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Java { 51 images } Created 18 Nov 2013

Photos from Java taken in March 2009.
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  • After an adventerous stay on the malaysian side of Borneo we decided to take the airplane to Java. The Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park was our first choice. To get there, we took an international flight from Kuala Lumpur to Surabaya. In Surabaya, the second largest city of Indonesia, you can take the "Patas" bus to Probolinggo, the nearest town to the National Park. Finally drive on the Ngadisari Route to reach Cemoro Lawang, the closest village to the volcanoes. The viewpoint of Mount Penanjakan is generally the best place to appreciate the view over the Tengger caldera at sunrise.
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  • According to "Wikipedia" - The national park is named after its two mountains, Mount Semeru (the highest in Java at 3,676 metres), Mount Bromo (the most popular) and the Tengger people who inhabit the area. <br />
Mount Semeru also known as Mahameru ("Great Mountain"), is one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes. What stands out most about this mountain is the fact that it erupts periodically (and very reliably so). Every 20 minutes or so, the volcano belches out a huge cloud of steam and smoke, sometimes interspersed with ash and stones. Climbing Mount Semeru requires some planning and a permit from the national park authority. The mountain is often closed due to its highly active nature. <br />
Mount Bromo (2,329 metres) is easily recognized as the entire top has been blown off and the crater inside constantly belches white sulphurous smoke. It sits inside the massive Tengger caldera (diameter approximately 10 km), surrounded by the Laut Pasir (Sea of Sand) of fine volcanic sand. The overall effect is unsettlingly unearthly, especially when compared to the lush green valleys all around the caldera.
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  • View inside the Bromo volcano, one of the most active volcanoes of Java.
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  • After an exhausting stair-climb to the top of Mount Bromo, you can walk along the crater's rim. A young man is wearing a scarf over his mouth to avoid breathing to much sulfur gases.
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  • A boy spending some time in the National Park on a sunday morning.
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  • You can take a horse for an uphill ride to Mount Bromo if you are too lazy to walk all the way up. But anyway, you have to climb over 200 steps to the top by feet, on your own.
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  • The horse guides start their day very early in the morning. On holidays or in the tourist season they can earn about 50000Rp (4Euro) per day, and most of them have an additional job.
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  • A tenggerese horseman taking a rest near the stairs which lead to the top of Mount Bromo.
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  • A woman and his son looking down on the vast plain of Tengger Caldera. The protected nature reserve is called "Lautan Pasir" which means "Sand Sea".
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  • Most of the people living in villages neighboring the Tengger Caldera, are farmers.
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  • A girl posing in front of one of many impressive vegetable gardens.
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  • As the soil around volcanoes is always very fertile, the locals use it for farming. I took this picture in the vicinity of our guesthouse.
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  • A women is resting in a field as her child is playing in it.
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  • The fields are amazing because of the big-sized vegetables and their plantation arrangements.
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  • A farmer woman posing for my camera.
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  • There are other views over the volcanoes worth to see when you take off the beaten tracks. Follow the main street in Cemoro Lawang until you arrive at the Cemara Indah Hotel. This Hotel is located on the rim of the caldera, giving you a spectacular view of the steaming crater. Look on your right, and you will see a path leading upwards through many fields. Follow the path as long as you want, enjoy the view on the left side of the path or talk to the farmers on the right side.
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  • View over the caldera and steaming Mt Bromo. I took this photo on the "off the beaten track", few minutes away from Cemerah Indah Hotel.
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  • I went along with the two farmer women on the path leading back to the village for a while. Later, at evening, a spanish guy, my travelling companion and i were invited for dinner by a sympathetic man. As we entered the house i saw the lady - posing right on the photo, cooking an appetizing meal. Coincidentally, she was the housewife.
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  • Mount Bromo and the "Pura Luhur Poten" Hindu Temple located on the Segara Wedi sand plain at the foot of the volcano.
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  • The 16km wide Tengger Caldera is one of Indonesia's most spectacular volcanic massif with steaming Mount Bromo, one of Java's most active volcanoes.
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  • According to "Wikipedia" - The area in and around the park is inhabited by the Tengger people, one of the few significant Hindu communities remaining on the island of Java. The local religion is a remnant from the Majapahit era and therefore quite similar to that on Bali but with even more animist elements. The Tengger people are believed to be descendents of the Majapahit empire and were driven into the hills after mass arrival in the area of Muslim Madurese in the 19th century. <br />
One of the cultural tourism activities in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park is the Yadnya Kasada Ceremony. The ceremony is celebrated every full moon. During this time, the local Tengger people will bring half of their cattle and harvest and throw it into the crater of Mount Bromo to thank the creator of lives. The activities of this ceremony is centered in the Hindu Poten temple, located in the Tengger Sand Sea just beside Mount Bromo.
