Day 2 Java, Indonesia
This is the sixth in a series of posts about my recent travels to Indonesia, and Nepal. You can read about day 1 here. You can click on the following links to read the other posts if you are intersted: South Korea, Bali, Lombok, and the famous Mount Rinjani.
A few days after arriving in Bali, and nearly missing my flight from South Korea, we made a 3 hour drive, and a short 20 minute ferry trip to Java Island. Although it’s very close to Bali, it’s a much different place in regards to the culture.
Sulfur Miner – Ijen Crater, East Java Indonesia
After we photographed Mount Bromo, we took another wild 4 hour drive over to the Arabica Home stay for the night. This area was a coffee plantation and pretty cool landscapes were around, but we arrived pretty late in the day and were just in relax mode after that Rinjani trek. After a few Bintangs (Indonesian beer), it was time for some sleep before leaving at 2am for the crater. We wanted to leave very early so that we could photograph the workers and the blue fire of the sulfur burning at night.
The famous "blue fire" of the Ijen crater
The drive was just a short 4o minute drive to the trail head, and here we met our guide that would take us down into the crater. This gentlemen has led numerous reporters down to the crater at night to photograph the blue fire. He runs a little gift shop now at the trail head, and is a retired miner of 15 years… He was very funny and constantly joking along the 30 minute hike to the top of the crater rim. Here he is below posing with my tripod and my f-stop bag that he insisted on carrying for me…
Ijen Guide – East Java, Indonesia
Ijen Miner at weigh station
We arrived at the crater rim when it was still very dark, and headed down to make some photos. After doing the much more serious trek of Mount Rinjani in Lombok Indonesia a few days earlier, this short little trek seemed like a walk in the park. It was very windy on this particular morning, and huge clouds of sulfur smoke would blow into us for about 20-30 seconds at a time. The smoke burns your eyes and your throat, but since the guide (Retired miner of 15 years) wasn’t wearing a mask, I figured I didn’t need to put mine on either 
These guys are hardcore to say the least…
Later I found out that some USA today reporter ruined 2 cameras and a lens a few months earlier by shooting while the smoke was coming into him. Apparently the sulfur smoke is very deadly for cameras. My camera seems ok, but I only took a few head on gusts of that smoke before I moved out of the way…
After making a few photos from down in the crater, I rushed back up to the top to try and catch an image of the sunrise. We were taking the trail when the guide suggested that we take a shortcut. He started straight up one of the gouges in the side of the mountain and by the time I got up there the best light had already faded, but I was able to make the photo below…
Kawah Ijen sunrise – East Java, Indonesia
It turns out that we chose a Muslim holiday to go to Ijen, and only a few workers were around. We still were able to make a few photos, but it would have been much more interesting if all the workers were there…
Ijen Miner with full load of sulfur
The few miners that we did encounter while up there were willing to let us photograph them and generally pretty friendly; except this guy above. He wanted cigarettes, and kept purposely standing in the way of what we were trying to photograph until we gave him what he wanted…
