Among the many ancient kingdoms that rise and fall in the territory of modern Indonesia, none are acknowledged to be greater or more powerful by the Javanese (the largest ethnic group in modern Indonesia) and other Indonesians, than the kingdom of Majapahit.
The kingdom of Majapahit, with its capital in East Java, flourished at the end of what is known as Indonesia’s “classical age”. This was a period in which the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism were predominant cultural influences. Beginning with the first appearance of Indianised kingdoms in the Malay Archipelago in the 5th century AD, this classical age was to last for more than a millennium, until the final collapse of Majapahit in the late 15th century and the establishing of Java’s first Islamic sultanate at Demak.
Majapahit was also the last of the great Hindu empires of the Malay archipelago. It was preceded by the Malay Sri Wijaya Empire, based in Palembang on the island of Sumatra.
The founder of the Majapahit Empire, Raden Wijaya, was the son-in-law of the ruler of the Singhasari kingdom, also based in Java. The rising power of Singhasari had came to the attention of Yuan Dynasty founder Kublai Khan in China and he sent emissaries demanding tribute. Kertanagara, the-then ruler of the Singhasari kingdom, refused to pay tribute and so the Khan sent a punitive expedition which arrived off the coast of Java in 1293.
By that time, a rebel from Kediri, Jayakatwang, had killed Kertanagara. Raden Wijaya allied himself with the Mongols against Jayakatwang and, once the Singhasari kingdom was destroyed, turned and forced his Mongol allies to withdraw in confusion.
Thus, Raden Wijaya managed to establish the Majapahit Kingdom. The name Majapahit stems from the two words maja, meaning a type of fruit, and pahit, which is the Indonesian word for ‘bitter’.
The exact date used as the birth of the Majapahit kingdom is the day of his coronation, the 15th of Kartika month in the year 1215 using the Javanese saka calendar, which equates to November 10, 1293. On that date, his title has changed from Raden Wijaya to Sri Kertarajasa Jayawardhana, commonly shortened to Kertarajasa.
Following the example of its predecessor, Singhasari, Majapahit was based on the combined development of agriculture and large scale maritime trade.
In the eyes of the Javanese, Majapahit represents a symbol: that of the great concentric agrarian kingdoms relying on a solid agricultural base. More importantly, it is also the symbol of Java’s first claim to pre-eminence in the Malay Archipelago, even if Majapahit’s so-called tributaries were, more often than not, places known to the Javanese of that period rather than actual dependencies.
The power of Majapahit reached its height in the mid-14th century under the leadership of King Hayam Wuruk and his prime minister, Gajah Mada. Some scholars have argued that the territories of Majapahit covered present-day Indonesia and part of Malaysia, but others maintain that its core territory was confined to eastern Java and Bali. Nonetheless, Majapahit became a significant power in the region, maintaining regular relations with Bengal, China, Champa, Cambodia, Annam (North Vietnam), and Siam (Thailand).
During this golden period of Majapahit many literary works were produced. Among them was “Negara Kertagama,” by the famous Javanese author Prapancha (1335-1380). Parts of the book described the diplomatic and economic ties between Majapahit and numerous Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar, Thailand, Tonkin, Annam, Kampuchea and even India and China.
Other works in Kawi, the old Javanese language, were “Pararaton,” “Arjuna Wiwaha,” “Ramayana,” and “Sarasa Muschaya.” In modern times, these works were later translated into modern European languages for educational purposes.
Although the Majapahit rulers extended their power over other islands and destroyed neighbouring kingdoms, their focus seems to have been on controlling and gaining a larger share of the commercial trade that passed through the archipelago. About the time Majapahit was founded, Muslim traders and proselytisers began entering the area.
Muslim merchants from Gujarat (India) and Persia began visiting what is now-called Indonesia in the 13th Century and established trade links between the area and India and Persia. Along with trade, they propagated Islam among the Indonesian people, particularly along the coastal areas of Java, like Demak. At a later stage they even influenced and converted Hindu kings to Islam, the first being the Sultan of Demak.
This Muslim Sultan (Raden Fatah) later spread Islam westwards to the cities of Cirebon and Banten, and eastward along the northern coast of Java to the kingdom of Gresik. Feeling threatened by the rise of the Demak Sultanate, the last king of Majapahit, Prabhu Udara attacked Demak with the help of the King of Klungkung on Bali in 1513. However, Majapahit’s forces were driven back.
Demak finally conquers Kediri, the Hindu remnant of Majapahit state in 1527; from then on, the Sultans of Demak claims to be successors to Majapahit kingdom.
