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Telaga Warna (Coloured Lake), 2km along the main road heading south from the village, is the best example of Dieng's coloured lakes, where sulphurous deposits shade the water blue, from turquoise to azure. The lake laps against the shore of a small peninsula which holds a number of meditational caves. It was in one of these caves, Gua Semar , that Suharto and Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam decided the future of Timor in 1974. A visit to the lakes and caves can be combined with a visit to the Arjuna complex and Candi Bima, which makes for an interesting day's hiking. Of the other lakes on the plateau, Telaga Nila and Telaga Dringo , 12km west of Dieng village, are the prettiest and can be combined with seeing Sumur Jalatunda , a vast, vine-clad well just off the main road - for a fee, small boys will show you a little-used path from the well to the two lakes. Just 250m further along the road is the turn-off to Kawah Candradimuka , one of a number of kawah (mini-craters) dotted around the plateau. The crater is a twenty-minute walk up the hill from the road; five minutes along its length a small path on the left heads west to Telaga Nila. The sulphurous smell can be nauseating, and the steaming vents may obscure your view of the bubbling mud pools below. Further east along the road, an extremely overgrown path leads up to Gua Jimat , where the sulphurous emissions are fatal to anyone and anything who stands too close. To get to all these lakes and caves involves a fairly tortuous route by public transport, so you might prefer to hire an ojek from Dieng village (Rp10,000 per day) or join a tour from Dieng Homestay (Rp5000). Otherwise, take a Batur-bound bus from Dieng to Pasurenan (7km; Rp500), and then an ojek (Rp1000) up the hill to the Sumur Jalatunda. Note that place-name spellings change frequently on the signposts, but Dieng and Tieng really are two different places.
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