastes of acid. There are some guys making photographs and they clearly think we’re insane, testing the water this way.
Next we visit a hot spring fed by Raul which joins the Ijen water and shortly after we walk over to the bath house where the hot pool is too much for us but the second one is just right. We have some coffee there and then stop off at a plantation where we photograph some coffee plants.
And that’s the end of our Bondowosso and Ijen episode. Driver takes us to the ferry, gets us tickets and impresses on Jane that we must not pay more than “tiga puluh” for the bus to Denpassar.
The ferry crosses quickly but then gets caught up in mooring traffic.
It takes some time to get ashore and when we do we walk to the bus station where fun and games begin. The front bus seems to be not good enough and Jane insists that 50k is too much. After some bus shuffling and confusion our bus does finally go but it seems we’re the only ones paying the 30k price. The fact that this does not raise a stink makes us think we’re paying the right price and the driver is making a tidy 20k per person profit off all the others.
It’s a long ride and the bus gets fuller. The driver is in some insane race with another bus and we’re happy when we get to Denpasar. We sit down at a Warung and wait for taxi drivers to turn up and give us a reasonable price to get to Sanur. Of course a family of 4 late at night is easy prey and we don’t work too hard to get the right price. It’s a remarkably long drive though, mainly due to busy traffic.
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