Madakaripura

Madakaripura, believed to be the final meditation place of military Commander-in-Chief, Gajah Mada, of the great Javanese kingdom of Majapahit in East Java, the towering waterfall is fondly dubbed the eternal waterfall, since its waters never cease to pour down an endless rain of blessings on those fortunate enough to walk underneath it.

Located not too far from Mount Bromo near the village of Sapih, in the Lombang district, Madakaripura Waterfall is about three hours’ drive from the capital of East Java, Surabaya. The spectacular waterfall lies hidden at the end of a deep valley in the foothills of the Tengger mountain range. To reach this, visitors must trek about 20 minutes crossing rivers and a rocky path, set amongst beautiful sceneries along the way, before reaching the entrance. Here a statue of Majapahit‘s great Commander, Gajah Mada, in the seated position of deep meditation greets visitors before they continue further on foot.

An atmosphere of natural grandeur radiates around as the waterfall comes into view. As the rumbling sounds of water grows louder, a spellbinding feature of water curtains cover the path, that will not only please the eyes but also freshen body and soul. Here, nature gracefully pours her endless refreshing gifts, making getting wet quite inevitable. While it may be best to be ready with raincoats or umbrellas, stalls along the trekking path will offer umbrella rentals and plastic bags to protect valuables, such as cameras.

The path ends in a surreal tube-like valley where the staggering 200 meters gallant waterfall highlights the scene. Decorated with a cave on the wall which was believed to be the exact location where Commander in Chief Gajah Mada performed his last meditation, Madakaripura Waterfall is even dubbed as the tallest waterfall in Java and the second tallest waterfall in Indonesia after Sigura-gura Waterfall near Lake Toba, North Sumatra. While the waterfall’s sheer height is by itself already a wonder, the ambience around the area is truly something that needs to be experienced first-hand to be believed.

Surrounded by outstandingly high walls, the Fall flows down into an almost mystical natural chamber. Inside the 200 meters “chamber”, the reflected sunlight shining through onto the wet green moss on the rocky wall accompanied by the ever rumbling sounds of water creates a spectacle unlikely found elsewhere. Decorated with huge boulders, endlessly falling water, and sparkling moss, one only needs to gaze up to the distant sky and immerse oneself in the spellbinding beauty of nature. While the fascinating scene can be captured on camera, the true sensation of being in one of the most outstanding places on earth can only be felt by being there.             

According to ancient Javanese 14^th century epic poem, Negarakretagama,  Madakaripura was a piece of land given to  Commander Gajah Mada by the Majapahit King Hayam Wuruk. Gajah Mada himself is the most celebrated military commander in the history of the great Javanese Majapahit Kingdom that thrived between 1293 to 1500AD.  Its commander is recognized as the main figure who succeeded in unifying the entire Indonesian Archipelago then under the huge Majapahit empire (that at the time was said to stretch until Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Southern Thailand , the Philippines and East Timor) under his famous oath the “Sumpah Palapa”.

It is said that the source of his overwhelming power and abilities lie within the cave of the Madakaripura Waterfall, where Gajah Mada frequently came to meditate. The great commander eventually chose the place as his last place for mediation before he was believed to have been –what ancient Javanese believed- “Muksha” -  or vanished spiritually and physically from the face of the earth, rather than just dying  physically.  To honor this legacy, many people still visit the Falls to meditate or perform rituals, especially on the eve of 1 Suro, the Javanese New Year.

As a place that is historically significant, culturally sacred, and naturally spellbinding, Madakaripura is simply a must, when you visit East Java.

Candi Jabung

Jabung is a 14th-century Buddhist temple dated from Majapahit era, located in the Jabung Sisir village (desa), Paiton area, Probolinggo district, East Java. The temple is made from red brick measuring 16.20 metres. The temple was mentioned in Nagarakretagama as Bajrajinaparamitapura (Vajra Jina Paramita Pura), being visited by king Hayam Wuruk during his royal tour across East Java in 1359 CE. The temple is mentioned in Pararaton as Sajabung, a mortuary temple of Bhre Gundal, a member of Majapahit royalties.
The architecture style of this temple is similar to the Bahal temple in Padang Lawas, North Sumatra.

Blue Flame

For several years Paris-based photographer Olivier Grunewald has been documenting the Kawah Ijen volcano in Indonesia, where dazzling, electric-blue fire can often be seen streaming down the mountain at night.

"This blue glow—unusual for a volcano—isn't, of course, lava, as unfortunately can be read on many websites," Grunewald told National Geographic in an email about Kawah Ijen, a volcano on the island of Java.

