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Writer's pictureJanine

Blue flames on the volcano

Report from September 4 to September 8, 2023

From: Indonesia

  • Trip from Bali to West Jawa

  • a volcano with blue fire

  • Stopovers in the cities of Surabaya and Bandung


A chain of distressing events


It is time to leave Bali. Our Indonesia visa expires in three weeks and we want to see a little of Jawa, a very large island west of Bali. In the morning we start full of energy. The plan is first to take a public bus to Denpasar, the capital of Bali. From there there are buses to the westernmost end of Bali. And there are ferries to Jawa.


3 hours later we have come just 100 meters further. We quickly found the bus stop. But when the bus finally came after a while, the bus driver did not want to take us. The ticket cannot be paid in cash. Instead, you need a card that you load with money. We didn't know that before. As a result, I went out to get such cards. I went to the nearest supermarkets. All in all 5 of them. But the cards are sold out everywhere. So we gave up the plan three hours later and order a grave, so a cab. The driver is very cool. We talk a lot with him. He is also not from Bali, but from Jawa. He separated from his wife 8 years ago and lives in Bali since then. Because you can earn better money here.


Arriving at the long-distance bus station, I try to speak to the person at the ticket counter, but he doesn't speak English. I interpret his gestures as if everything is no problem. We still have two hours time and beat us around the ears. When the bus arrives, it turns out that it is fully booked... we wait three more hours for the next bus. At 1 o'clock at night we are then on the ferry and are then at 2 o'clock at night finally on Jawa!


Ijen volcano

After the adventurous crossing from Bali to Jawa we left at our accommodation in the 2 o'clock at night.


The next morning we stumble out of bed and meet Fabienne in the kitchen. She studies teaching in Kassel and uses every semester break to travel. No matter if Africa, Asia or America. We talk with her for about 3 hours. We could have talked forever more, but at some point we realize that it's 12 o'clock and we haven't had breakfast yet. The rest of the day we use to prepare for our project this night. Because we have headed to this place for a specific reason: it is a good starting point for a visit to the nearby volcano Ijen 🌋.


Karli tells you everything about the volcano and how we climbed the volcano the next night:


"On Ijen, there are blue flames that occur naturally. Here, hydrogen sulfide from the earth's interior reaches the surface. These sulfur gases have a temperature of mostly 500c°. So it can happen that the gases ignite by themselves. But since it is not such an ordinary combustion, it has a different color to show that it is special....

Oh no...

Sulfur burns blue... Physicists and chemists can describe it more precisely in the comments why

However, the flames have a very low luminosity. This means you can see the flames only at night in total darkness.


There are also tours here, these start at 1 o'clock at night. With the bus you are driven as far up as possible. Here you arrive at about 2 o'clock and can start walking, with all the others. You walk up to the crater rim, and if it is not closed for safety reasons, you walk down the crater rim to the lake.

This is where the blue fire is born. And if you are fast enough you can run back up before the sun has risen to see a breathtaking sunrise.


But anyone can book a tour...

Besides, it will be more convenient if we organize it ourselves...

Our plan: we get a scooter, go up in the afternoon already. There we put up our own tent and can still eat something, and a few hours Sleep. When it starts we are rested.


Organizing the scooter then took longer than expected, and the scooter we got was a bit rickety. Had I had the opportunity I would have rather taken another. At least we also got a few respirator masks at a good price. The gases that produce the blue flames, and also the ash dust etc. is not particularly health-promotin.

So we get going much later than we had planned. When driving off, the sun goes slowly and the scooter is uphill much slower. The road is long, longer than we expected. In the higher region, it is also a bit colder than we expected. So we change our plan and look for a restaurant on the way to warm up. After a good meal we decide to rest here for a while before we start the next stage. Here I also start to put on more layers.


After driving on, however, I get colder and colder. We make another stop where I put on everything I have with me.


The way becomes steeper and steeper with the weak engine. Again and again cars or transporters come to overtake us right recklessly. When we arrive it seems to me as if I had driven off in winter with wet clothes...

My fingers are so cold that buttons and zippers become a huge obstacle.

Janine wanted to complain that she is cold and to show me how cold she grabbed my hands. We have then quickly agreed that I have held off the airstream and I am colder.

A local who heard our approaching rattling vehicle hoped to be able to sell us something, and kindly showed us immediately where the "campground" is and where I could drive up.

The "campground" was a large meadow, where everyone could just throw his tent where he wanted. The whole thing also costs nothing, unless you want to go to the bathroom...


