The day of Lisa's birthday was spent in a mini - bus travelling through a busy main road heading towards the east coast. We changed buses about 8 pm and then headed up the mountains not seeing a thing except hairpin bends. We arrived at our very basic homestay about 10, put on our thermals, had a cup of tea and got into bed and rose again at 4 am for the sunrise over Bromo. We joined hundreds of jeeps all heading the same direction for the sunrise and even though It was wonderful it wasn't quite the same when one had to fight to get a view for a photograph. We, and the hundreds of others, then went to climb the volcano, which was made easy by concrete steps and horse-rides for those who were willing to pay. The Tenggerese people, who live in the mountains, ride horses, grow vegetables and wear lovely sarongs .
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| The crater |
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| Lisa too close to the edge |
Straight after breakfast we headed off to our next destination which was the Ijen Volcano. We went through some beautiful countryside and rainforest as we headed into the National Park. The journey took all day and again we stayed in a basic hostel and started our day at 4 am. This time however we were nearly on our own accompanied by a few sulphur miners on their way to start their days work. It was amazing and took about 2 hours climbing up by foot and we reached the crater by sunrise. The miners continued their descent into the crater and cut 100 kg of sulphur , packed it into their 2 baskets before climbing up and then down again before it was weighed and the process started again. They do two trips a day and earn $10 which is a good wage in Indonesia but they certainly earn it. There were hardly any tourists and it was incredible and well worth a visit if you are in Java.
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| Me not too near the edge! |
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| The miners |
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| A well deserved rest |
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| Weighing |
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