The glow is actually the light from the combustion of sulfuric gases, Grunewald explained.

Those gases emerge from cracks in the volcano at high pressure and temperature—up to 1,112°F (600°C). When they come in contact with the air, they ignite, sending flames up to 16 feet (5 meters) high.

Some of the gases condense into liquid sulfur, "which continues to burn as it flows down the slopes," said Grunewald, "giving the feeling of lava flowing."

Cynthia Werner, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, told National Geographic that Grunewald's photos show an unusual phenomenon.

"I've never seen this much sulfur flowing at a volcano," she said.

Werner noted that forest fires in Yellowstone National Park have caused similar "rivers," as heat from the blazes melted the sulfur around hydrothermal vents.

"When you go to Yellowstone, you can see their traces as black lines," she said.

According to Werner, it's relatively common to find molten sulfur around volcanic fumaroles (hot vents). The mineral has a relatively low melting point of 239°F (115°C), and the temperature at the hot vents often exceeds that.

Blue volcanic fire was described in antiquity in Italy on the south slope of Mount Vesuvius and on the island of Vulcano, Grunewald said.

"Blue flames may also be observed at the base of the plume of erupting volcanoes, when ash explosions occur," he added.

Grunewald did not use any filters to capture his images of the blue fire. The burning happens day and night, but it's visible only in darkness.

Kawah Ijen volcano is the subject of a new documentary released earlier this month that was produced by Grunewald and Régis Etienne, the president of Geneva's Society of Volcanology.

Kawah Ijen Crater Lake is green because of the hydrochloric acid in the water.

Kawah Ijen Crater Lake, at the top of the volcano, is the world's largest such body of water filled with hydrochloric acid. In fact, it's the acid that makes the water green.

Werner explained how the lake became so acidic: The volcano emitted hydrogen chloride gas, which reacted with the water and formed a highly condensed hydrochloric acid with a pH of almost 0.

The lake has a volume of 1.3 billion cubic feet (36 million cubic meters), or about 1/320 of the volume of Oregon's Crater Lake.

In the Kawah Ijen crater, sulfuric gases escaping from cracks ignite as they come in contact with the air.

As the burning gases cool, they deposit sulfur around the lake.

To speed up the formation of the mineral, a mining company installed ceramic pipes on an active vent near the edge of the lake, said John Pallister, a USGS geologist who has studied the volcano.

The pipes route the sulfur gases down the vent's sloping mound. When the gases cool, they condense into liquid sulfur, which then flows or drips from the pipes and solidifies into hard sulfur mats.

After the solid sulfur cools, the miners break it up and haul it off the mountain on their backs.

"I have also seen the miners spraying water from a small pump onto the pipes to promote cooling and condensation," said Pallister via email. "Sulfur stalactites sometimes form from the liquid sulfur dripping from the pipes. These are collected and sold to tourists."

Pallister added, "I have been told that the miners sometimes ignite the sulfur and/or sulfur gases to produce the blue flames that are so prominent in nighttime photographs."

Miners have been extracting sulfur here for more than 40 years. At times they work at night under the eerie blue light to escape the heat of the sun, and to earn extra income, Grunewald said.

The miners sell the sulfur for about 600 Indonesian rupiah per kilo (less than 25 U.S. cents per pound), said Grunewald. They can carry loads of 176 to 220 pounds (80 to 100 kilos) once a day—or twice if they work into the night.

A river of sulfur flows near Kawah Ijen's acid lake.

When Grunewald photographs Kawah Ijen, he wears a gas mask as protection against toxic gases, including sulfur dioxide. "It is impossible to stay a long time close to a dense acid gas without a mask," he said.

Pallister described the miners' daily routine as "tough duty." He has seen many of them using only wet cloths as gas masks.

Some of the miners do have gas masks that visitors have given them, said Grunewald, but they "have no money and no opportunity to change the filters."

"I feel bad for these miners," Werner said. When she and her colleagues work in Indonesia, "we usually bring gas masks and leave them there with the people we work with, because sometimes they don't know that what they are breathing is harmful."

Kawah Ijen

Kawah Ijen, the Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes in Banyuwangi Regency of East-Java province, Indonesia. It is inside a larger Ijen caldera, which is about 20 kilometers wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name of this volcano resembles that of a different volcano, Mt. Merapi in Central-Java, also known as Gunung Merapi; there is also a third volcano named Marapi in Sumatra. The name "Merapi" means "mountain of fire" in the Indonesian language.

