Did we even sleep?? I guess all the naps on the buses we were on made up for the lost sleep at night!

Mt Ijen

We got the Mt. Ijen Blue Flames tour through whatsapp (!) for about $55; it included two-way transport from our accomodation to the volcano, a guide, equipment (gas masks & torches), entrance fees, as well as transport to the Bali ferry terminal and a ticket to Bali. Well worth the price!

We were picked up at 1.15am and were driven for about an hour or so to the base camp when the gates opened. The tour company gave us a whole pandan brownie cake as a gift, which was a really nice gesture. But it was really big so we just left it in the car for the climb heh.

The climb up Ijen was extremely challenging compared to Bromo. The path ranged from steep to very very steep for the entire trek, and being the weak people we are we got tired very easily and stopped countless times during the trek 😅😅😅. It actually rained abit prior to our climb and was pretty cold as a result. But the climb was so tiring we heated up pretty quick (from sweating) till we didn’t have to wear our jackets about 10mins into the climb haha! Thankfully despite pathetic efforts, our guide was always helpful and helped drag us up the mountain.

The first 2/3rds of the climb was exceedingly difficult, but after that it became much better. There was a rest point there which had refreshments and toilets so we took a ‘well deserved’ break before our last push up. The hyper sweet ginger tea was especially tasty after the back-breaking climb.

We finally reached the top around 4.30am. We huddled with the rest of the tourists to catch a glimpse of the blue flames Ijen was famous for. We managed to catch a super small flame under all the smoke that was forming. Looked like the blue flame from the gas cooking stove at home except this was in real life. Real interesting! The flames being really small (not sure if that’s how it was usually) were only worth it if you brought a decent camera to get photos of it 😂… Due to recent toxic activity in the Sulphur mine (where the flames were) we weren’t allowed to head closer down to the mine entrance to catch the flames close up.

As expected, we took tons and tons of photos of the spectacular view. It was truly worth the strenous climb.

As we hung around the peak taking photos, our guide shared with us his story – he used to be a sulpur miner a few years back before taking on this tour guide job. The job, he shared, was backbreaking and paid really little. For each kg of sulphur they mined, they were paid 1000idr (~$0.10); and they usually did 2-3 climbs a day carrying 60-70kg worth of sulphur down each time. The sulphur was brought down the mountain using rickety carts (which they had to manually drag up afterwards), These carts were only provided to them in recent years, previously they had to carry the sulphur down in buckets on their shoulders coolie style 😲. Some of these guides now offer to bring tourist up and down the mountain using their carts as a pram for a small fee of about $10, which is more than they’d make carrying down 1 round of sulphur.. really makes you think about your privileged lives back here in SG, eh?

There are about 200ish sulphur miners currently working on Mt. Ijen, of which many come from a nearby village that our guide was from. It’s a pretty small village, and he knew many of the miners we came across as they were relatives and close friends from back home! Back when he first started out mining, he had to walk 12km from his home village to the mountain everyday just to work 😵 and did so for 2 years till he made enough to afford a motorcycle for his commute X___X

The sulphur collected from this mine is used for a large variety of stuff like:

• bleaching sugar
• making matches
• making fertilizer
• vulcanising rubber

which is probably why these miners are still in demand despite the tough working conditions.

We started making our way back down around 6am, and reached the base at 7.30am. Didn’t pee at all up on the mountain or at the break point, so Dom had to rush off to the first toilet in sight once we finally reached the bottom. Got back to our hotel at 8.30am to pack up and have breakfast. Such a pity that we didn’t get much time to spend in this hotel, for it was the nicest accom we had so far in the trip, and we barely spent 3 hours sleeping in it!!

After breakfast our guide dropped us off at Ketaoang Harbour, where we took a ferry ($0.60 ticket, wtf cheap) to Gillimanuk Port in Bali. The ferry was huge, and you could bring vehicles across the stretch of sea with it too!

Bali

Can’t wait to just NUA the next 3 days away!!!!!

We took a 4 hour (but become 5 hour) non-aircon (kill us) public bus from Gillimanuk to Denpasar Bus Station. The ride was about $10 each. Upon reaching the station we hired a Blue bird taxi (reportedly the most reliable taxi company in Bali) using their phone booking app, which saved us alot of worrying about dishonest taxi drivers heh. Unfortunately, despite the short distance we had to take, the crazy rush hour jam meant that we spent 45min just to reach our accomodation, and we missed out on seeing the sunset that day :/

We were super shag so our airbnb owner helped to order pizza delivery & beer. Fed the insects at the sunbed at our villa too as it’s located just next to a rice paddy. You can imagine the number of dead bugs in our pool every morning….. learnt our lesson & bought some mossie coils, really helped!!

When we reached, our airbnb owner informed us that she already booked a scooter for our use before our arrival… our airbnb is rather ulu so we were super tempted to try plus it looked manageable.

Extra: Java & Bali have a time difference of 1 hour (lol) just side by side nia

You can actually book a full tour Bromo-Ijen-Bali all transport provided from Jogja/Surabaya but you’ll have to be less picky about your accomodations.