To get there was pretty easy and straightforward. We flew in to Surabaya from where we took the train to Banyuwangi Regency/Karangasem Station. We were picked up by our guesthouse and drove to the village of Licin, which is about 20 kilometres from the station, located on the slopes of Kawah Ijen volcano. The guesthouse, situated between rice terraces, coffee plantations and natural jungle was an ideal spot to explore the area, while our host organised the trip to the volcano the next morning. Oh and by “next morning” we mean 1 a.m.!

Workingman’s Death: 3 Times A Day, 6 Days A Week.

The walk into the cater would include sharp drops, slippery steps and a toxic turquoise lake. At almost 2.800 metres, this place is a working mine where men carry up to 100 kilos of sulfur out of the mouth of the volcano down to the weighing station. They do this by hand up to three times a day, six days a week, starting at 1 a.m. when it’s still cool outside.

From our guesthouse it took about one hour until we reached the parking lot from where the 3.5 kilometre trek starts. Our guide’s name was Neki, who was a miner himself for almost 10 years and told us much about the job during the first one-hour climb upwards. The way lead us to the canteen for a little rest with a cup of tea before continuing. Here we saw the first miner coming towards us. It was a sight we’d see many more times during our walk to the crater rim: The man carried two baskets made out of bamboo loaded with mustard-yellow sulfur on his shoulder. He was one of 20 working men trying to bring up as much sulfur as their back can bear. Seeing him rapidly walk past us with this enormous load almost made us feel bad for resting. We continued walking.

The trip to the Kawah Ijen crater might not be super tough, but I still welcomed the rest in between.

Miner at Kawah Ijen break up the sulfur before transporting them to the weighing station.

There is only one way to the crater that tourist and the workers have to share.

A miner ascends from the Kawah Ijen crater with his baskets full of sulfur.

The moment you arrive at the crater rim you’ll notice hundreds of tourist walking down into the crater to see the spectacular blue fires that burn between the sulfur. Neki provided us with gas masks the closer we got to the toxic fumes. Kawah Ijen’s smoky abyss looks and feels like a place from outer space. It’s hard to believe that people actually work here. The situation is frankly quite ridiculous: on one hand miners are dragging up between 80-100 kilos of sulfur up to three times a day, while on the other hand ignorant tourists try to overtake them or comfortably rest at the spots that are reserved for the working men who need to get the load off their shoulders for a minute. What felt even more embarrassing was seeing tourists taking selfies with these guys. We spent a couple of hours observing this and came to the conclusion, that some people would do anything for a selfie and don’t have the courtesy to give way to the heavy loaded miners who deserve more than a little bit of credit for having what is, perhaps, the hardest job in the world.

The miners inevitably inhale the toxic fumes at Kawah Ijen crater.

The landscape around Kawah Ijen volcano is definitely one to remember!

The Price Miners Pay At Kawah Ijen.

Each miner makes about 200.000 Rupees (15-20 $) a day, which is quite good money in Indonesia compared to other jobs. But they bear the scars of years spent on the edge of life and death. The side effects are nothing less but severe burns, sore bodies, ongoing coughing, poisoned lungs and squashed shoulder bones. When exposed to this kind of work over long periods of time, the life expectancy is only 30 years. But money keeps them going and when one has the opportunity, he saves up as much as he can, and after a few years, opens a guesthouse and becomes a tour guide for crazy tourists who are after blue flames brightening up the nights down in this toxic environment. Neki was one of these people. And he believes that it saved his life.

What an experience!

The wholesale market for fruits and vegetables in Kolkata is an experience that is really difficult to describe. You make your way through dozens of trucks, which are parked only centimetres apart from each other, hundreds of porters, vendors, auctioneers, buyers and people who load & unload the trucks from their precious cargo – fresh fruits and vegetables that arrive here every morning from all over India, to be auctioned off right on the spot.

Words & photos are good for imagining such ongoing activities, but we also put together a little video (with out iPhone, so please excuse the quality) of the market’s happenings. This way, you’ll not only get an impression on the number of fruits auctioned off, the people who roam these streets, the heavy goods that need to be loaded onto trucks, but also the constant noise level…

Oranges, pineapples and bananas.

On the day of our visit, the main fruits that had just arrived were oranges, pineapples and bananas. Bananas (still on the stem) are a very attractive fruit and are sold piece by piece. How that works is that one porter stands in front of the truck, with the banana stalk on his head for display, while the auctioneer is shouting out the price. It’s a fast business, and all over sudden the bananas disappear in someone’s box or basket, and the next stalk is brought out for the auction.
With oranges it’s a bit different; they’re stacked up in a pyramid shape and sold tower-wise.

Obviously this place is hardly ever visited by foreigners. Many people asked how and why we came there and they were quite astonished when we said that we just wanted to have a look around.