We are a little unsure where we want to set up our camp. Since a pa people wave to us and think we could join them. Since they have a fire and my fingers are so cold that I can hardly operate the blinker, I am immediately for it.


So we get into a funny round, in which we are also immediately offered food and drinks. Almost all of the locals are busy playing a video game on their cell phones, which is very popular here in Asia. After we have warmed up at the fire, we decide that we want to lie down again, and for this purpose build up the tent.

Everyone else is curious and they want to help us put up the tent.

We have already spread out the first plans, and want to put the poles, then we notice our mistake. For transportation we usually do not have the poles in the tent bag. And they are not in there now. They are well packed in the warm hostel, in Fabienne's room...


So we pack everything up again, and resign ourselves to the fact that we won't sleep this night. Instead, we continue to sit by the fire. From the others we get a couple of very thin sleeping mats. So we can at least lie down right next to the fire.


At 2 o'clock everyone comes crawling out of the tents, and from the parking lot stream the people who were comfortably driven up here in the bus.

So we get ready for the ascent. The climb is arduous, but slowly I get warmer again. Little by little, I start to take off my layers again and stow them in the backpack. Our new companions take breaks again and again. Sometime we decide that we are not in the speed before sunrise at the crater edge let alone in the crater. So we walk on in pairs and want to meet the others later. So we get ahead faster. It is not difficult to find the way alone. We can see the incessant stream of headlamps snaking up the mountain through the darkness.


Arrived at the top of the crater rim, the wind blows the first gases from the crater in our face, from here we wear the respirator masks. Now it goes down on the other side of the crater rim. If the way was high nevertheless still nearly so broadly that a car could drive up, it is here hardly possible to come past each other. The rock is mostly soft and porous. Once I slip with the shoe and break thereby accidentally a stone lump on which I stomp ungently. In addition, it is complicated by people who always think they have to overtake. But we arrive at the bottom. We hear here and there how guides explain things to their companions. We have left our "guides" behind on the way. From various scraps of words we try to find out where exactly the blue fire is. We see only smoke and steam.

Here we take some pictures in front of the pipes used for sulfur mining.

The gases are fed into the tube. The tubes are cooled from the outside, which causes the sulfur to condense and run out again as a thick red liquid at the bottom. There it cools down further with time. Either it solidifies in its red-brown color, or it takes on its typical yellow color.

I would have liked to have a closer look at the lake, but the toxic steam kept blowing where you could reach the poisonous water.

OK the water is not toxic but corrosive.

At this point, greetings out to all who still know Ätzi. The water has a pH value of -1 I think. It is the largest acid lake in the world.


At this point I can here is a short doc recommend.


For a while we still try to make a plan how to go on now, the sun is rising soon. As a big outburst and the poisonous gases blow around the ears, we decide to go back. The crater here is a really unreal place.

Unfortunately, we were not able to see the blue fire ourselves. But Janine wants to leave here. When we are finally back up at the crater rim the sun is already since up. Somehow we are both just bent. No blue fire and also for the sunrise we were too late. Somewhat undone things we start sometime the way back. We didn't see what we were looking for, but it was still worth the experience. The nature drawn by the volcano is like a lunar landscape. Plants can hardly keep themselves with the poisonous gases, the sulfuric soil, and the plants that try to come closer dry up again and again or burn immediately.

This is no comparison to the volcano I saw in Costa Rica, where, by comparison, life flourished among the large boulders.

On the way down, we also meet our companion of the night again. Once down, however, not much holds us. We pack our things together and make our way back. At the restaurant where we ate last night and warmed up we stop again. We drink around coffee and have breakfast. As soon as we had eaten something, we made ourselves comfortable and just fell asleep. We were so incredibly tired. Later we wondered if it was strange for the restaurant staff. Maybe they experience this often? Anyway, they didn't wake us up or disturb us. We could sleep here, I think, two hours.

After further coffee we then took the way back again. We had still considered whether we stay one day longer and try it again to see the blue celebration. But we have already booked a train, and can not return the tickets.


A day later, Fabienne takes a bus to the volcano and sees the blue fire. From here comes the photo in the photo album.


Greetings

Karli"



-------


The people here in Indonesia really blow me away. Before, I also noticed how open and friendly people are in Indonesia. Here in Jawa it is even more intense. The guys yesterday night even offered us their own tent when we could not build ours because of my mistake. But also otherwise: Every day we are approached by Indonesians. No matter if at the bus stop (who then still helps us to translate), while eating from the waitress or in the train. Or the owner of the accommodation. Really so many stunning people.