However, the descendants of the Majapahit aristocracy, religious scholars and Hindu Ksatriyas (warriors) managed to retreat through the East Java peninsula of Blambangan to the island of Bali and Lombok.
Centuries later, Indonesian nationalists of the 1920s and 1930s made use of the historical memory of the Majapahit Empire as evidence that the peoples of the archipelago had once been united under a single government, and so could be again, in modern Indonesia.
Rulers of the Majapahit kingdom
Rajasa Dynasty
• 1293-1309: Raden Wijaya (Kertarajasa Jayawardhana)
• 1309-1328: Jayanagara
• 1328-1350: Tribhuwanatunggadewi Jayawishnuwardhani (Queen) (Bhre Kahuripan)
• 1350-1389: Rajasanagara (Hayam Wuruk)
• 1389-1429: Wikramawardhana (Bhre Lasem Sang Alemu)
• 1429-1447: Suhita (Queen) (Prabustri)
• 1447-1451: Wijayaparakramawardhana Sri Kertawijaya (Bhre Tumapel, converted to Islam)
Girindrawardhana Dynasty:
• 1451-1453: Rajasawardhana (Bhre Pamotan Sang Singanagara)
• 1453-1456: throne vacant
• 1456-1466: Giripatiprasuta Dyah/Hyang Purwawisesa (Bhre Wengker)
• 1466-1474: Suraprabhawa/Singhawikramawardhana (Bhre Pandan Salas). In 1468, a court rebellion by Bhre Kertabhumi forced him to move his court to the city of Daha, Kediri.
• 1468-1478: Bhre Kertabhumi
• 1478-1519: Ranawijaya (Bhre Prabu Girindrawardhana). He is Suraprabhawa’s son and managed to regain the Majapahit throne lost to Kertabhumi. In 1486, he moves the capital to Kediri.
• 1519- c.1527: Prabhu Udara
Source : www.ancientsites.com/aw/Places
May 29th, 2006
Also called Mahameru or “Great Mountain”, Mt. Semeru is one of the world’s most beautiful peaks and at 3.676 meters the highest mountain on Java……..
History - Before declared as a national Park, mountainous highland of Bromo Tengger Semeru is a forest area with many function like Strict Nature Reserve, Recreation Forest, Protection Forest and Production Forest.
Declaration of Bromo Tengger Semeru area as a National Park is based on some considerations, i.e : rare and endemic flora, habitat of migrant wildlife, unique ecosystem, active volcano, scenery of nature, cultural and traditional lives of local people, as a catchment’s area for water resources around the area, etc.
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Facts
The area of Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park covers 50,273.30 hectares of mountainous highland and vertile valley, between 1,000 - 3,676 M above sea level. Beside the area is dominated by mountainous, there are also 4 lakes inside, namely : Ranu Pani (4 Ha), Ranu Regulo (0,75 Ha), Ranu Kumbolo (14 Ha), and Ranu Darungan (0,50 Ha). Geografically the area lies between 7°54’ - 8°13’ South Latitude and 112°51’ - 113°4’ East Longitude on the globe. Administratively is situated in four regencies, i.e : Probolinggo, Pasuruan, Malang and Lumajang - East Java Province.
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Climate
According to Schmidt and Ferguson there are four climate types, i.e : A, B, C, and D. The monsoon showers fall from late October through the end of April when the dry season commences. The temperature ranges from 3 degrees to 20 degrees average with frequent intense heat waves that cause bush - fire in the June - August period and stifling humidity of 80 % can be felt during the wet season. Ă‚Â The activities of Bromo Tengger Semeru sometimes have great effects in the freak weather. Ă‚Â Winds with the velocity of up to 60 km can become intolerably cold.
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The trek
In Yogyakarta we decided to climb mnt. Semeru instead of the touristic mnt. Bromo. There was little information we had about climbing Mnt. Semeru but we were sure that there was more info to get in Malang so we got our self a bus ride to Malang. In Malang we found soon an organisation who could bring us to the top and we would leave already the next morning and the trek would take 3 full days. In the evening we bought a hat because at 3676 meters high it could be cold.
