I have been to Kawa Ijen twice before, but I had never seen anything quite like this before. Ijen is an active volcano and the local people mine the fumarole field at the bottom of the crater for sulphur. It is a tough job ander the best of conditions, but this time the wind was not friendly and the fumes were being blown back onto the miners and onto any visitors to the crater. It was also a day when new pipes were being concreted into the fumarole to direct the gases through those pipes to allow the sulphur to condense. We were in ... (more)