Surabaya


After climbing Ijen, we are already on a train again the next evening. That means we are in for the next night with little sleep, because we will arrive at 2 o'clock in the morning. This time the train goes to Surabaya. Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia. It was not easy at all to find a place to stay in advance. First problem is that according to booking.com you can hardly check in an accommodation at 2 o'clock. Second problem: we don't have a marriage certificate. Most people on Jawa are Muslim, there are very many different interpretations of Islam. Here in Indonesia there are some very strict believing Muslims. Unfortunately, these have a not insignificant influence on the government. For the locals, a law was passed a few months ago, only married couples are allowed to stay in a hotel or accommodation. Tourists are not affected by the law, so Indonesia would destroy tourism, no one has an interest in that.

However, there are accommodations that, due to their personal house rules, only accommodate married couples, even among tourists. These are accommodations that are operated by corresponding steng believers. To us, as tourists, this actually happened only here in Surabaya. I had booked a hotel and then when checking the confirmation only saw that they require a marriage certificate when checking in. After own hours of search, I then found another hotel for us.


We went to Surabaya because we applied for a Work and Holiday Visa New Zealand. Since we have been in Asia for the last few months, we need an X-ray of our upper body for the application. There are only three hospitals in all of Jawa that are certified by the New Zealand government for this examination. So we ended up in Surabaya. And the hospital was really awesome! So really the hammer. So honestly... if you compare it to our hospitals, it was nothing special now. But here in Southeast Asia you can never be sure what to expect. I had a lot of concerns beforehand. Will we be able to communicate with the doctor? How professional is it here, how is the technical equipment? Will we come out of the hospital with more diseases than we went in with? Will we be ripped off at the end and have to pay a lot of money for this examination? Again, I was thinking a lot of many thoughts.... but totally unnecessary, the hospital is great. In the photo album (link is as always at the end of the post) is a short video while we are in the hospital.


After the hospital visit we still have a little time to look at the city. We are only one day here in Surabaya, then it goes on again. As I said, Surabaya is the second largest city in Indonesia Surabaya is different than expected. Many many simple houses, many buildings that are empty and decaying, a lot of garbage everywhere. Somehow everything is run down. And we have nowhere seen a single person who was not of Asian origin. And nothing really worth looking at. Maybe two or three museums. However, what I want to visit has closed since Corona, no parks, not even a shopping time I have seen.... (Karli saw a shopping center and wanted to go in, closed).... just nothing. that is, we only got a single impression of the city, but somehow it felt like a huge village. Karli suspects that Corona has left many deep traces here. There are quite a lot of stores here that are closed. Maybe Corona made them go bankrupt, we can't say for sure;


 

In Bali, we actually drank beer every day. We had resolved several times that to reduce and times one two days to drink nothing and have always failed. It's too nice to drink a beer in the evening on the beach or on your own terrace;


Here on Jawa, this "problem" quickly solved itself. Why? It is not so comfortable to get alcohol. There is, but most Muslims do not drink alcohol. That's why alcohol is rarely available anywhere.


Bandung


After Surabaya we continue the next day in a train 10 hours to Bandung . Jawa is really big. Bandung is already relatively close to Jakarta and the city seems to us many times more modern. I mean hey there is a shopping center. And our hostel with the name "Bobobox" is the really very modern. Really cool. We sleep in "pods": boxes measuring about 3 meters long by 1 meter (or 1.5 meters for double beds) wide. There are two separate bedrooms in each of the pods, each with its own entrance door. The bedrooms are intertwined just like Jing and Jang. Just look at the pictures (link is at the end of the post), it's too complicated to explain.



The next day we continued our journey. Jawa actually has a lot more great destinations to offer, for example volcanoes. We didn't see all of them, because we just set another priority: we want to do a volunteering. On a platform (Workaway) we found Ari and Uyung. The two live 20min by motorcycle of a city, there it is really really rural. The journey from Bandung, took another half a day. In the nearby town have taken an adventurous vehicle - a small car without a door. To start the car, he simply short-circuited the vehicle. Look at the videos in the photo album. The last few kilometers we finally walked. That took about 1.5 hours on foot. There was no public transport and we didn't feel like taking a cab right now. Our two hosts were very worried when they heard that.


Everything else about volunteering itself in our next post - as always next Thursday.

📷 find more great pictures at Photo Album

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