Sumatra - Ijen Volcano (Java) - Lombok

We flew from Banda Aceh to Jakarta and then Jakarta to Surabaya, landing in Surabaya at about 9pm. The airports where nothing to write home about, and thankfully both flights were uneventful!

We arrived in Surabaya pretty late and hopped in a cab to the hotel, which was a nightmare to find. Eventually we found it hidden down a gated alleyway, surrounded by a big metal fence, interesting!

Surabaya is in Java, and for tourists it does not have much to offer. The purpose of our visit was to book a trip to see the Volcano Ijen, so we got on the email first thing in the morning and negotiated a really good deal through a tour company. This included private transport from Surabaya to the Volcano Ijen, and then onto a destination of our choice in Bali. After sweet talking the guy organising the tour we managed to score a night (well half a night) in a flash new hotel for free. The only condition was that I had to review it as none of their staff had been able to get there.

The rest of the day we wandered around Surabaya, which was pretty uneventful. But we did see some pretty good street art.

The reason for the private transport soon became clear as we set off for the first leg of the trip early the next morning. The village at the base of the volcano is called Licin, this took us 7 hours to reach in the private car averaging about 80kph the whole time. We worked out that by public transport this would have taken 2 maybe 3 days in nightmare conditions, so another good call. We stopped halfway there for a lunch break, in a pretty fishing village.

We arrived in Licin at about 7pm, and then took a very rugged looking 4 wheel drive to the accommodation. Luckily we just managed to catch the view before the sun went down, and it was stunning. The hotel was on the top of a cliff overlooking miles of paddy fields, no pictures unfortunately as the sun literally went down before I could get the camera out, but here are a couple from the website

The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes, in East Java. It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kms. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name "Merapi" means "fire" in the Indonesian language. West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a 1 km-wide turquoise-coloured acid crater. The lake is the site of a labour-intensive sulphur mining operation, in which sulphur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is low-paid and really tough. An active vent at the edge of the lake is a source of elemental sulphur, and supports a mining operation. Escaping volcanic gasses are channelled through a network of ceramic pipes, resulting in condensation of molten sulphur. The sulphur, which is deep red in color when molten, pours slowly from the ends of these pipes and pools on the ground, turning bright yellow as it cools. The miners break the cooled material into large pieces and carry it away in baskets. Miners must carry loads, which range from 75 kgs to 90 kgs, up 980 ft to the crater rim, with a gradient of 45 to 60 degrees and then 3 kms down the mountain for weighing. Most miners make this journey twice a day. A nearby sugar refinery pays the miners by the weight of sulphur transported; as of September 2010, the typical daily earnings were equivalent to approximately $13 US. The miners often use insufficient protection while working around the volcano and complain of numerous respiratory afflictions. There are 200 miners, who extract 14 tons per day or only 20% of the continuous daily deposit.

You have to see the crater lake in the dark, so our transport was arranged to come and pick us up at 1am. Despite the hotel being lovely and the room probably the most luxurious for sometime, sleep was the highest thing on the agenda.

 

 

Our pickup came for us at 1am in the morning, and i have to admit that my enthusiasm was not at top level. But after a very bumpy 1 and half hour drive we reached the base of Ijen. To start with it was not too bad, but after about the first hour I really started to suffer. It was pitch black and really, really steep, and by this point the smell of the sulphur was quite overwhelming, i found it really difficult to breath. By the end we were being overtaken by the mining workers on their way up the volcano to do their first collection. When we reached the edge of the crater i was not a pretty sight, then the worst thing was that it was freezing. So we went from being hot and sweaty and unable to breath, to bloody freezing, wet and unable to breath. Anyway suffice to say the sight of the bright blue lake glowing in the middle of the crater was quite amazing. We sat for a while in the crater and it is a very weird feeling, it felt like the top of the world, on the edge of a volcano. To be fair i probably would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't so cold. Our guide told us that although the sign says you cant go any further, you can in fact but at your own risk and he would not come with us. One look at the path down and there was no way I was going but Craig managed to latch onto one of the miners (Andy, nice traditional Indonesian name) and started to follow him down right to the edge of the lake. He got about half way down, before giving up and coming back. By the time he got back to me Andy had been all the way down hacked off 50kgs of sulphur and made it back to where i was standing. It was truly amazing! 

