gunung rinjani

When I arrived in senggigi, I thought I’d be staying two nights, so that’s what i paid for at my hotel…it turned out that I signed up for a rinjani trek starting the next morning, so I arranged with the lady at the hotel for my payment to cover the night I came back from the trek…she also said she’d put some fruit in the fridge for me to grab in the morning, since breakfast isn’t served that early…YAY!!

0500 pickup…ugh…I wasn’t thrilled about that, to say the least…to make sure I was ready to go, I had my alarm set for 0400…I wasn’t going to be taking everything with me on the trek, so I needed a bit of time to separate things, and I never move fast at that hour, though I do function…the taxi (I was surprised it was a taxi) picked up another trekker just down the road, a British student named Richard…then it took us two hours to a village called senaru…senaru is where all the trekking companies have their offices, and it’s always the starting or ending point of treks up and down the volcano…

Richard and I had arranged to start our trek in a village called sembalun, off the western edge of the volcano…after leaving stuff behind, a ute took us to sembalun with our guide and porter, where we got our official national park entry tickets, and signed the book saying that we were trekking…(safety, I guess?)…this was when I found out Richard was only 20 years old!! He’s in Lombok and Bali for a couple weeks with his mom…then she goes back to the UK, and he travels overland up to Mongolia…

The first bit of the trek was through flattish ground…always aiming up a little, but nothing strenuous…everyone was sweating because the sun was behind us and quite strong, but it wasn’t hard…yet…we broke for lunch not long after the trail got steeper…it was still an easy path, just a bit more steep…I wondered why we needed a guide, because there seemed to be just one path, it wasn’t as if we could get lost…lunch was basically ramyeon, with rice as well…and pineapple and tea…most trekking companies break for meals at the same places along the trail, so we met several others who were doing the trek in the same direction we were walking…one American geologist couple who live on Sumatra, a Swedish/French couple…

After lunch we kept going, for another hour or so before taking a break…this was where the ground got steep, there were lots of roots and rocks to watch out for, climb over, etc…our guide told us it would be another three hours to the top…by that point we were all feeling it a bit, and well aware we’d be knackered when we got to the top…when the guide said three hours, I gave myself four hours in my head, as I know I’m slower than most trekkers…slow, but steady…I don’t like taking breaks, and apparently my guide and Richard did…at one point I stopped taking the breaks with them, I just kept going…I wanted to get to the top, and I knew that every time we stopped it got harder for me…it was hard going, and I wanted to be finished for the day…after not too long, we hiked into the clouds…clouds have a strange way of completely muffling sound, I couldn’t hear anything but my footsteps…

Surprisingly, three hours later I did get to the top…the crater rim, that is…I guess all the break taking slowed others down, though they were faster hikers than I was…just before reaching the top I broke through the clouds, so I could see where I was going, and I could see the peak we’d be going for the next morning…what I couldn’t see was anything down either side of the crater…I knew there was a lake in the crater, but I couldn’t see it at all…not surprisingly, our porter made it up before we did…I don’t know how they do it, carrying everything, and only wearing jandals…he had both of the tents set up, and had water heating to make tea…not only does everyone break for meals at the same place, just about everyone camps in the same area…some tents were definitely nicer than others…lol…people who’d signed up for the luxury treks had little stools on which to sit, the rest of us sat on the ground when we weren’t in our tents…I was rather surprised at the amount of trash on the ground, I guess porters don’t clean up all that well, which is really disappointing…that, and they use trees to make fires, instead of bringing stoves…I get the impression that environmentally, the ways the treks are being done right now won’t be sustainable for much longer…

About 45 minutes later Richard made it up, I was sitting in our tent, writing a letter…just as he got there, our porter brought us tea…yum…about an hour after that, dinner was served…fried rice with a fried egg on top…and a giant prawn cracker…and a piece of fried chicken…normally I like prawn crackers, but this one seemed particularly fishy tasting, so I only had a couple bites…and I’m not big on nasi goring (fried rice) so I only ate about half of that…Richard and I went to be almost as soon as we were done eating, I think most people did so as well…we knew we had to get up early (REALLY early,) and the hike had worn people out…plus, there was no view to enjoy, with the clouds covering everything…

