Bali rev 2 and cross over to Kawah Ijen (late, very late)

 

This post is really old, we are definitely talking over a year or may be just a year, I think it was in May 2012!

C and S were visiting us for the second time (that's to put to shame the ones who haven't made it yet to Singapore or SE Asia!;-) and this time we were going to Bali and East Java. (because Bali is the easiest way of accessing east Java)

First, Lovina, northern Bali, a part we hadn't been to in our previous visits to the island. It's famous for being a very volcanic area, the sand is black and the Gunung Batur can be seen from everywhere.

 

We still managed to make it a cultural tour by visiting a few of the local temples and introducing C and S to the concept of 3 people on a motorbike (not sure C is convinced after badly burning her leg on the exhaust...)

The temple was beautiful, a little reminder of Borobudur (if you fancy a walk down memory lane, the article is in the Indonesia section with Yogyakarta and another hindu temple I have forgoten the name of, P... something)

As 3 on a motorbike is not that comfortable (despite what the locals can say), we hired lovely pink little scooters that the boys enjoyed showing off..

Next step was to cross over the narrow channel to Java by ferry to climb the Gunung Kawah Ijen. This volcano is not a big climb (just over 1h), but it's famous for the sulfur. Some guys climb the volcano everyday, go down in the crater, collect huge yellow rocks which weight a ton and then make it back up and down.

 

Obviously, on the day we went, things did not exactly happenend as planned... After an early pick up, our 4*4 starting the climb on a very (very) rough road. an hour or so later when it was still dark, we heard a big noise, the driver stopped and with the light of the useful Nokia checked under the car, he then took one of the boy out to conclude: broken!

Despite 4 engineers and 3 phD (note that there were only 4 of us in that car), I'm not sure anyone was completly sure of what was wrong but anyway it was wrong.

A few words of english later and our driver (and the car) were abandoning us in the middle of nowhere, apparently someone would come and pick us up... mmh

We stopped a few cars before one accepted to take us to the start of the hike, but we finally made it!

(Note that this is not really a trip for pregnant women, thanks C and little M for having survived this one...)

 

So now, here are the photos to show that it was worth all these troubles!

Sulfur comes out of the ground on a liquid form and becomes solid pretty much instantly. It also gives an incredible color to the lake at the bottom of the crater .

The boys made an attempt at carrying the baskets and could barely master standing-up, another incredible job being done there!
On our way down, we met our driver who was waiting for us with another car, we did wonder for a while if he was going to be there...