bandung hotels, tourism and travel, West Java - indonesia

Its first recorded explosion was in August 1772, when it blew one cubic kilometer of its cone into the sky, killing 3000 people and burying 40 villages around the volcano.

Eploring Papandayan's active crater offers you a very unusual experience.  A descent of rough lava and black ash is punctuated by bright yellow pockets of sulphur, while hissing acid rivulets and hot mud pools making outlandish belching noises compound the alien effects.

Kawah Mas on the "Golden Crater" is the Papandayan's 150 meter-wide central dome.  Here roaring fumaroles, sounding like jet engines exude scorhing vapor, and the residual heat from previous eruptions glows ominously in the volcano's interior.  It's a 20 minutes walk to the middle of the crater from the car park.

From the top you get a good view into Papandayan's acid-spewing throat.  Watch your step in thi area; the ground is uneven and dotted with percolating mud pools.

After visiting this unique, you may feel like having a picnic in the fresh breeze.  Climb up tthe left side of Kawah Mas, if facing the road, where a 15 minutes walk leads up to a small paleau with a lovely view over the Garut plateau.