The Sulphur Jets and Grasslands of East Java

It was damp and rainy in Ketapang, the ferry terminal across the straight and the closest point on Java to Bali. Transport towns all have a similar transient feel – plenty of transport trucks, grubby road stalls and potholes.

I was travelling with my good friend Natasha, meeting in Bali after spending a week in the Maluku islands in the far eastern region of Indonesia (the famed “spice” islands, historically renowned the lucrative trade in nutmeg and other once rare and exotic spices). Our intent for this leg of the trip was to rent some kind of 4wd and spend a good week exploring this region. We figured it would be much the same as Bali, where vehicles are easy to rent.

“Java is not the same as Bali. No one will rent you a 4wd drive here without a driver,” said Leo, the friendly man working in tourist office. We were not interested in hiring a guide, preferring to make our way around ourselves, at our own pace, and cheaper. We were naturally suspect and looked for a second opinion. And it was true. Nobody would rent us anything, not even a moto, without some kind of driver. 

Leo offered to rent us a small hatchback, as he had contacts in Banyuwangi, the closest town just south of us, so we gave up on the idea of a 4wd and as we had no other options we thought what the hell, it's better than nothing. And I liked the idea that we were probably the only foreigners in East Java with a car of our own.

It was the afternoon by the time everything was settled, and we decided on our first destination: the Kawah Ijen plateau, a steep hill climb through the jungle. As it was late in the day, Leo suggested that we take the eastern road to Kawah Ijen. “It's a bit steep, but you won't have a problem,” he said. Perfect.

Have you ever driven on the left hand side of the road? Stepping into the right side of the vehicle, the instruments and gearshift felt oddly placed, and I hesitated a bit when i saw the traffic. The local owner of the car gave me a look down, clearly worried about the prospect of this foreigner behind the wheel of his pride and joy, wondering if it would return in one piece. 

I was not concerned about driving on the left hand side – I'd spent the last couple of weeks on the moto in Bali and my mind was thinking this way. But the road rules for a car is so much different. A car is higher on the food chain in southeast asia, more priority on the road than a moto, but less than trucks or buses. But it lacked the manoeuvrability of the moto, which I was used to, and now I had become an object to overtake by the more nimble scooter, a national pastime it seems. Everybody is gunning to overtake and get beyond everyone else. Traffic becomes this organic form, as motos madly rush to overtake cars and trucks, often death defying manoeuvres playing chicken with the oncoming traffic, horns blaring, high beams flicking to say hey! out of my way! Buses take the cake for the most aggressive, and plainly crazy driving styles, overtaking around corners, edging in at the last moment, pushing oncoming traffic out of its way. In Asia, the bus reigns supreme on the highway.

We climbed up the mountain side for close to an hour – green and lush, this area gets plenty of rain. We passed small villages, local honey farms, farmers making their way to and from coffee plantations lining the road (this is Java afterall – a heartland of coffee production). At first, the road was pockmarked, but the higher we went, the worse the road became. Whole sections were washed out, rocky and pitted. I pushed the little sewing machine through some nasty spots until finally it was simply too much for the car. I was doing my best to inch us upwards, hoping that the bad stretches would soon come to an end, but soon the road became simply too steep, too rough, and too much of a liability. I'm going to burn the clutch out on this thing I thought, smelling that familiar burnt metal smoke - not worth it.

It was getting dark, so we heading down the mountain and eastwards, towards the town of Jember, staying overnight in a former dutch plantation turned hotel with an exquisite garden and working organic farm, growing coffee, vanilla, nutmeg and selat (snakefruit) with its own melk bron, complete with dutch cows and milking stalls. Here we saw bumblebees the size of a thumb travelling orchid to orchid collecting nectar, and flocks of doves that flew circular patterns above us, making an eery high pitched dull buzz whistling noise. It stopped us dead in our tracks, never had we heard such a strange chorus coming from birds.