0230 came pretty early…that’s when our guide woke us with tea (and coffee for Richard)…that and a few crackers was our predawn snack…at 0307, we were on our way…up…up…up…the idea was to go for the peak of the crater rim, which is at 3724m I think…3700m+, and I earned every one of them…almost from the beginning of this part of the trek, the path was made of soft sand/dirt/scree…there weren’t many strong footholds, so it took a lot more effort to make forward progress…plus, it was pitch black…I had my head torch so I could see where to put my feet, but I didn’t have any sense of where I was…challenging, to say the least…I had no idea where my guide was, again…somewhere in front of me, until he was taking a break and I kept going…I kept going slowly and steadily until I got to a really windy spot…REALLY WINDY…the kind of wind where you have to turn your head to the side, because you can’t see (if it was light anywho) or breath properly…the path was really challenging the entire way…I briefly stopped behind a rock, along with about 15 others…the rock blocked the wind very nicely, you didn’t notice how strong it was until you stood up again…I think people were waiting out the wind, or maybe waiting for sunrise…either way, I didn’t want to keep waiting…I knew the distance left wasn’t great, but it was only going to get harder, so I stepped into the wind, and started moving forward again…

Not long after that rock, the going got really really hard…I have no idea what distance I had left, but the path changed again, into even less sturdy stuff…the rocks were completely loose, there was no traction whatsoeva…combine that with the vertical aspect, and quite a few times I was essentially on a natural treadmill…taking steps, but not making any forward progress at all…at all…so frustrating…plus, the wind was still going strong, so I couldn’t stand up straight…each time I picked up my head to see where I needed to go (by this point the sun was starting to come up, I could see shadows) the wind would catch me and push me a bit…which wasn’t good, considering the path was fairly thin, and it would’ve been easy to fall over either side of the crater…I cried more than once, when I wasn’t making any progress…sometimes the wind got so strong I was sliding down the path without picking up my head at all…I was so unhappy…eventually, I made it…four hours after starting the hike, I made it to the peak…a ray of light shown on the peak, which was quite nice…the view from the peak wasn’t any better than what  I’d seen on the way up…I did it, and that’s about all I can say…it wasn’t worth the physical pain, the mental stress, or the views…it turned out that because of the crazy wind, not many people made it to the top…only 7 of us…no guides…I was number 4…a lot of people got to the rock I mentioned earlier, or just a bit farther before turning around, including Richard…about the only reason I made it to the top was because I didn’t want to say I didn’t make it…that’s a terrible way to find motivation, but that’s how it worked for me…

The way back down hurt…as tired as my legs were from going up, they weren’t ready for going down…the soft stuff was fun to go down, there was almost no impact…with each step I’d land on my heel, and sortof slide a bit…a few times my legs kindof gave out on me, so I fell/sat…surprisingly, my guide was waiting for me behind the rock, and came back down to camp with me…given how weak my legs felt at that point, it was probably a good thing he was there…the hardest point was right before reaching camp, as there were a number of actual steps down, and my legs weren’t supporting me very well…lots of falling on my arse…I was so tired…

Breakfast was tea again, (I only dumped 8lbs of sugar into itJ) and banana pancakes…sooo good…lots of sugar, which I sorely needed…after eating, I dumped out my shoes…there was an amazing amount of dirt/sand in them…I tried wiping off my backpack and coat, but that didn’t do much…I used two wet tissues to wipe off my face, they were both black when I was done with them…and I knew I had dirt in my nose…my nose always runs when I’m going up steeply, and all the wind had added a bunch of dirt…I had dirt coming out of my nose for the next two days!...

About 45 minutes later, we packed up, and started making our way down into the crater…my legs were not enjoying this down, it wasn’t s smooth path…every foot had to be placed, and it was a constant game of picking out the easiest way…and none of it was easy…my quads were screaming with every step down…after a little over an hour, the path evened out a bit…it was still going down, but not so steeply, and it was more of a dirt path, not rocks and roots everywhere…

Two hours and fifteen minutes total after breakfast, we got to the lake at the bottom of the crater…it felt like a lot longer than that, but that’s what my watch told me…the flatter parts of the path were surprisingly easy for me, but the steep, step picking parts were really hard…our guide showed us where we’d be eating lunch, then took us to some hot springs…the springs are right next to a lovely waterfall…the locals have built different pools, all of them rather small…people sit in them for as long as they like…Richard put on his togs, and hopped in…I had a bikini with me, but wasn’t completely comfortable putting that on, so I just stuck my feet in the hottest pool…it felt wonderful…putting my shoes and socks back on afterward didn’t feel so wonderful…

