"Madi" who is in his mid-30s and works as a sulphur miner at “Mountain Of Fire” Ijen, East Java, Indonesia.
His day starts around 2:30 am, get fresh and take his wheelbarrow and start toward work which is 2799 meters high. Wheelbarrow full is with a small pack of food supply and empty baskets to carry gold coloured sulphur from the mines and he gets paid with very little money for this hard work.
I started my hike up to high hill around to 2:00 am to catch first light over crater, night was really clouded less and I was following stars dust in the sky, it was not easy to climb stiff hike and I was wondering how these tough guys are carrying so much of load with smiley face.
Basket was empty when I started following him from the top, narrow path takes you down next to acidic water in crater was really tough, after 30-40 minutes hike you will see a cloud of smoke in the air and your I hiked in the Himalayas since a decade but this was some of the toughest paths I can across.
At midnight I found few miners were coming up with a huge load of basket full sulphur and I learnt from “Madi” they are coming up from night shift.
No matter how hard you try, however, you will inevitably end up regularly inhaling harsh sulphurous smoke into your lungs and the sulphur dust deposits left on your eyelashes will make your eyeballs feel as if they’re on fire every time you blink. Yes, a big cloud of sulphur welcomes you at the bottom.
Process of taking sulphur out is really not easy one has to fight with the clouds and heat around to dig out.
