From The Busy Yogjakarta to The Top of Ijen

We hopped onto the train again. In an instant I realized that this one would not be as comfortable as the last. It looked like it had been taken from a long gone century. Slowly rusting in different places, the interior falling apart. Dark grey leather seats, the walls painted the same colour. Nevertheless every train I got on in Indonesia had power outlets for charging phones, laptops etc. I didn´t see sockets before in German trains, ever. Seems like common sense has hit Indonesian people long before German engineers got their share. Taking the train form Yogjakarta to Malang wasn´t as interesting as the ride from Jakarta to Yogja - the reason therefor was yellow sunblock foil that was stuck to the window. Dipping everything in bright shades of yellow and orange, the countryside outside was quickly boring to look at. Winding it´s way through the Javanese countryside, the train went to the city of Malang. A city of around 800.000 inhabitants - people in East Java call it "Paris of East Java". The town has a noticable change in climate and temperature. At the same time it seems a lot greener than Yogja and Jakarta, with huge old trees saluting commuters on wide and spacious streets. The trees provide a comfortable hideaway from the sun. My friend and me decided not to climb onto the Bromo mountain but instead head off to the city of Banyuwangi. From there it would be easy to climb the Ijen volcano. We stayed at a small hotel with a great young hotelier named Didik, who spent his nights with me teaching me Bahasa Indonesia. The second great person we met was a guide named Maman - he and a friend took us up to the Ijen by motorbike, a ride that seemed very difficult at night. Especially considering the decrease in temperature every few hundred meters. The Ijen volcano is famous for its sulfur mining. Men of all ages break of big blocks of sulfur with their bare hands and crow bars. Confronted with the stench of sulfur and poisonous gases the men only bite onto wet pieces of cloth used as cheap gas mask to shield themselves from the fumes. The blocks of sulfur, quite often weighing more than eighty or ninety kilos will then be carried down to camp using bamboo baskets. The men, tiny in size compared to western people steadily jog trot down the steep slopes. Compared to other jobs in the area the men get payed quite well, at around ten US-dollars a day. The price of hard labour is high though, with men suffering from spine and knee insuries, lung problems and really sore shoulders. The impressive crater is nevertheless a tourist attraction, with flocks of people scrambling up the hill every night in order to get a glimpse of the "blue fire". Gas streames through cracks in the stone and burns off at night with a bright blue flame. Three days in Banyuwangi - and then off to Bali. check out more photos on: http://wine-and-jazz.blogspot.de/