Sikidang Crater — Attraction in Central Java

Amazing vulcanic crater, but unfortunately maintained below standard. There is a large and crowded market on enterance, with terrible hygiene. Crater itself is large, dominated by sandpool with some hotspot of sulphur & boiling water from underground. We did a small experiment by boiling eggs in sulphur hotspot, and they did boiled pretty good. But unfortunately the sandpool area is very dirty, scattered by garbage. And there are some attraction (flying fox, motorbike, take picture with owls, etc) but it seems that they are operating without coordination, making unnecessary view in this pristine are.

BEWARE OF TOURIST TRAP!! You can see there are many "photogaphy prop" scattered in this area, but AVOID TAKE PICTURE USING THEM. They are managed by some crooks, they will ask you Rp.5.000 each person taking picture with it! Don't be fooled if the props looks abandoned and empty, the crooks are hiding somewhere and watching their prop closely... and they will asking for money from anyone taking picture with it. If you protested, they will show a (very small) sign that enforce that rule.

For management, please fix those issue! Sikidang crater is very interesting & educating place, but the hygiene & tourist trap issue has turned people off this place. Please build a educational theatre to show us the geological process & history of this place. I'm sure that will attract tourist...

The crater still produces strong sulphuric odour but still lack of safety sign regarding that. The area operator shall make more awareness education related possible health hazard of the crater, not only don't close to the crater, or don't walk closer. The place is beautiful, you can enjoy the crater situation from the wooden pathways. But the horrible scenario happen after you finish this pathway, you have to follow very long and far puzzle dirty small road sorounding by disorganized street vendor. The road is take too far from the parking area, exhausted for elderly. Besides that, the view of the lapak/temporary shop of the street vendor is not representable sorry to say it is like refugees camp, not nice, not clean, many waste every where, some area fully of waste just dump, very shameful for tourists department of Dieng. Tourism will not come back.(I didn't put the bad photo here, but I have a lot). Contrary Situation in the parking area or sorounding parking area many lot space left empty without street vendors, why don't you keep the vendor here, more replesentable. The Operator/management/government tourism department shall review again the mapping of Street vendor arrangements otherwise will be contra productive. It is very pity, such beautiful destination but get bad impression from...

The crater itself is amazing and the wooden decks around the crater makes it easy to explore for visitors. My main issue is with the exit.

To exit the crater area, we were directed to walk through a local market, with which I am totally fine (many tourist places around the world do the same thing). The problem though is how the roads through the market are unmaintained despite the place charging us entrance fees. Some of the walkways are just soil, some parts have paving blocks, some parts have sacks as foundations. The uneven surface also creates some water-catching potholes. Even the local sellers have to use buckets to catch rainwater falling from their own tents.

Other problems include tiles on the center area that seem to not be glued onto anything as foundation. During the rain, water will seep up when you step on the tiles. Another problem is with parking attendants who just charge you random fees as they like despite you paying for an IDR30k entrance fee.

The management/local dinas pariwisata/pemerintah desa/kabupaten really need to be serious and step up their game if they want to be on par with other destinations or even to just be considered by...