Our camera had no chance of capturing the beauty of the lake and it was too dark to take pictures of the crater, so here are a couple off the net by day and by night.

 

 

On the way back down we came across where the miners where leaving the baskets before going up for the second trip. Craig tried to pick up one of the baskets, and despite not having eaten, not a lot of sleep and inhaling sulphur fumes managed to get it about a couple of inches off the ground, that was it.

By the time we made it back to the car it was about 6am, so we set off straight away to try to catch the first ferry over to Bali. 

The next destination is the Gili islands in between Lombok and Bali. To get there we need to get to Bali and drive from the West of the island to the East, luckily i had managed to get this included in the tour. We had made the decision not to stop in Bali as we heard it was pretty expensive and over developed. It was pretty cushy in the back of the 4 wheel drive, but still took 6 hours with all the traffic and the police stops. On the drive from one side of Bali to the other we got stopped 5 times by the police. Now our driver worked for an official tour company and had all the required documentation and was totally legal, despite this the police got off him between 50,000 and 100,000 rupiah each time. When we asked him why he just laughed and said money, money, money. This left a really bad taste in the mouth, by the 3rd time i was ready to get out and ask them why they where doing it. But Craig assured me that this would not help, its just so frustrating, and everyone here just seems to accept it.

When we arrived at the Ferry port things went a little wrong. I had information that there was a fast boat from East Bali to the Gili islands, but when i asked the ticket man he just laughed at me. So i asked him about the boat to Lombok and he turned his back on me, so really helpful and amazing customer services. Anyway this was obviously part of a scam as straight away a very dodgy looking guy came over and said he could get us a boat to the Gili islands for a good price from Lombok, but the boats from Bali only went in the morning. Being very tired, with aching legs, and just wanting to get there I went with it and he managed to get us a ticket for the next boat leaving to Lombok. He then escorted us to the boat and explained that someone would pick us up at the other end run us to the other harbour and a boat would run us to the Gilis islands. But we had to pay him there and then, no I don't think so, I said we will pay when we get to the boat at the other harbour. Anyway he wasn't having any of it so we told him not to worry and thanked him for getting us on the first boat. By this time we had decided to spend the night in Lombok and then go onto the Gili islands in the morning as by the time we would have reached Lombok it would have been about 7pm.

So we settled in to a very long four hour journey on a boat filled with every criminal, inbred, red-neck Indonesian person living on Bali and Lombok. It was a pretty scary experience to be honest there were a lot of mullets, vests and leather jackets. We eventually got to Lombok and got a taxi to the Sengigi area near the ferry we would be getting the next morning. Organising the taxi was a nightmare, we had got talking to a local on the boat who told us we should be paying no more then 90,000 rupiah and everyone was quoting us 250,000 rupiah +. So we started walking up the main road, eventually a taxi pulled up and agreed to take us for 90,000 so in we hopped. 40 minutes later we pulled up in front of quite an expensive hotel, when we said this is not where we asked to go he said no this is my office. Anyway argument commenced about how i did not ask to go to his office but a hotel that i had found in the Lonely Planet. Anyway very aware that i was probably about to shout at the man i called it quits and asked the receptionist how much the rooms where. As it turned out they were not quite as expensive as I first thought, the receptionist also offered to sort out our boat tickets for the following morning. Added to this they had a restaurant which was still open, and after a whole day in the car with no food, this was enough to seal the deal.

We literally ate and hit the sack, hopefully we get picked up at 8am tomorrow morning to get the 9am ferry to Gili Air, fingers crossed...............