Best Journey In Indonesia | Ijen Crater

Best Journey In Indonesia | Ijen Crater. Working at the side of active volcanoes in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the workers use a metal pole to hack out pieces of elemental sulfur. To do all this, workers must stand next to a sulfur pit of life flowing out of the mass of gas, dangerous choking. A bad boss, late hours, poor pay: there's always plenty to complain about. This is the American pastime to complain about a person's job. But even the worst 9-5 offices in the U.S. is a cakewalk compared to the sulfur miners in Ijena Crater, a 8660 foot active volcano in East Java, Indonesia, which bears a certain resemblance to Dante's vision of hell.

The workers then fill the basket with 150 to 200 pounds (70 to 100 pounds) of sulfur pieces and dragging them up 200 meters to the edge of the crater, (Air brings H2SO4 and CaSO4 which are both poisonous.) And then down three kilometers and 1500 meters to the station where the weight of sulfur is sold for use in vulcanizing rubber and sugar bleaching. Using a ceramic pipe, they channel the outflowing gas as a red liquid sulfur before it hardens into pieces of yellow miners carry. Prizes: about five dollars a day.

The men generally work without the (expensive) gas masks, despite the fact that exposure to toxic fumes can cause respiratory problems similar to severe asthma. And that's not to mention the exhausting nature of solely the work. One of the problems by improving the human situation is that they all essentially loose, with no direct employer, so that safety standards are the only people impose on themselves - a very little. One of the reasons people work in the mines, despite having a life expectancy of about 30, is that paying a little better than a farmer.

The lake is 90 degrees pool of sulfuric acid in which there is no life, and that will kill any who dare to swim in it. There is a nearby lake, but it will be a serious mistake, which from afar looks like it might be good for a cold swim after a hard day mining. Birds have been reported to die suddenly from the fumes and fell into the lake if they were flying over head. There is no pause to be taken in the hard volcanic crater of Ijen.