The Journey to Ijen, chapter 1

Kawah Ijen is a volcano on the east end of Java. It is located above a town called Banyuwangi. The past few days have been crazy, so I'll try to write it all out, but I'm on my phone right now so this post won't be the whole story.


We start in Ubud, getting up, having breakfast and then getting a car from the home stay into denpasar. We go to the airport and find out the flight is full, but this is OK, we simply hit a taxi to the bus station.

Or driver was a bit weird. Twice during the trip he pulled over saying "one minute, sorry" and got out of the car. The first time he literally ran back down the road out of sight, leaving us confounded, but he returned shortly. The second time, we went into a phone shop at the roadside and some to the man at the counter for a minute. Speculate away, I have no solution to these mysteries.

We got to the bus station and one bus awaited. We said "Banyuwangi" and "gilimanuk" (the ferry harbor) and were hustled onto the bus, into seats, and the bus left. Nice bus, with AC and a crazy driver who made the 5ish hour trip in a bit over 3.

Along the way we saw many sights of Bali. Mostly jungle and tiny towns. Notably, we saw a crashed tour bus (abandoned).

At the harbor, the bus pulled onto the ferry, and everyone got off to ride on upper decks of the ship. We went to the top deck, where we met Alex and Jemma, who were hoping to get to ijen as well. By chance they'd been corresponding with the same guide as us, but had nothing booked, so we decided to join forces. Here's Java from the ferry.

On the other side of the ferry ride, we got off the buses and were generally ushered to a "information" stall across the rode. Here we explained we were hoping to meet Sam the guide, but he wasn't here. His phone number wouldn't go through. The Indonesian men said they knew Sam, and thought maybe he could be up the mountain where there is no reception. After waiting a while, we hired a car to the Ijen Resto (hotel thing below the trail head).

So we rode. By the time we arrived at the Resto it was getting dark, around dinner time. There a young man started asking us stuff about our booking. Things were a bit confusing, and we seemed to get mixed messages regarding Sam, he's sick, he's up the mountain. When questioned, they said both, he was sick at the mountain.

The man laid out a price for 4 of us to sleep, eat, and get a tour guide, we spent a long time scrutinizing over whether this might be a scam. Eventually we agreed to the price...

Then we ate dinner and went to sleep early, because we would be leaving at 1am.

So that's all the boring stuff. I'll finish this grand tale later when I can use a keyboard...