Road Tripping: Kawah Ijen

Dika, Deva and I were in the lab when we started talking about going to Kawah Ijen (Ijen Crater). Talking about it excited me, so I made the budget. We invited some friends to join, which were gathered Cok Is, Gus An, Dharma, and Danan, and finally drove to Java. I've always wanted to go to Kawah Ijen for a particular reason. I mean, yeah sure the view's breath taking and the blue fire's sickkk, as Ijen and a place in Iceland are the only two places on Earth that produce that fire. But honestly, I just wanted to go to the crater lake that has a pH of 0.5 (!!!!!!). But OHHHHHHH, East Java wasn't going to make things easy for us. To get to the crater, we had to go through crazy shitload of dramas. Listed below:

1. We didn't get the manual shift car we rented and was given an automatic shift instead. We didn't like it but rather than not having any car, we decided to use it anyway. However, the Ministry of Transport of Banyuwangi doesn't recommend tourists using automatic shift cars due to road conditions. Since we were comers, we decided to go with the recommendation and rented a manual shift car with a driver to drive us up the crater's base camp (so we used 2 cars to go up the crazy road (Erek-erek road), which apparently wasn't that crazy. UGGHHH local people trying to get advantage of us). We had to pay an extra Rp600.000 for the car and the driver.
2. When we got to the base camp of Ijen, a guy came towards us and told us the crater was closed for the night. Apparently, every first Friday of the month they close the area for cleaning. We couldn't get back down to town because we didn't know where we would be sleeping (it was already past midnight!). We ended up sleeping in the car, covered with our sleeping bags because of how cold it was!!! The morning came and since we didn't want to pay another Rp600.000 for the manual shift car to stay, we decided to let the car go and gamble ourselves when we go down the Erek-erek road the next day.
3. While waiting for 1 am the next day, we decided to explore the Ijen area. Our plan was to visit the Blawan hot springs and waterfall, which was only 30 minutes from Ijen. But hey, look who decided to show up? Mercury Retrograde!!!! A truck carrying shitloads of metals couldn't come up the hill because of how heavy the metals were, so the truck was literally stuck in the middle of the road. We had to wait an hour or so before we could continue our journey. Although we finally arrived at Blawan, the place wasn't exactly what we had in mind. The waterfall was so heavy and strong, we weren't allowed to swim in it. The hot springs were small tubs of really hot water (coming from the sulphur) and the only ones who go there were creepy old men. We decided to sleep the disappointment off in a nearby gazebo.

We decided to go back to Ijen around 3 pm, but since the truck drama was still there (another truck was also stuck whoopsie daisy), we decided to park somewhere randomly and went to this sulphuric-water waterfall site (now we know it's called Kalipahit Waterfall). We set up our hammock and wandered around the area. It was a really beauty site and we spent at least an hour wandering and immersing all the goodness. At 5 pm we decided to go back to Ijen for real and rest before going up the crater at 1 am.

We got our gears (jacket, tumbler, phones, cameras, power banks, face masks, those super cool looking masks) ready by 12.00 AM, drank some hot sweet tea to get ourselves energised, peed and pooped, bought the tickets, and were ready to go. The track was already made easy, however it was really, really steep. We stopped a few times to take off our layers of clothes, drank water, ate chocolate, and then continued walking. When we reached the track towards the Blue Fire, it was so crowded we were honestly too pissed to go down. We decided not to go down the Blue Fire, and continued walking up towards the sunrise point. In between that, we went inside a crack between two rocks, and made our own blue fire.

Luckily for us, we reached the sunrise point just in time for the sun to show some skin. It felt really good to finally feel some warmth after hours of non-stop wind. It was really cool being up there because when we look to our right we have the sun, and when we look to our left we have the Ijen crater and its turquoise waters. The fog was rather high so we couldn't see the crater as clearly as we wanted to, but getting to see it in person was already more than enough.

We took plenty of pictures and due to the scorching sun and hangry stomaches, we decided to go down. We went back to town at 9.30 am, showered at Taman Sritanjung for Rp2.000 and then went to the Ketapang Harbour. We only waiting 10 minutes before we got into an empty ferry, and finally went back to Bali.

I haven't had road trips out side of Bali for a while, and doing it again made me realise how much of East Java, let alone Indonesia, I haven't explored!!! I'm planning of road tripping around East Java again some time, hopefully making my way to Mt. Bromo and the crazy beautiful waterfalls East Java has to offer. Can't wait xx.

The morning of our failed hike

Took plenty of pictures while waiting for the truck drama to end

Blawan waterfall

Kalipahit is a beaut

Tim Komputasi!

This view is just...

After showering at Taman Sritanjung

The short video I made of the trip:

Itinerary and budgeting
Link here.

PS: I have a hobby of planning, budgeting and making itineraries for travel plans. Please let me know if you want me to make one for your trip! I'll plan, budget, make a schedule, and even book tickets for you! Of course, I'll charge you some Rupiahs, but I promise you it'll be worth it :)

Photos by everyone, using smart phones and my Lumix GF-9.

Edited on Afterlight, Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop.