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Published: November 13th 2007
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LAVA!
click to enlarge, and see the lava in it's full glory, with trees bursting into flames! There were two more sights I wanted to see in Java, but their remoteness made independent travel a pain in the butt: Mount Bromo and the Ijen Plateau. I had heard about a three-day excursion which also included onward travel to Bali. A gentleman I met gave me a leaflet, and promised me a hefty 30% discount if I booked through his office. I arrived at the office, and the guy behind the desk denied all knowledge of a discount. "Who said this?" he demanded. I didn't know the other guys name, but I remembered he was cross-eyed, and so I described him. "No-one like that works here I'm afraid. You'll have to pay full-price". Just then, my cross-eyed guy came into the office! I greeted him with a handshake and said "I came. 30% discount, yes?" and glanced over at the desk guy. The two of them huddled together and whispered furiously in Indonesian. Desk-guy surfaced and said "there's been a misunderstanding. I can't do 30%, but I can do a discount". It worked out at 20%, which I was happy with. "BUT" the guy added, "this price doesn't include onward travel to Bali". Yet the original price DID include
Here Comes The Sun
a welcome sight, because it was bloody freezing on the mountainside! a Bali transfer! By the time I added the cost of the ferry and extra bus fare, the price was the same as the original, so there was actually no discount at all. I walked out in disgust. I eventually bargained a 15% discount with another agency for a trip leaving the next day. But there were more swindles to come...
The tour took us to the small village of Cemoro Lawang, where we would stay overnight. The organiser, who I shall call Mr Dodgy, informed us that people would have to share rooms. An English guy called Ves pointed out that we had all paid for single rooms. Mr Dodgy replied that there was no other option. People would have to share because there simply weren't enough rooms to go around. Ves said "fine. I have no problem sharing. But bearing in mind that we all paid for single rooms, you'll have to refund the difference if we share". Suddenly and miraculously, there were enough rooms for all of us! The next swindle was that we collectively paid 450,000 Rupiahs extra for a sunrise jeep tour. We found out later that government restrictions place a maximum limit of
Mount Bromo
steaming away in the distance 200,000 rupiahs per jeep. He had put an extra 125% markup on the jeeps!
Anyway, back to the tour. As we arrived in Cemoro Lawang, it was night-time, and we experienced a volcanic erruption! Lava was flowing down a nearby mountain, and several glowing orange trails were cutting a path down the mountainside towards us. We were at a safe distance, but it was an awesome display of natures power. We could see trees and foilage setting alight as the burning lava flowed downhill. We went to bed suitably excited, and set our alarms for 3:30am the next morning.
At 4am we set off in our ludicrously expensive jeeps to a plateau to watch the sunrise. I'll let the photos speak for themselves here. We then trekked across a sea of volcanic sand to climb Mount Bromo. The locals were supplying horses for hire, and so the "sand" was actually a mix of volcanic ash and horse manure. This delightful mixture was blown around in thick clouds by the wind. If I had to compile a list of things I'd least like blown in my face, then a mix of volcanic ash and horse sh*t would feature fairly
high! The climb of Mount Bromo itself was easy, and the view was very cool, but we soon scampered back across the horse-crap desert for breakfast and coffee.
The next morning was another 4am start to climb up to the badly-named Ijen Plateau. There is no plateau at all. It's actually an immense crater formed by a collapsed volcano, with a turquoise lake within. The lake may be beautiful, but it is also deadly. No swimming here, unless you are wearing a cast-iron swimming costume. In which case the chances of swimming would be fairly remote anyway. The "water" is pure acid with a pH of less than one, and at a size of 20 hectares, this is the largest acid lake in the world. The crater is also a working suplhur mine, with rocky cliffs of yellow sulphur on the shoreline. The yellow is not a dirty yellow either, but a clean and bright yellow - the exact shade of Homer Simpsons head. In addition to these stunning yellow rocks, on my way down into the crater I saw rocks of light green and purple, and others of brilliant white. Combine this with a turquoise lake, and you
the cowboy look
the neck-scarf is useful for coping with choking sulphur fumes, and for looking the part when rounding up horses have one of the most unusual and striking places on Earth.
The miners here are quite possibly the hardest working people I have ever met. The men in the crater chip off small boulders of sulphur, and other men carry it up. They have two baskets connected by a wooden yoke which they carry over their shoulders. I spoked to several of the men and asked them how heavy their loads were. They vary between 60 and 90 kilograms! The route up from the sulphur cliffs is a treacherous and rocky path that would give a mountain goat nightmares. When I climbed back up from the lake I was struggling, sweating and cursing, and I had no load to carry. Hats off to these gentlemen, I couldn't even carry 90kg on the flat!
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