Reading Time: 5 minutes

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. 

A visitor to Madura’s northeastern coastline will soon reach the district of Batuputih. This place draws the gaze thanks to its limestone quarries. The patterns and marks etched into the stone have a hypnotic air that can leave the viewer dazed and lost in thought.

Such places thrive in this corner of Java, Indonesia. Many people remark upon the pits’ angular forms, at once bizarre and artificial. The shapes do not, some say, fit the natural forms of rocks and other such things.

A closer look, though, offers some clue as to Batuputih’s curious artifice. Even just moving about the place leaves a distinct mark. For one, a sense of pressure flutters in the air, of the kind that follows a violent act or marks its arrival.

And this tension makes the air thin. The kind of thinness, some have said, that leaves ears on the verge of popping. And as this tension settles on Batuputih, it leaves the place quiet like a vacuum. Things do not scramble on the ground, nor do they glide and flow and fly high above. And fewer things still sound their calls around the limestone cliffs. It seems as though nature has withdrawn from this part of Madura.

Here, then, is the realm of the limestone cliffs of Batuputih, governed by the same tense stillness as the outrushing tide that greets a titanic wave.

Cliff edges

The real world gives some clues as to the cliffs’ distinct shape. This is a place of mining, where explosives dislodge the rock. The booms and blasts of dynamite would account for the sharp angles and contours that riddle the cliffs, as would the creep of erosion.

---

Read More: Pulau Garam: Unravelling the Mystery of Madura Island

---

But still the same absence reigns. No one has ever reported seeing a miner or hearing a blast. The ground has, apparently, never rocked with an explosion. And yet, Batuputih seems to always take on new forms.

Perhaps such things lie beyond the visitor. Instead, it is best to marvel at the wondrous patterns that mark the landscape. These imprints, a series of regular layers of earth placed atop one another, carefully record the passage of history. The haphazard lines trace a line back to the past, when Islam still had to reach Java, and when Indonesia had yet to split into an archipelago.

Batuputih stands apart from the coastline’s otherwise rural air. The northern part of Madura is an undeniably pretty place. Green and vibrant rice fields hug vast stretches of sand and shore, and few buildings get in the way of the peaceful scene. Much of the traffic and trade heads to Sumenep and Pamekasan, leaving the island’s northern parts to bask in an empty and unrushed haze.

Abstract shapes

In contrast, the quarries offer all kinds of unusual outlines, at once precise and slipshod. They give rise to all manner of cryptic notions and strange daydreams, inspired by limestone’s unrelenting whiteness. But even this colour rarely stays still, for the sun soon intensifies patches of rock into shades of grey and black. So doing, Batuputih loses all sense of perspective.

This loss of depth, coupled with the dearth of sound and absent wildlife, offers a curious payoff. In short, the mind can drift and drum up all types of interesting ideas and images. But the flipside is also true. Walking about Batuputih, some visitors have related that they felt their minds become trapped, as though lost in a loop. They have tried, but not quite succeeded, to make sense of this place.

A question soon forms in this fog. Would Batuputih serve well as a prison? It’s a confusing place after all. Even if an inmate should escape their confines, their freedom might not last long.

First, the rich and bright colours would quickly induce a form of snow blindness. And then, the escapee would become dazed. They would stagger, and they would moan, and they would flail in circles. Worst of all, they would lose the element of surprise. Their captors could watch, amused, as the escapee struggled hither and thon, their efforts stifled by the cubed terrain with its lone limestone towers, some of them 40 or 50 feet high.

But this will not affect too many people. Not everyone ends up in a prison like this. Most people, however, will find Batuputih a surreal and unique place that confounds and blurs the mind. No signage tells of its existence, no guards prowl its limits. Instead, a sense of distance lingers in their minds, which they may struggle to shake off. And no more is there to say on the matter of Batuputih.

Things to know