Make no mistake, the miners of Kawah Ijen have a tough life. They haul 80-90kg baskets full of sulphur out of the crater a few times daily for something like 14 USD a day. The crater of Kawah Ijen spews sulphuric gas; we wear gas masks, they do not. We get there at 230am and they were already there. It's hard not to feel sorry for them, I think about giving them my mask, maybe buy one of the trinkets they make from sulphur. I stop a few times throughout thinking about this but I cannot escape the hypocrisy of me being there as a tourist in the first place. Such hesitancy is anathema to any photographer; I ride my photographer's instincts and take photo after photo after photo. After that, I leave.