Lunch was the same as the day before, and I gobbled it up…

Our afternoon hike started along the edge of the lake, which was really nice…there is very little shoreline in some places between the lake and the crater wall going up…lots of locals fishing…In an area with more space between the lake and the crater wall, I saw a few fish being cooked over a fire…it looked sooo good…my guide said that the fish are sometimes sold to trekkers…too bad, we didn’t get any fish…eventually the guide started us on a path up…just like the second half of the day before…up…up…up…climbing up roots and rocks, very little flat area…lots of step picking…lots of using my hands as balance on various rocks…it would’ve been hard to begin with, but combined with what I’d done earlier in the day, and the day before made it even more difficult…fortunately, the guide had figured out that I go slowly, and steadily…he only took a couple breaks, during which I drank a whole lot of water…we never went fast, so my breathing never got crazy…more than once I hoped for a magic fairy to come and fly me to the top…thankfully, there were lots of great views over the lake, and the little volcano in the middle…

Two and a half hours later, we got back up to the crater rim…our camping spot was right on the edge of the rim…there was room for just two tents, and two more tents about 10m away…I didn’t know where others were camping, but it felt a lot more private this evening…dinner was again served at 1800, again preceeded by tea…and again Richard and I went to sleep almost as soon as we were done with eating…10.5 hours of hiking in one day…very little of it was “easy”…

Our third day was the easiest, but that’s just a relative term…we did get to sleep in, all the way to 0630…I could hear the guide and porter moving around at 0600…after breakfast, (banana pancakes and a sandwich made with white bread – the crusts were cut off) we started making our way down around 0730…the first two hours and some were steep…lots of steep, step picking…going over and around roots and rocks…where as my legs had been really tired, and not functioning so well the day before, they hadn’t been too painful…this third day every step hurt, and my feet hated me…I wonder if I’ll lose any toenails…after a couple hours of this steep stuff, we got a few patches of smoother trail, which felt like heaven…still going down, but I didn’t have to worry so much about falling down a mountain…

We passed numerous porters, guides and trekkers going the other way, and I was glad I wasn’t them…we stopped a couple times for water, and once for the last pineapple the porter was carrying…good, and I wasn’t keen to eat a full lunch anywho…

About 5 hours after starting, we got to the end of the trek…a van picked us up and took us back to where I’d left the rest of my stuff…then it took us back to senggigi…I’m amazed Richard could stand to be in the same van with me, I know I smelled disgusting…layers of sweat and dirt…yuck…he had a flight to catch that night with his mom to Bali…thankfully I didn’t have much to do, I didn’t need to worry about reorganizing my stuff so fast…

A shower has rarely felt that good!

back in indo...again

After a day and a half in kuta, I went back to amed for a couple days…it was really nice to pull into the place I’d stayed before, they recognized me and had huge smiles on their faces…the family is so nice…and they remembered what I wanted for dinner each night, including my love of their banana milkshakes…hee hee…

The second day in amed I drove around the peninsula, there are some great views…sometimes the road is great, sometimes not so much…lots of people on the streets said hello as I drove past, it was fun…I kept stopping to take photos, it’s all so beautiful…most of those stops were after nearly driving off the road after being distracted by the views…whoops…the map shows one road that goes around the peninsula, it seemed pretty easy, but of course there were plenty of places to make turns, and sometimes I had to guess where I should go…

I was aiming for a place called taman ujung…the water palace…it was labeled on the big road map I had of Bali, and labeled on the map in the guidebook, though there was no description given in the guidebook…I hate it when they put things on a map then don’t describe them…at some point I saw a postcard with this palace, and figured I might as well see what it was…

Eventually, I got there, though I drove by the carpark and had to turn around…it goes into the priciest attractions category, but I was still under budget for the day so I didn’t care much…upon entering, you can see the entire thing, there are no hidden areas to explore…but it’s full of water, and I love water, so I was happy…plus, it didn’t seem to be too crowded when I got there…(crowded in east Bali has a very different definition than crowded in south Bali)…the English on the brochure leaves something to desire, so I’ll try to translate what it says…in other words, I’m not sure about the accuracy of my information…

I think it says it was built by one of the final kings of the kingdom of karangasem…I think it was built just after his coronation in 1919…his name and title is ridiculously long, how does anyone remember? Ida Anak Agung Anglurah Agung Ketut Karangasem.  I wonder what he was called on a daily basis…if I had to use that entire name for someone I probably wouldn’t speak to them unless absolutely necessary!

