Mt Ijen and Mt Bromo, Java

Our journey to Java (the final island we were to visit) was another relatively smooth affair, though we received one meal instead of the promised three on route. The highlight of this trip was sleeping on the top deck of a ferry on a metal floor, with bags under our heads, being greeted with a sky full of stars whilst lightning flashed in the distance.

The final leg of our journey was a local bus, which became rather eventful when we came close enough to a head on collision to make even the local people screamed!

We caught a becak (a bicycle with a two person kart/cab attached to the front) to our hotel from the bus station, causing quite a stir on route as we had our rucksacks where our legs should have been, and our legs then on top, sticking up in the air. We noticed while riding in the becaks that men came up to talk to and compliment us whenever we stopped, quite different to the usual situation in traffic of people trying to sell things!

Arriving at the hotel, we booked our trip to Mt Ijen (also known as the Blue Fire Volcano) to begin at 11pm that evening. The blue fire was created from sulphur within the crater, which is now a sulphur mine, and could only be seen before 5am.

We went for food that evening before setting off, and were once again shown the kindness of Indonesian people when a man who had spoken to us for just a few minutes spontaneously decided to buy our food as he departed!

The walk up to Ijen was hilly, sometimes quite steep in places, but otherwise not challenging, and we were very glad we had opted not to pay for a guide. As we neared the entrance to the crater the smell of sulphur became almost suffocating at times, forcing us to wear masks and bandanas over our faces. The entrance to the crater was down rocky, uneven ground, and as this was rather a challenge for my injured toe, I was grateful a miner had doubled up as our guide for the last leg. We were amazed to find out that they would carry around 70kg of sulphur up these paths, which many of us tourists struggled to navigate carrying only ourselves!

Reaching the bottom the large blue flames were not difficult to spot, though the magic of the moment was a little lost on me as man-made pipes were visibly running alongside. This was obviously needed as part of the mining work, but it dampened the experience from a tourist’s perspective! As the crowd of visitors increased, miners continued their work around us, breaking up huge blocks of sulphur to put into their baskets (two baskets attached to a wooden stick and carried across their shoulders).

Back at our hotel we had time for a few more hours sleep before check out, then we were up and on our way to Mt Bromo. We hoped to reach there by the evening to enable us to partake in the famed Bromo sunrise the following morning. Successfully arriving that day, though at 9pm a little later than we had hoped, we settled in for an early night.

Our intense travel schedule finally appearing to take it’s toll, we both struggled to start the day as early as planned, rising at 3:30am rather than the original aim of 2:30am.

We were on our way to Bromo by 4am, having to refuse insistent offers of transport along the way (all of course for a fee). Unbeknownst to us, we soon began to head off track, unable to see any distant ground or scenery with only two small torches as our light source. Two motorcyclists redirected us in the correct direction, and then preceded to follow us along the track trying in almost desperation for our custom. Their luck was not in as we were both very much set on walking.

We had planned to visit a popular viewpoint for sunrise and then make our way to the crater, but due to the lack of signage and lighting, we instead stumbled upon the crater as the sun was rising. This turned out to be a blessing. All of the tour operators took their customers to the viewpoint first, which left us with some beautiful sparsely populated scenery to enjoy. Surrounding the crater huge green mounds, all imprinted with contour lines, spread among an almost desert like ground known as the ‘Sea of Sands’.

We still had an excellent view of the sunrise as we walked to the mouth of the crater, and could see no more than six other tourists in the area.

Reaching the mouth of the crater took our breath away, and not only because of the sheer number of stairs we needed to climb to reach it. We looked down into a vast inverted cone, smoke circling from it’s centre, deep contours etched into the surface. Although other volcanoes I have visited were impressive in their individual way, this really and truly felt as though I was at a volcano, viewing sights you normally only see through your television screen!