Day 1
After a horrible night sleep Romy, our guide, and Justin, an English guy, picked us up at 6 in the morning from our hotel to go to Tumpang to get some food for on our way. This was also the meeting point for other hikers to climb mnt. Semeru. A small truck picked us (about 10 men and our luggage) up and drove us to GubugKlakah where we had to check in at the office to tell that we were going to climb mnt. Semeru. From here we went to Ranu Pani, the last village to the top, by truck, at least tried to. We faced a small problem underway. The steering wheel got stuck and drove us right into the bush. We were really lucky because if it would happen a bit later there would be no bush anymore just the abyss. After fixing the problem we drove on and we could see mnt. Semeru in the distance. From here it was the first time I saw the ash eruption of the volcano. I was amazed… I knew that the volcano was still active but that I would see the ash eruption for real I could never image.
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At Ranu Pani we would get some food, pick up our 2nd tent and start walking. But another problem occurred. The tent was not really a tent anymore, it was in a too bad condition to still call it a tent. So now we had only one tent with us for the four of us. We started to walk and just out of Ranu Pani we saw this sign and in the very distance Semeru. Ranu Kumbolo would be our next stop. This is a 14 Ha. crater lake and this would be our point to spent the night. The walk to the crater lake was not hard and not steep but with sometimes amazing views. We arrived at 4 pm at the lake. Here we filled our bottles of water (the lake didn’t look clean enough to drink out of but Romy told us we could). We only had 6 small bottles of water for the four of us because Romy told us we didn’t need more, but already from Ranu Pani to Ranu Kumbolo we found out it was not enough and this was the easiest part of the track.
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Romy gave us the option to walk further because it was still daylight and to try to get all the way to Arcopodo the last stop before the top. This could save us a day and use this day to walk thru the sea of sands to mnt. Bromo. This sounded great and we were not tired at all yet so we moved on. The first part was ok, it was not really steep and it was not dark yet. We had a small stop at Kalimati to refill our bottles with water and have some food but moved on quickly because it was already dark. Now the hard part came. We only had 2 small flashlights with us to see where to put our feet andĂ‚Â the track got quite hard. It was really steep now and hard to follow the track. Romy was getting really tired and we as well but he stopped almost every 5 minutes to rest. At 10 in the evening we arrived totally exhausted at the last stop, Arcopodo. It was freezing here and we did not feel like setting up the one tent we had. Romy throw some braches on the ground and told us that this was our sleeping place. I got in my sleeping bag with all my cloths on and I was still freezing but somehow I fall a sleep.Ă‚Â
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Day 2
At 3 in the morning Romy woke us up again to get to the top. We started as the first group but because we felt our legs big time from the day before, unlike everybody else who took 2 days to get to Arcopodo, other people passed us. We arrived soon at the last trees and from this point on it was just ash we walked on and we still had only 2 flashlights to see where we were walking. This was the heaviest part. Every step you took you sink away most of it in the ash. It was hard to climb and we had almost no water what made it even worse. The small ash stones got all the time in your shoe what was hurting big time and made you almost stop every 5 minutes to empty it. It was me most of the time who hold up the group. I was totally exhausted and feeling sick but I could not stand with the idea of missing the amazing view with sunrise so somehow I got myself together and moved on.
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When I finally arrived at the top the only thing I could do was lay down. I was not feeling good at all, but this stopped soon when I felt the mountain shaking. I jumped up and ran towards the crater rim and there it was! The ash eruption just in front of my eyes. This feeling was amazing and I did not feel the pain in my legs anymore. The 2 hours being on the top was indescribable.
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Being this high above the clouds standing on an eruption volcano overlooking the sea of sands and in the distance mnt. Bromo seeing the sunrise…… no words can describe this.
It was freezing as hell up here but when the sun comes up it can get really warm also because of the ash so it’s not possible to stay on the top too long.
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These pictures just can give you an idea of what I have seen and experience and the fact that it was so hard to get on the top makes the great feeling even better. We also realised that the idea of walking all the way to mnt. Bromo was not an option anymore. Once more I had overestimate myself again.
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Going down was much easier. It was more like gliding down on the ash and the only problem was the dust that comes of the ash when you glide. Another problem is finding the right way down. When we were at the tree line Romy told us that we were at the wrong place and had to go up again to get on the right track. At this moment we all felt like hurting him big time but he was luckily for him not in our range! Going up again and with hardly any water…. But we found our way finally back and we walked to Ranu Kumbolo where we sat up the tent and tried to get some sleep.
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Day 3
We only had to walk back to Ranu Pani but this was already hard. We all three were totally exhausted and could only set one foot in front of the other and find our way back to Ranu Pani. In Ranu Pani we got picked up by a truck to get to Tumpang from where a van brought us to our hotel were we got our deserved rest and sleep.
