Blogs from Ijen Plateau, Java, Indonesia, Asia

This was a real adventure… and quite dangerous one. We set out from Pemuteran early in the morning: half an hour drive to the ferry, an hour by ferry to Java and then 1,5 hour jeep drive to the crater. The ferry trip took a bit of courage. It was full of locals and almost all of them were smoking. The only place with fresh air was the upper deck. The ferry itself was going by some strange route. It would actually take about 15 minutes to get from Bali to Java if go straight. But this was not the case. The ferry was drawing zigzag and circle patterns on water, sometimes turning back to Bali. We thought the ferry captain was drunk. But our driver explained that the ferry was just waiting for a free ... read more

Nogmaals een guestpost: Rosas ecolodge in Baluran , dorpswandeling en nationaal park safari In dit dorp, Kampong, is er geen gebrek aan moskeeen, ik denk zo'n 10 tal. ieder godshuis is uitgerust met een versterker en luidsprekers . Tijdens de Ramadan schallen niet alleen de oproepen tot gebed over de daken, maar wordt ook nog eens bijna en continu ,de Koran in't arabisch gereciteerd. sommige moskeeen slagen erin om 3 tot 4 keer na mekaar de Koran op te zingen. Volgens ons de ene moskee tegen de andere op, wat een geweldige kakafonie geeft omdat ook iedereen op een a,dere vers zit. Bijna niemand verstaat er iets van vermoeden we, zoals latijn in onze streken , maar de duty moet uitgevoerd worden. Sommige stemmen zijn blijkbaar van tiener-muezzins , want lijken bijna op vrouwen stemmen, wat ... read more

Plans were made...transport sorted out. We arranged a private driver to bring us to Gilimanuk in the Nort-West of Bali where we would catch a ferry to Java. 10 am, no driver, 10h30, no driver, okay, I was getting very nervous and furious. Those guys they had been bothering us so much and when finally we agreed on a price (a lot higher then 1 month ago but it was high season now ) they take the piss on us. The driver shows up accidently, and for once Jesper let go of his anger... I made my conclusion fast, asked the hotel receptionist to arrange a taxi to the busstation north of Denpasar. This is what we've been wanting to do more, so here we go. We said goodbye to Sebastiaan and the taxi arrived 10 ... read more

When we arrived at Attaqwa Mosque, We saw Kaska and Johaina (from Philippines) are sitting on the stairs. But why only two of them? Where are the others? We approach them and then we find out that we are left behind. There is one person that we know, sitting on other side of the stairs (I know he is one of the committee yesterday). We approach him asked if he can help us to contact the committee on the truck. He called someone and then tell us that one of the truck (the participant are transported by police trucks) is returning to the city to pick us up. After waiting for about 45minutes, the guys is approaching us and said that there will be no truck returning to the city for us. Then he took us ... read more

It is 4o'clock in the morning,but I couldn't sleep again. The cold air awaken Me up. I feel headache now.Don't know if it is caused by the cold air or caused by the hair gel ( I didn't use shampoo when take a bath last night).I just lying down on my bed till morning. 5 o'clock, took shower then waiting for Assifa to be ready. The host's wife prepared a glass of coffee for Me.too bad I couldnt drink coffee in the morning. 7.15 am. walk with Assifa to Eva's house. They just about to start their breakfast when We arrived there. Eva made a glass of tea for each of Us. There is new participant arrived at Eva's house last night. She is Lucy Sebankova from Czech. 7.40am after taking some pictures We move to ... read more

JAVA: Ijen...Danger, Poisonous Gas. My image of Ijen is a turquoise crater lake with sulphur workers extracting that noxious yellow element...as Ali captured in his blog . But in true travelling, everyone's experience is different, notwithstanding we may visit the same locales, or even the same paths & lookouts. And when we visited Ijen...that is how it was for us. Joe had warned us Ijen had just become active days before we hit Yogyakarta...villages were being evacuated...he did not know if we would be able to access the crater. So instead of cancelling that portion of our trip...we booked extra time there..!!! In planning our trip and choosing accommodation, I had been seduced by pictures of Ijen Resort & Villas at Banywangi...accessed by the roughest road imaginable...so said all the reviews...so I was determined to score ... read more