Mount Batur

Straight from the beginning, there was a bad vibe set by our driver, who didn’t want to discuss or look at the location of our hotel on the map. We left our beautiful hotel in Ubud at 11 on a mini-bus for Kintamani, a small town near Mount Batur, the famous volcano. Very quickly, we understood that the driver would drop us where he wanted and nowhere else, and we would have to fend for ourselves. No biggy – we had done this in Java multiple times.

Gunung Batur is a 1717m high volcano in the central mountains of Bali. There is a well-recorded mafia that runs tours to the top of the crater at sunrise every day. Exploring solo is therefore impossible. There are even reports of threats towards people attempting the climb unaccompanied. The tourists that come to the area generally only do so to trek up the volcano and don’t spend the night, which could explain the lack of motivation from locals to make an effort to treat visitors nicely since most come and go in the same day.

After being abandoned in Kintamani by our driver (who didn’t leave without offering to drive us down to the lake for a considerable extra fee), we dodged many street vendors and stopped to take in the view across to Batur and down the lake at the bottom of the crater: priceless! We waited for a local bemo and, after heavy negotiations, got a ride down the road to Danau Batur Lake, into the village of Toya Bungkah.

You can't ask for a much better view!

Vegetable fields and mountains

There, we were welcomed by a serene lakeside setting and verdant vegetable plantations. Our hotel was rightfully called Under the Volcano and seemed lost in the middle of nowhere, as were we! There isn’t much to do around the area, except walk around the lake and take in the scene of locals harvesting their vegetables: chili, tomato, garlic, cabbage… we sure would have some healthy meals in the region! We booked our sunrise trek for the next morning (from very pushy locals who couldn’t quite explain the difference between each price option) and started getting excited about our upcoming adventure!

Fisherman

Village of Toya Bungkah

The alarm rang at 3am for us to get dressed with our warmest clothes. We wore our trekking boots and brought a head-torch and water. At 3:45, we started climbing the steep trail in the forest on ashy roads, changing to crumbling rocks and steep cliffs. Lucky our guide provided a flashlight too, as only one torch between us two would not have been sufficient. It was hard walking on the loose volcanic rocks and climbing to the steep summit, but our training lately made us enjoy the workout rather than struggle. In fact, our guide kept suggesting breaks and we had to ask him to keep going, especially once the sky started turning red – there was no way we would miss the sunrise for a worn-out guide! At that point, we kept taking layers of clothes off and I was thinking I could have gone without the warm sweater, but it quickly changed once we reached the top.

Sunrise on top of Mount Batur

Strong, cold wind blew through me and the shivers started as my skin was damp from the sweat of the two hour climb. After a few too many snaps of the sun rising and our proud faces, we sat in the little shelter to hide from the wind. Our guide gave us breakfast which he cooked in the hot volcanic steam: warm banana sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs! It was much needed fuel for the other half of our journey.

Worth getting up at 3am for!

Unique way of cooking bananas and eggs!

Feeling completely frozen, it was time to start moving again. We first went to explore the steam vents which are used to cook the trekker’s breakfast and warmed ourselves with the steam – bliss! We started our descent, taking the magnificent views of the different craters and volcanic ash remains. The volcano has been quite active since its first eruption in 1917, the latest one being in 2001! Going down was much harder than the climb, especially difficult on our knees. We nearly lost our balance a few times, sliding on the volcanic sand. As the sun slowly came up, warming our bodies, we started enjoying the walk more and appreciating the surroundings. There are a couple of sacred Hindu temples, one nestled in the mountain and another inside a cave which were interesting to see. Another area is populated by Balinese macaques, as cheeky as the ones we saw in Ubud. One even stole my water bottle, pierced it with his teeth, and drank the water from it!

Smiling despite the cold

Monkey either ruining or making the picture!

Although Batur has developed a ‘well-deserved reputation as a money-grubbing place’, we did enjoy our trek very much and the beautiful area around Danau Batur Lake. Some locals were quite friendly and seemed honest enough. We would have stayed a second night but we met fellow travelers who wanted to make the journey up North with us and sharing a taxi was a very sensible option. Around noon after our trek, the six of us squeezed in a Land rover for our journey to Danau Bratan, ascending to the misty mountain countryside of North Bali.