West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake which now more famous as 'Blue Fire Crater', after BBC television documentary Human Planet and National Geographic mention it. The lake is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is low-paid and very onerous. The sulfur miners earn around $5.50-$8.30 (Rp 50,000 - Rp 75,000) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks about three kilometers to the nearby Pultuding Valley to get paid.

Many other post-caldera cones and craters are located within the caldera or along its rim. The largest concentration of post-caldera cones forms an east/west-trending zone across the southern side of the caldera. The active crater at Kawah Ijen has an equivalent radius of 361 metres (1,184 ft), a surface of 0.41 square kilometres (0.16 sq mi). It is 200 metres (660 ft) deep and has a volume of 36 cubic hectometres (29,000 acre·ft).
The lake is recognised as the largest highly acidic crater lake in the world, and since it is also a source for the river Banyupahit, resulting in highly acidic and metal-polluted water, it has a significant detrimental effect on the downstream river ecosystem. The pH of the water in the crater was measured to be 0.5 due to sulfuric acid.

Since National Geographic mentioned the electric-blue flame of Ijen, more tourists have come to see it. The phenomenon has occurred for a long time, but beforehand there was no midnight hiking. A two-hour hike is required to reach rim of the crater, thence 45 minutes to hike down to the bank of the crater, a guide necessary. The blue fire is not lava, but the ignited sulphuric gas, which emerged from cracks, with temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius (1,112 degrees Fahrenheit) and up to 5 meters (16 feet) high; some of the gas condenses to liquid with the low alpine temperature and is still ignited, leading to the common assumption that it is lava. It is the largest blue flame area in the world and local people refer to it as 'Ijen Blue Fire', because it easier and more understandable to say 'fire' than 'flame'.

Which tour program can we have?

1. Regular Ijen Tour

• Get up at 04:30 and prepare yourself and everything that you'll probably need during the tour.
• Meet your guide and driver at the lobby of the hotel.
• Drive to Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area at 05:00 by 4WD Jeep about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
• Hike up to reach the peak of Ijen.
• Have a look around and take pictures of the incredible turquoise green lake and the sulfur mining activity.
• Hike back down to the Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area.
• Drive back to the hotel.

2.  Midnight Ijen Blue Fire Tour

• Get up at 00:30 and prepare yourself and everything that you'll probably need during the tour.
• Meet your guide and driver at the lobby of the hotel.
• Drive to Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area at 01:00 by 4WD Jeep about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
• Hike up to reach the peak of Ijen.
• Hike down carefully to the bottom of the crater to have a closer look and take pictures of the blue fire.
• Hike up to the sunrise view point to see the beautiful sunrise.
• Have a look around and take pictures of the incredible turquoise green lake and the sulfur mining activity from the rim of the crater.
• Hike back down to the Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area.
• Drive back to the hotel.

 3.  Midday Ijen Blue Fire Tour

• Prepare yourself and everything that you'll probably need during the tour.
• Meet your guide and driver at the lobby of the hotel.
• Drive to Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area at 13:00 by 4WD Jeep about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
• Hike up to reach the peak of Ijen.
• Have a look around and take pictures of the incredible turquoise green lake and the sulfur mining activity from the rim of the crater.
• Enjoy the panorama from a higher point until the sunset.
• Hike down carefully to the bottom of the crater to have a closer look and take pictures of the blue fire.
• Hike back down to the Paltuding Ranger Post and parking-area.
• Drive back to the hotel.

Bromo

Bromo is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. At 2,329 metres (7,641 ft) it is not the highest peak of the massif, but is the most well known. The massif area is one of the most visited tourist attractions in East Java, Indonesia. The volcano belongs to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. The name of Bromo derived from Javanese pronunciation of Brahma, the Hindu creator god.
Mount Bromo sits in the middle of a vast plain called the "Sea of Sand" (Javanese: Segara Wedi or Indonesian: Lautan Pasir), a protected nature reserve since 1919. The typical way to visit Mount Bromo is from the nearby mountain village of Cemoro Lawang. From there it is possible to walk to the volcano in about 45 minutes, but it is also possible to take an organised jeep tour, which includes a stop at the viewpoint on Mount Penanjakan (2,770 m or 9,088 ft) (Indonesian: Gunung Penanjakan). The viewpoint on Mount Penanjakan can also be reached on foot in about two hours.
Depending on the degree of volcanic activity, the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Disaster Hazard Mitigation sometimes issues warnings against visiting Mount Bromo.