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  • Our next destination was the Ijen Plateau. After our journey at Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park we took a minivan from Cemoro Lawang to Probolinggo. A taxi drove us from Probolinggo to Jampit. This photo was taken somewhere between Bondowoso and Jampit.
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  • Shortly before we arrived at Jampit we saw the courtyard of a village where young people kept themselves entertained.
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  • A lot of children were playing with their kites late in the evening in Jampit. In the background you can also see some original dutch houses, today occupied by the villagers.
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  • This three Javanese boys enjoyed posing for a couple of photos.
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  • A small village between the "coffee"-village Jampit and the waterfall.
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  • Three javanese girls enjoying posing for the camera in Jampit.
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  • I met this man while i was walking steeply upwards, leading to the active volcano of Kawah Ijen. I don't remember his name, but he was very friendly: carrying a basket of about 90 kilo on his shoulder, he asked me if he might guide me the way down to the crater.
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  • Looking down into the crater i noticed that it was a very active place. A lot of indonesian workers tried to get their load out of the crater by following a treacherous path. Each basket is pressing a weight between 60-100kg on one shoulder.
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  • Kawah Ijen is well-known for its mining operations in which sulfur is hand gathered in large baskets and carried out of the crater. The workers have to wake up very early in the morning and most of them will walk the 4km up to the crater and down to the lake... two or three times per day. This guy just reached the crater's rim.
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  • Finally we arrived at the famous extracting place where miners collect the sulfur. We are permanently enveloped by a stinking air, which makes breathing nearly impossible. Welcome to the yellow hell :-)
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  • The sulfur steam is collected by pipes in which sulfur is condensing in a red liquid dripping on the ground before solidified into pure sulfur. After solidification, the miners are using metal bars to cut down chunks of sulfur.
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  • Extracting sulfur isn't very healthy. Indeed, breathing the poisonous steam gives you the impression that your lungs are burning. The mens are ruining their lungs irreversibly day by day. This photo shows two different types of very basic, and probably ineffective gas masks.
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  • The baskets are ready to be filled up with big chunks of yellow sulfur.
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  • A loaded basket is carried over a handmade bridge which leads to steep crater sections.
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  • Everytime when the wind was changing direction, letting the toxic fog envelope me, breathing was killing me. So it took me more than one attempt to take a picture of a close overview of the mining site.
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  • One worker is filling big pieces of sulfur into a bag as another man is taking a break. A third exhausted miner is looking into my camera. We will met him later at the weighing station.
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  • The miners walk up the steep slopes of the crater, leaving the view of the largest acid lake on earth behind them. This is the most exhausting part. Depending on the weight, each worker earn between 5-10 dollar in one day.
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  • We rested a couple of days in Manang, one of the biggest city in Java.
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  • Indonesian students standing near the Stupas of Borobudur, a buddhist heritage site of Indonesia, located in central Java.
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  • According to "Wikipedia" - There is no written record of who built Borobudur or why it was built. It was likely founded as a religious site in the 8th century at the peak of the Sailendra dynasty in central Java. The construction is thought to have taken a period of 75 years and completed in about 825 AD... <br />
...Borobudur lay abandoned and hidden for centuries under layers of volcanic ash and thick jungle growth. Nobody knows for sure why it was abandoned although the popular theory is that the local population just became disinterested when there were mass conversions to Islam in the 15th century. It was never forgotten entirely though with folklore ensuring that stories of the great monument lived on.
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  • Borobudur has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1991. The ancient site is best reachable from Yogyakarta.
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  • We met a lot of indonesian students in Indonesia and sometimes we took photos of each other. From all the people i've met around the globe, the Javanese were one of the most nice and open minded people i've met.
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  • There are many niches with Buddha statues on each side of the temple.
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  • Two Javanese dancers performing a traditional dance in the Sultan's Palace.
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  • Yogyakarta became a sultanate in 1755, and it is at the present the only province in Indonesia with special autonomy, still governed by a Sultan.
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  • The Ngasem bird market. Yogyakarta's oldest market providing birds and other wild-caught animals kept in cages.
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  • A row of buildings called Tajug, once used as air vents for the underground tunnels of Taman Sari. The Taman Sari is located south of Yogyakarta Palace and was, among others, a resting place for the Sultan.
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  • Jasmine plants are still growing in one of the Taman Sari gardens. Jasmine is famous for its flowers, used to make "Jasmine Tea".
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  • The western gate, Gedhong Gapura Hageng, main gate for the sultans and the entrance to the bathing complex of Taman Sari.
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  • Batik paintings are a work of art using very ancient techniques. According to "Wikipedia" - Batik is a cloth which traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Due to modern advances in the textile industry, the term has been extended to include fabrics which incorporate traditional batik patterns even if they are not produced using the wax-resist dyeing techniques. Silk batik is especially popular.
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