Source : www.backpackingforlife.com
May 29th, 2006
The path meandered through tall grass skirted by thick bushes and young saplings, dew glistened on delicate flowers overhung by branches of pink Hibiscus. The day was fresh and bright, resounding to the morning hum of bees and hover-flies; bowing crickets sang invisibly amongst the foliage as courting butterflies flirted turbulently above. Behind, plantations of coffee stretched away in corrugated shades of jade overseen by a ridge of equatorial forest. It was an idyllic scene, peaceful and beautiful. Yet something was not quite right.
A strange mist flowed between the trees like a ghost river; barely visible but ever present. It looked like the sort of mist you’d expect to see in a rainforest; pierced with gently stirring rods of light that dappled the ground. But looks can be deceptive—for this mist smelt terrible. Silently, it drifted around me, embracing me with its malign sour breath as the path became a lip on the gaping mouth of Kawah Ijen—The Lone Crater.
Volcanoes are much like people, they come in all shapes and sizes. Some, like Mayon in the Philippines and Mount Fuji in Japan, are quintessentially the shape a volcano ought to be, the shape I remember drawing them as a small boy; circular, with sweeping slopes curving up to a conical vent that trailed smoke off into the sunset.
Many volcanoes however, are not so easily seen or recognised, oddly shaped and often cloaked in wooded shrouds they hide their true identities, sometimes for thousands of years.
Nestled on the eastern tip of Java, Kawah Ijen had grown amongst a host of sibling peaks, clustered atop an ancient caldera—a crater so big, that most people don’t even know it’s there. Concealed by a dense blanket of green, Kawah Ijen was difficult to see, which made my first glimpse of the crater all the more breathtaking. Ringed in vegetation, the fluted silvery rocks swept down to a copper-green lake that shimmered at its heart. Sepia steam poured from the lake’s edge, wheeling out of the rocks in an expanding mass that lifted in the hot air. It was as if I had found a lost world, forgotten and undiscovered, until that moment.
I was often drawn to solitary places; hidden spots, secluded and thick with the air of child-spun mystery. Rocky crags, dark pine woods, holly fringed dells, tunnels of tangled roots and a thousand other pages held within the covers of my life—I loved them all, especially the secret ones that were mine, and mine alone. But solitude on a volcano was a mixed blessing; the adventure is always laced with hesitation and unease. For a volcano can never truly be known or trusted—they are, and always will be, essentially omnipotent. Many had died on Kawah Ijen, overcome by the gasses that issued from within. In Indonesia they call volcanoes Gunung Api, which literally means fire mountain, and I had come to explore them, to try and understand them, to feel insignificant and humbled—but I was not prepared to become another statistic. Or perhaps I was?
A gleaming torrent of yellow-white steam tumbled up the crater wall and loomed towards me. My first instinct was to avoid the cloud altogether, but I was not about to turn tail and run, not yet. I could hold my breath or perhaps even breathe the stuff or. . . . But there was little point in guessing what best to do.
The hot sun vanished behind a cloak of acidic fog, as removed from the dawn mists back home as it was possible to be. A cocktail of sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and other, equally unpleasant gasses, all mixed as only nature knows how. I sampled the air to see if I could breathe, then rushed to take my T-shirt off and stuff it in my mouth as a makeshift filter. I did all this with my eyes tightly closed, only blinking them open momentarily to see if the alien atmosphere had passed.
A few moments later the toxic shroud folded away as quickly as it had found me, revealing stunted vegetation, tangled and wiry, and covered with a yellowish frosting of sublimed sulphur. Soft, grey rock rutted with narrow gullies radiated from the gaping hole amidst sharp tephra pinnacles and bladed crests. Ahead, the path cut through this miniature canyon-land and disappeared into the void.
A miner sat sheltering in one of these clefts, rolling a cigarette. He smiled as our eyes met, and for a time we sat together talking as-best-we-could, ribbons of smoke peeling from his cigarette as steam peeled from the crater below. Our conversation was as rocky as our surroundings, but it was enough for him to learn something of me and I of him. His face on the other hand, spoke volumes; the sweat on his brow, the tiredness in his eyes, and the same gentle resignation I had seen in others along the way. His baskets were brimming with hunks of sulphur, some oddly shaped like slender stalactites of dripped wax, other pieces dappled with ashen tephra. Some bits were more orange than yellow including a fist sized lump that he handed to me. It was slightly translucent and—my brain clicked with realisation—hot. I had assumed the sulphur mined here was from old deposits, built up over the months and years. It hadn?t occurred to me that it flowing out of the rock as fast as it could be gathered.
