The colour of the acid lake looks somehow unnatural and it remembers me always to You Only Live Twice where the secret launch pad of the bad guy was hidden below an artificial crater lake. The colours were exactly the same. Only the small ripples would be not so easy to imitate.

No chance for the bush ;-)

Beside the sulfur wells the lake was steaming as well. A good indication of the high water temperature.

The crater rim offers some spectacular views.



Looking 100m down to the acid lake. The feeling is somehow strange ;-)

After a short ascend (around 1 hour) we got our first glimpse on the crater lake of Kawah Ijen.



Kawah Ijen contains an acid lake covering the crater mouth. The "water" is hot. Bathing is not really advisable. But people use the water to heal certain skin deceases. Most probably the acid removes infected skin parts. The smoke came from the sulfur well very near to the "beach".
It can happen that the lake releases huge amounts of volcanic gases. This transforms the crater into a huge death trap. Such accidents killed dozens of sulfur miners in the past.

One of the Kawah Ijen sulfur miners on his way to the crater lake.



When I saw the working conditions of these people it looked like forced labour. Forced labour for the almighty money.

After a wonderful night in the ranger station at the foot of Kawah Ijen we climbed up the mountain to have a look at the famous crater lake. On the way up we had a wonderful view at Raung, another very active stratovolcano.





The ranger station below is far away from the cities. There is only a small generator with normally limited fuel supplies. When we were there electrical power was available till we finished our dinner. Afterwards only the petrolium lights spent some light. The night sky was breathtaking. Without any spam light from the cities even the faintest star came out to show itself on the interstellar catwalk.

On the way from Tumpang to Kawa Ijen we had a lunch stop at a nice beach town. Here Javanese people offered their boats for smaller trips onto the Madura Strait.



The sailing boats were of a simple design. They looked quit effective and ready for longer fishing trips. But most probably nowadays their only use is to satisfy tourists passing the city mostly in busses.

The volcanos in the Tengger caldera have shown not much mercy with the fauna around them. Only the grass looked healthy. Very few trees can be found there. They are in a very bad condition.

Comparing an Indonesian farm with a German one is like looking on an Alm and on a LPG. This means that in Indonesia a lot of farmers fit on very little space.


Even with highly sophisticatic machines it would be dangerous to work on these fields. No wonder that only hand work is needed here and the biggest farming machine is the motorcycle.


Light is available in the village. But it looks a little bit improvised.


The houses of the people are small. The lack of money and resources forbade them to build palaces like in our regions. But the farmers looked pleased with what they had.