Great! Thanks for the update.

The blue fire was excellent, albeit very overcrowded and mismanaged, we saw about a dozen people turned away who had made the trip solo, like I had planned on a scooter.
There are guides waiting around at the entrance point, so it is entirely possible people MAY be able to ride up with the doctors note and hire a local (possibly)
I am guessing that these people either wanted to pay on arrival (Which isn’t possible now) or didn’t have the correct documentation or guide with them, cant say as we didn’t speak to any of them.
So for now the easiest thing is a doctors note for around 100,000Rupiah (£5/$6) which includes weight, height, blood pressure, and heart rate assessment, whole process takes about 1 hour and certificate is issued immediately upon payment, then a tour, I paid 325,000 (£16/$20) for my tour from Banyuwangi.

Sure, thanks! Let us know how your trip goes and I’ll try to keep the article updated as well for anyone reading it in the future.

yea I can imagine the same, but it was more a word of warning for the time being while it is enforced just so as not to catch any unsuspecting visitors to your page out.
It nearly caught me out, although I always research all sites I visit as I don’t usually do tours unless I have to, but even a few of the tour operators i spoke to today as of the 9th Jan when I am doing my trip knew nothing about it.

Thanks, noted, although I expect that rule will probably be short lived (like usual). According to Detik there’s already been some pushback from Indonesians unhappy with the new rule.

Nice! Thanks for the update. Glad to hear a good report about the blue fire!

Hi David!
Update! Gary & I had been in touch with you before our trip. We have now returned. Climbed 5 volcanoes…..amazing! Our biggest highlight was the fact that we DID get to see the Blue Fire at Ijen!! We arranged it at the hotel reception when we arrived. It was a midnight pick up, an hour and 15 min drive. We had a coffee near the gates (they opened before 4am) we were the first to reach the bottom, complete with gasmasks, and took some amazing footage of the blueflames even with a.mobile phone. We just asked people to turn off their headlamps for a short time. Yes, the smoke was very overwhelming, gas masks were rendered useless for a few mins. But if you didn’t panic, as some do, then it was pretty scary. Some we saw heading down, shouldn’t have as they were so badly equipped… one wearing crocs! Buffs were not enough protection from the billowing smoke either. Alot were still queueing to go down as daylight came so they never got to see the Blue flames.
So a huge thanks to your input and advice! We got to see it. Or guide was fantastic too.

Hi Mohit, thanks for your comment.

A guide isn’t really needed for the hike if you have a driver. He can take you to the entrance, and from there the path will be pretty clear since there are always lots of other hikers going up.

A guide would probably be a good idea if you want to go down into the crater and try to see blue fire, though. That part is a bit harder to navigate in the dark.

Regards