Sitting there in the lap of a volcano, I was at once reminded of a schooldays chemistry lesson from twenty years before. We had been given some sulphur in a test-tube, to heat over a Bunsen burner—the room with its dark wooden benches and green vinyl floor seemed so clear, as if it were yesterday. Some things have a habit of rekindling old memories; little things, insignificant for some yet meaningful to others; a smell, a few bars of music, a line of verse, whispered words, a taste, or even a lump of rock. I had marvelled at the colours deepening to blood-orange as the element melted in the flame, and re-solidified, brightening back to its familiar pale lemon yellow, just as the nugget I now cupped was doing from moment to moment. It looked good enough to eat, so—as a joke—I pretended to nibble a corner. “No problem” he said, biting a small chunk from another lump and crushing it between his tobacco stained teeth. I should have known better than to be surprised, but my chin fell open nonetheless, much to my new friend’s amusement.
For all their dangerous efforts of collecting, packing and carrying the sulphur out of the crater and down the volcano, the miners only get the equivalent to a few dollars. So I had no qualms about paying him something for the lump, and he had none about taking the money. The deal struck and farewells said, I continued on, carrying the little lump back from whence it had come, not long before.
Tinny shards of sulphur dotted the ground, reminding me of the wild primroses that had splashed the wooded paths of my childhood—magic paths, fringed with fairytale fungus; crimson fly-Agaruc, puff-balls and dripping, shaggy ink caps hidden amongst dark musty woods and secret glades. Paths that had enchanted me from the first, I had been compelled to discover them and they in turn had led me, through time, to the path I now followed into the mouth of an active volcano.
Another miner sat slumped on some lava further down the trail; immersed in fumes he seemed totally overcome and exhausted; topless with head bowed, he weighted motionless for the air to clear. The lost world I had discovered was a harsh one, inhospitable, and full of uncertainty. That anyone would choose to work here was a measure of their need; these men had to work, for food, for shelter, to survive. It was their living.
A slow-motion cascade of acrid steam drifted menacingly up to greet me—then a second wave, and a third. If I lost my footing now I would fall from the foot-worn rock that was little more than a series of ledges, exposed and precarious. Dizzied and feeling sick—my eyes ran with tears, as I struggled to breathe through my T-shirt.
More men emerged from the haze, slowly pacing their way up the cliff, each laden with a heavy load balanced on their shoulders. Jagged lumps of sulphur—some stuffed and bound into sacks, some heaped to overflowing in plaited baskets—but always in pairs, and always betwixt a slender yoke that flexed in rhythm to the bearers strides. I stood to one side as they passed, not wanting to break their focussed effort. They paused just long enough to offer me some sulphur—moving on with a silent smile as they saw the lump I had already bought.
The path ended at a small, flat wooden bridge where I emerged into the sun crunching on a grey carpet strewn with vivid stones and grit. Gleaming yellow coated everything else in a textured crust, bouncing the noon sun painfully onto my skin and into my squinted eyes. Sections of rusty pipe stood on end, as if on guard, and dozens more stretched, end to end, up the rock face spewing with steam. Liquid sulphur trickled from their encrusted mouths, cooling into orange icicles and twisting blades that fed in turn into miniature rivulets and waxy pools. I had seen sulphur stained fumaroles on other volcanoes; smelly holes and cracks lined with delicate crystals of daffodil coloured filigree, but never in large quantities, and never molten. A warm breeze combed the expanding vapours back up the crater face, blanketing the iron pipes as they clasped the rocky slope like so many knuckle-jointed fingers. A moment later the same breeze span around flinging a wall of gas against me, piercing my eyes and stinging my throat. I was choking and suffocating, and could do nothing but crouch and wait while others laboured on nearby.
Several men armed with steel rods, jabbed and teased at the hardening sulphur, prising it from the ground in large irregular chunks. As the steam lifted I spat acid from my mouth. It was basic chemistry—water in contact with sulphur dioxide makes sulphuric acid—simple, and painful too, if the moisture happened to be in your lungs and throat.