Second run at Kawah Ijen. The alternative, longer road was poor and washed out (Lonely Planet needs to update their section, noting that this road is easily passable. Clearly not true!). Made it to the top and the skies grew dark and then opened up – the road suddenly coverted itself into a river (a good indication of why these roads are so washed out). 

Gunung Kawah Ijen is a smoldering and wide mouthed volcano, with a one-kilometre wide turquoise coloured crater lake (one of the most acidic in the world). The brim of its crater accessible after a steep 3km climb. Here your lungs are assaulted with the acrid smell of sulphur, as it jets out in large plumes from an active vent, and whether you get truly gassed depends on the direction of the wind.

Escaping volcanic gasses are channeled through a network of ceramic pipes, resulting in condensation of molten sulfur. The sulfur, 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 cooled material is broken into large pieces and carried out in baskets by the miners. Typical loads range from 70–100 kilograms, and must be carried to the crater rim approximately 200 metres above before being carried several kilometres down the mountain. Most miners make this journey twice a day. It is truly something out of the 19th century and a clear nomination for one of the worst jobs in the world.

We decided to make an expedition down the rocky trail to see the plumes up close, and watch the workers chip away a the thick plates of sulphur. We wind was blowing northward and away from us, so we could avoid the stench. Half way down we took a breather on a large stone lip. A couple of other adventurers were heading up the trail, scarves wrapped around their faces, teary eyed. “If I'd known how terrible that was, I would have never gone down there,” he said continuing his climb upward. And soon we found out. The winds changed and we were hit with the warm noxious smell of thick sulphur. The trail itself led down through the thicker parts of plume – no way am I venturing down through that I said to myself – and so turned around. Nevertheless, we all felt as though we had experienced some form of natural chemical gassing. Nature's revenge!

Expedition #2. Venturing to Gunung Bromo requires more travel on Java's main highways, which after a couple of hours of unending, sometimes hair-raising traffic, I was glad when we turned left and back onto the smaller winding roads up the volcano. Fresh alpine honey was bought en route, and as the roads ventured higher, we were met with an incredible vista of the steep valley, with its manicured hills of cabbage, beans and carrots and pines, all peeking through rolling mountain mists. The air was decidedly colder too and the whole thing felt as though we'd left Indonesia and found ourselves in Switzerland. We bought some wool scarves and hats (the most unlikely purchase of the trip) in anticipation for our early morning climb the following day.

Forget Switzerland, this was volcano country. Climbing to the outer brim, we saw the sunrise and saw the region in its true beauty – the volcanoes Tengger and Semeru and the eternally smoking Bromo (another sulphur gas jetting monster) to its left-hand side. Surrounding the area is the 'sand sea', a wide perimeter of sand, mud and ash that encircles the inner brims (the volcanoes are actually inside the brim of the larger, older volcano head, some 7-10 kilometres across). We hiked upwards and around the brim of Bromo and made it to an even higher point overlooking the craters from the other side. Not a soul around, and barely even a footprint. It was apparent that only the more adventurous (and that's not saying much) ever walked farther than the viewing platform of Bromo, the 253 stair climb to the lip of the crater enough exertion for one day.

We headed eastward the following day, starting early to avoid the worst of the traffic (drivers seem to reach a particular point of insanity after about 3pm). The destination was Baluran National Park, on the northeastern tip of Java. Baluran is akin to an Indonesian savannah – with large open grasslands hosting kijang (indonesian deer) and a species of peacock. It is said that leopards also live in this park, but are seldom seen. Poaching is also a part of reality here, a difficult job for the handful of park rangers that have to patrol its sometimes thick bush.

We stayed in an eery-feeling homestay, also the hometurf for several groups of monkeys. At dusk, as the tide was low, the monkeys would venture out and forage for clams, sea grass, little crabs and shells in the shallow waters of the bay. I had never seen monkeys on a beach before, let alone those that had a taste for seafood (I always thought monkeys generally avoided the water). Capping the experience was an early morning jaunt to the observatory post, where we had a 360 degree view of the grasslands, wild jungle and the ancient crater of gunung Baluran at the centre of the park. One day I will hike in there...