The Lost Paradise

Kawah Ijen is one of East Java‘s hidden gems. With a massive 20-kilometer-wide caldera filled with picturesque turquoise-colored waters, that seem to glimmer even more once touched by sunrise’s golden rays, Ijen is also the world’s largest acidic crater lake. Climbing up the ridge overlooking the crater, I was “gifted” with an otherworldly view of a scenery, that at once made me realize how a place so perilous can also be so majestically beautiful.