We had the best time and the vendors seemed to ‘enjoy’ our company. A trader gave us apples from Kashmir as a present and everybody was keen to have his picture taken. It was a really great experience, yet it was a bit difficult to move along, because we didn’t want to be in anyone’s way … especially not if they’re carrying a 50 pound basket!

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Biddings at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Baskets full of papayas the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

Working men at the the fruit wholesale market in Kolkata, India.

You may have noticed the label “Made in Bangladesh” in garments from well known brands. Well, RMG (Ready Made Garments) is the second largest industry in Bangladesh (first is Jute production) … After reading an article in “Daily Star” – which was the only English newspaper in the country – we decided to have a look at some of these tanneries in Dhaka. Tanneries are the places where raw hides are turned into soft leather … for shoes, bags and jackets which will then be sold in Western countries (for a lot of cash of course).

Getting There.

Getting to Hazaribagh turned out to be very easy since we had a piece paper with our desired destination written in Bangla language. The Rickshaw cycler just nodded and had a kick started his vehicle … We passed the Christian cemetery, a quiet corner in this busy city (we visited it on another day but this is reserved for a different blog post) and soon after, we were stuck in traffic yet again. It’s very common in Dhaka, so you we had plenty of time to see what was going on in this part of the city. Some streets are huge, lined with beautiful trees and monuments in the middle of roundabouts. Beggars approach you constantly when waiting for the traffic to move.

Tip:

• Beware of donations! If you give one beggar some money you can be sure that others will follow. They will be there in seconds and this can really be annoying at times … after all, we’re not a bank ready to give out micro-credits.

The closer you get to the area of the tanneries the worse the smell gets. Why? Well, if the hides are still raw, the smell can be unbearable because you literally smell the rotten flesh. And once you are really close, you can also smell (and see) the chemicals which are used to transform a hide into a fine piece of leather. The open sewers along the roads are full of colour. That day, it black & blue. Anyway, so we finally got there but some of the tanneries refused to let us in to have a look. Others were very keen to show us around, so we got off the Rickshaw and started to walk around.

The first thing you notice when you walk through the streets of Hazaribagh is the all-pervasive stench of tanning chemicals. According to the Department of Environment, the tanneries discharge 22.000 cubic meters of untreated liquid toxic waste daily into the rivers, gutters and canals that run alongside in the roads of Hazaribagh. Toxins are also leaching into groundwater.

Working Conditions.

Workers are handling the skins without any kind of protection. All the toxic wastewater eventually makes its way into the Buriganga River, which is considered to be Dhaka’s lifeline. Thousands of people depend on the river daily for bathing, washing clothes, irrigation of food and transportation of goods. The river has suffered extreme biodiversity loss and has now turned black.It’s in the discussion that something needs to be done with all this chemical waste but the people responsible turn a blind eye to this rampant pollution and the working conditions as long as so much money is involved in that business. It’s clear that working under these conditions comes at a price: a lot of the workers suffer from asthma, skin diseases and even cancer.

A worker at a tannery gets about 6.000 Taka (which equals about 60 €) per moths. For this money, they have to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unbelievable! … Very often, you’ll also see child worker who are not far beyond their 13th birthday.

We were told that the workers are well aware of their exposure to all these chemical substances but they can’t do much; first of all they’re happy to have a job – even though it’s badly paid. But at least they have a job. Protesting won’ help either because the police will simply step in and they don’t care if people get hurt or even shot. the workers  can leave their jobs , because another bunch of people would take over the next day, Bangladesh has an abundant mass of labourers, so as a worker you don’t have many choices: either work until you get sick or sleep on the streets.

Resume.

The smell made us sick for the rest of the day and we left the area a bit despondent … these people work so hard in such dangerous conditions and yet they still manage to smile, say hello and respond with a laugh when you take their picture. What can we say? People in Bangladesh are really tough cookies!

Workers process rawhides with toxic chemicals such as chromium, sulfur and manganese to name a few. They handle leather skins soaked with acids and dyes with their bare hands in poorly ventilated tanneries where often the only light coming in is through cracks and openings in the walls.

There are about 200 leather tanneries in the Hazaribagh district of Dhaka, the capital. Some use modest technology and machinery, but most operate as they did decades ago and release untreated toxic chemical waste near residential areas.

From the slums of Bangladesh to the fashion houses of the world – luxury leather goods from Dhaka generate sales of more than 1 billion US$ per year.

Each year 14 million raw hides are processed into leather in Bangladesh – the leather is then exported to top fashion labels in dozens of countries around the world. The country is a major supplier of leather to Europe, with Italy being the largest importer of Bangladeshi leather.

A man scrapes the inside of a cow skin to remove small parts to make it smoother. He uses a special designed sharp tool.

The Thousand Gardens, which is what Hazaribagh means in Bengali, is crammed with tanneries, big and small; one-room tin shacks where many tannery workers live.

Working at the tanneries in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Many children work 12 or even 14 hours a day at one of the leather tanneries in Dhaka, considerably more than the five-hour limit for adolescents in factory work established by Bangladeshi law.