The miners had no more protection than I did—faces wrapped swathed in cloth, wearing long sleeved tops and baggy trousers flecked with yellow, and on their feet they wore rubber boots or sandals over tattered, toeless socks. One man even wore a yellow, colour-coordinated, cap. I watched, as he walked up to the hissing mouth of a pipe and delicately snap-off several stakes of sulphur, somehow avoiding the searing gasses that roared inches from his fingertips. He carried them carefully to his baskets balanced on two broken pipes, wedging them down the sides of his already packed load. He vanished amongst the dense vapour like a ghost, as fleeting and ephemeral as the steam itself. He appeared moments later with a bucket of of water in one hand, and in the other what looked like—a bicycle pump. Intrigued, I followed, as he began climbing the steep rock next to the pipes. Carefully he picked his mark and with a slow swing, drew back the bucket and hurled the water onto the rusting lengths. Steam erupted from the baking metal, chilling it, I presumed, to help the condensation of the sulphur within. A minute later he stood at the base of the pipes squirting yet more water at them, this time using the pump. With the stance of a rifleman, one duct after another was showered with a spray of glinting drops, shot twenty metres or more with pin-point accuracy.
There was no machinery here and few tools, not even a shovel; just the odd length of rusty steel clasped between firm hands and supported by strong backs. Kawah Ijen’s sulphur is continuous and reliable, but it is modest in comparison to other sources, supporting so many miners gathering one or two loads a day, and no more. Mining other natural resources such as coal or oil is essentially a matter of how to get at the stuff and nearly always involves expensive, heavy equipment. But at Kawah Ijen it was not so much a question of how you get at the sulphur—as how the sulphur gets to you, and not only along the pipes. Sulphur seeped from the rock itself—like pillars of calcite formed in a limestone cave. Stalagmites and stalactites with all the fiery hue of lava grew second by second, and were shattered just as quickly.
Beyond the pipes the yellowed crater wall rose high above the fumaroles in a broad pleated curtain streaked with grey and set against a deep, cloudless and peculiarly purple-tinted sky. Kawah Ijen’s crater lake was just as exceptional in its colour, and in other ways too. Turquoise-green and edged in parts by a thin hazy blanket of brown gas, gathered into tinny coves by the wind. Nothing about this lake was run-of-the-mill, least of all—the water itself. To begin with, the water was not actually water at all, it was sulphuric acid; insidiously corrosive, and very, very dangerous. The lake was as deep as the rim was high, run through with a hot, turbulent, and often discoloured plume, rising from Ijen?s submerged vent. Concealing, and impenetrable from above, the lake remained all too vulnerable from below, and on occasions, with an earth rumbling, phreatic cough, shaking the ground and belching forth a surge of ash and gas and hot acid—the volcano has erupted.
The gasses alone are of far greater risk. Silently they emerge from the rocks and the lake, drifting invisibly they haunt the crater, seizing the unwary who drop to their knees—the world spinning then lost in blackness—unconscious before they know what’s hit them. If you work here long enough something is bound to go wrong eventually. I wondered how long a person?s lungs could take the corrosive gas before permanent damage was done. Most had lost colleagues and friends, sometimes witnessing them collapse and die before their eyes. I watched as faint wisps of steam twisted out of the acid, dancing with one another as they ran across the surface and faded into the air. But there were no poisonous bubbles that I could see—not today anyway.
Sometimes the crater has been so full of fumes that even passing birds have been gassed in mid-air; shining wings honed to perfection and reduced in seconds to a tumbling ball of dissolving, limp feathers. In fact the lake is so acidic that the rock itself is slowly being eaten away, so that little by little the crater walls are growing thinner. Eventually Ijen’s natural ramparts will be breached, releasing the lake onto the land and people below.
The smooth grey lava that I sat on later that day, had been sculpted by a rushing, foaming stream that overflowed from Kawah Ijen. If the crater did give way, this is the direction the lake would come and everything, including me, would be swept away. Naturally the river was yellow acid rather than water, and in the little hollows where the liquid pooled, the air was full of biting, corrosive gasses. The climb out of the crater had been excruciating, with scarcely any reprieve from the fumes or my head, that had felt on the point of erupting itself. Yet the miners I had passed carried more than I weighed on their backs, a feat that seemed impossible.
Kawah Ijen means the Lone Crater, but it is scarcely that, for few volcanoes have such a continuous flow of human traffic. As with so many aspects of these fire mountains, the gifts they offer us—the fertile soil, the hard stone for building, or the native sulphur itself, used for refining sugar and making explosives—are all taken with some risk. I had come to Kawah Ijen because I’d heard it was an extraordinary place, and it was. I had been moved by its beauty, its many dangers, its contradictions, the shear precariousness of life here, but most of all, I had been moved by the people. Ijen’s men of sulphur.
Source : www.volcanicimages.com
May 29th, 2006