Madura’s salt production has earned it the nickname Pulau Garam. But it is the harvesting of other sedimentary rocks, at places like Batuputih, that leaves a far stronger impression.
Should a visitor make an excursion to Madura’s northeastern coastline, they will eventually find themselves in the district of Batuputih. This place, they ascertain, has attracted fame for the Euclidean geometry of its namesake limestone quarries.
Such pits dominate this corner of Java, Indonesia. The pits’ distinct angular forms, the cumulative effect of explosive mining and the contours of natural erosion, have carved a distinct pattern onto the landscape. A series of regular layers atop one another carefully record the passage of history.
Batuputih stands apart from the coastline’s otherwise rural sensibilities, wherein green and vibrant rice fields hug vast stretches of uninterrupted coastline.
In contrast, the quarries’ unusual outlines, at once precise and slipshod, give rise to all manner of cryptic notions. The unrelenting whiteness of the limestone blends into shades of grey and black, intensified by the sun overhead. The quarries’ uniform abstraction robs the land of its perspective.
Read More: Pulau Garam: Unravelling the Mystery of Madura Island
This loss of depth indicates that Batuputih would serve well as a place of incarceration. Even if an inmate were to escape their confines, they would quickly suffer a form of snow blindness and become disorientated; they would lose the element of surprise, and it would amuse their captors to watch as the escapee struggled hither and thon, increasingly confounded by the endless cuboid terrain with its lone limestone towers reaching some 40 or 50 feet high.
And thus will the visitor find that Batuputih is a surreal and unique setting seemingly designed to confound and confuse. So too will they note that the location retains an air of mystery: no signage signifies its existence, no guards prowl its boundaries; even the cries and calls of nature are conspicuous by their absence.
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