June 1st, 2016

Day 62: Bali – Mt. Batur / Ubud

We set our alarm for a 2AM wake up call, so that we could drive across the island in the middle of the night to climb Mount Batur in time for sunrise. Apparently it’s a thing here. Our driver from the day before agreed to pick us up from our hotel in Tuban and drive us around for the day, get us an English-speaking guide at Batur (guides are mandatory), and admission to the Ubud Monkey Forest for 1,365,000 IDR (USD$100). We probably could have gotten a better deal, but it’s nice to have an English-speaking driver and an air-conditioned car, so we felt satisfied.

We arrived at the mountain very quickly (no traffic in the middle of the night!) and started our climb with our guide, Cynthia, at 3:30AM. The first half of the trek was pretty easy – a flat trail (shared with about 200 other tourists) through farmland with a few ojeks passing by. Once we got to the half-way point, shit got real. It was about an hour, STRAIGHT UP. And the trail was not easy – oh no, this was some jagged-rock don’t-slip-or-you-die trail. Even though the temperature at this elevation was easily in the 60s, we were drenched in sweat and hiking in tank tops until we reached the top. We opted for the second peak lookout in the hopes it would be less crowded. With 200+ people on the mountain, there was no solitude to be found anywhere, but the stadium-style seating benches build at the summit helped everyone get a clear view. As we reached the top at about 4:45AM, we had a good hour to just sit around (while our cold sweat made us freeze) waiting for the sunrise. While there were vendors at the top selling hot coffee and tea, the lack of toilets made us decline.

 

Front-row seat, waiting for the sunrise

 

Batur Lake & Village, and Mount Rinjani on Lombok Island off Bali in the distance

The sunrise was pretty spectacular, especially since wisps of fog kept sweeping through the peaks – each time we get disappointed that the view is obscured, the clouds move and everyone whips out their camera again! After about 100+ new shots on our camera, Cynthia offered to take us around the crater before our descent, rather than heading straight down. Our driver had given us some hard boiled eggs for breakfast, so Cynthia showed us some vents in the volcano’s crater where we could heat up our food. She told us you could also cook raw eggs this way, but we were afraid of cracking the eggs during our ascent (which incidentally we did).

 

The Sun!

Sunrise view of Mount Abang with Mount Agung behind from the second peak of Mount Batur. If you stop at the first peak (right hand corner) you won’t be able to see the second mountain. We also noticed the first peak was often covered in fog, while our view was mostly clear.

 

Daylight reveals some animals at the top! Village dogs and some macaque monkeys looking for breakfast handouts

 

Two very happy trekkers

 

Steam coming out of vents in the crater

 

Our guide, Cynthia, warming up our breakfast

 

Hiking along the narrow crater ridge

 

View of the 1968 lava flow that destroyed the former village of Batur (now moved and rebuilt)

 

Sliding down the steep descent of Mount Batur

 

All the pretty mountain flowers

One thing that really stood out to us was how clean the trail on Mount Batur was – we were warned that Indonesia was going to covered in litter (which true – a lot of it is). But the Mount Batur Guide Collective takes it upon themselves to keep the area clean by designating the first of every month as the official “clean-up day”. Each guide was given a red plastic bag to pick up trash from the trail at the beginning of our hike, and as we headed toward the parking lot, we passed three bemos full of volunteers from the Batur Village on their way up the mountain to collect litter.

 

June 1st – Clean-Up Day on Mt. Batur

On the way back to the city, our driver took us through Ubud where we briefly stopped at the Tegalalang Rice Fields (unfortunately, not the season to be filled with water), then on to the main street to soak in the local atmosphere. Sure, it’s cuter than Kuta, but it’s still a busy street full of shops and taxi drivers constantly asking where you going. Everyone seems to stay in Ubud when they visit Bali, but the faux-hippi commercialism just doesn’t speak to us.

Tegalalong Rice Fields, ready for harvest

 

Walking through main street Ubud

 

A quiet side-street in Ubud

Our final stop was not on our original itinerary as Igor was afraid it would be a tourist trap. The Monkey Forest in Ubud is a tourist trap, but it’s a delightful one! Once again I must state: we love petting zoos. Any attraction that lets us interact with animals is time well spent. We spent a good two hours walking through the extensive grounds, fed bananas to the monkeys, and took a bazillion pictures.

 

An awesome visit to the Monkey Forest in Ubud

 

So many cute faces…and large genitalia (guess which one of us took that picture)

  

Even without the monkeys this place was cool – the giant fig tree and stone bridge were breathtaking

 

Buying bananas to feed the (greedy) monkeys – that 50,000 IDR went fast!

  

Igor trying to ration his second bunch of bananas after monkeys stole the first. Gone in 60 seconds.

On way out of the forest, we passed through a path that was less crowded with tourists. The monkeys in this park of the park didn’t even need bananas as a bribe to jump on us – they were just plain curious!

 

Who’s on my back? Oh, a monkey.

 

Monkeys looking for stuff to steal – luckily we read the warning at the entrance and made sure all water bottles, snack bars, sunscreen, etc. were safely zipped inside the backpack.

 

A little monkey with a couple of boots

We got back to Kuta around 1PM – given the early start we already felt we had a full day, so we relaxed in the AC and took advantage of the respectably fast internet. Around sunset, we headed off to the Kuta beach boardwalk to have dinner at the Boardwalk Restaurant, which had pretty good reviews on TripAdvisor. Turns out someone was having a wedding reception in the restaurant, but it was still open to diners, so we had a lovely dinner (good reviews are well-deserved), and even got to watch the fire dance performance booked for the wedding party.

 

Semi-wedding crashing at the Boardwalk Restaurant in Bali