Ijen Blue Fire, and the Sunrise Window from May to September

Two things here are worth planning around. The first is the season. The operator puts the best sunrises at Kawah Ijen between May and September, which is useful if your dates are still movable. Banyuwangi calls itself the Sunrise of Java, and from up here the light comes over sea and mountain together. The second is the lake. A square kilometre of acid water inside the crater, the largest on Java, turquoise because of what the sulphur does to it chemically rather than because of anything in the light. Then the miners, who are the part of Ijen nobody forgets. They carry the fresh yellow rock down on their shoulders, load after load, for as long as they can keep doing it, and they are working while you are looking. The operator suggests asking them about it, and taking the weight of a basket yourself if you want a real measure of the job.