My favourite part of the visit was watching the wedding photo session of a temple near the main gate…(which is not the gate through which visitors now enter the palace area)…a security guard told me the couple had come from Sumatra, so I’m guessing they had money…the photographer or his assistant was from Taiwan…she was quite pretty, and I liked her dress, the photos probably looked pretty awesome…there was a makeup chic there as well, who kept sponging the sweat off the bride’s face…I wonder how many places they had photos taken that day…and how many photos were taken in total…during a break I took a photos from that gate, trying to get panoramic shots of the entire palace area…who knows how well it worked…

I spent the afternoon on the beach…shocking, I know…

The next day I drove to padangbai…it’s not a place most people spend any time…there are two or three beaches, all quite small…and the waves are crazy…they’re not swimming beaches, and if the tide is up, there is little to no space to catch some rays…I laid out for a little while, watching the waves the whole time…normally I like to get in the water while I’m laying out, but the waves were big enough that I didn’t think that would be a good idea…not surprisingly, I also went to check out the temples in town…my favourite was a small one built into the side of a cliff…I was more fascinated to look out at the waves crashing into the cliff than I was to see the temple itself…sometimes the waves crashed into each other, which made for nice sprays of water…soooo pretty…I probably stood there for 30 minutes, just watching the water…awesome…

Padangbai is mainly the port for ferries going between Lombok and Bali, which go hourly, round the clock…these ferries take four hours or so, and go to a town called lembar…you can also catch fast boats which go directly to the gili islands, which are probably the most popular parts of Lombok to visit…howeva, those fast boats are a whole lot more expensive…and on the gilis, you’re not allowed to have motorbikes…I wanted to see more of Lombok than just the gilis, so I opted for the slower ferry, with my motorbike…as I was pulling into the ferry terminal the police officer waved me over and asked to see my license…

In Indonesia you’re not supposed to drive unless you have an international license…they’re not difficult to get in your home town, but I haven’t been in my hometown in over a year…and even if I’d gotten one before I left the states, it would’ve been expired by now, as they’re only good for a year…I knew this when I rented the motorbike, but it’s not an unusual situation…the people renting motorbikes don’t really care if you have the international license or not…the officer said that when Indonesians don’t have their license while driving, the bike is kept until they can produce the license…I said that would be a problem because my license was with my friend…(I wasn’t about to admit that I didn’t have the license, although I’m sure he figured that out)…then I asked what needed to be done, knowing full well the answer I was going to get…

My first official bribe!! I knew that’s what was coming, and I was asked for less than I expected…only 50,000 rupiah, about $6. Not bad, eh?? I was expecting three times that, so I was pretty happy…he let me go and I went on to get my ferry ticket…I was happy to see that he was checking licenses of locals as well, though I was obviously the only one who didn’t have what I was supposed to have…whoops…

Getting on the ferry was easy…I parked and took my stuff up to an upper deck…about 45 minutes later the ferry left…the ride was smooth, I was thankful…I’m sure at times there must be crazy waves, and since I get seasick pretty easily I was thankful the waves weren’t really around…at least, not this time…almost 5 hours later everyone disembarked in lembar…I had been worried about driving through town, and being able to find the main road out of town…but that wasn’t a problem either, there was plenty of signage…

I drove straight to the town of senggigi…along the way I passed a bunch of mosques…when you’re in Bali it’s easy to forget that Indonesia is the world’s most populated Islamic country, as Bali has remained Hindu…Lombok is definitely Muslim…I love the way mosques have so much variety…

there are a couple beaches in senggigi, though I arrived too late in the day for any sun worshipping…I checked email, since I hadn’t done so in padangbai, and found a job offer…yippee!!! To get the visa I need to send them scans of all the pages in my passport with stamps…hmmm…that’s a fair number of pages…it’s really really nice to have the job search stress over with…(not that I’m going to say where the job is until I get there and start working)

I also found a place that seemed decent for treks up and down gunung rinjani…a big volcano with a lake in the crater…you’re not allowed to trek independently, (not that I have the equipment to do so) so I needed to find a place to sign up for a trek…I signed up for a 3 day/2 night trek…if we trek as long as they say each day, it’ll actually be a fair number of hours of trekking…it’s expensive I guess, but we’ll have a guide, and a porter carrying the stuff like tents, stove, food, etc…plus they pick me up, and will bring me back afterward…

I also checked out a temple…it’s quite small, but offers great views of the sunset…when I got there, a lot of locals were there, worshipping…I didn’t get very close to the altar because that would’ve involved stepping over a lot of people, and I’m not so comfortable doing that…plus, I doubt the altar was much different from anything I’ve already seen in Indonesia…   the temple is on a cliff, right next to a beach…after looking at the temple, I watched local kids playing soccer on the beach…so cute…especially when one kid tried to kick the ball and ended up rolling over it, if that makes any sense…

Dinner was at a road side stand, and I got a local price…yippee!! (it should say something about how rarely that happens that I mention it)…and I got ice creams on the way back to the hotel…yes, I said ice creams…I figured I’d be burning plenty of calories over the next three days…

Again, I woke up early, so I could be ready for the 0500 pickup…ugh…

renewing my visa

After three lovely days in amed, I drove back to kuta…I needed a lot of time on the internet, and I needed a connection where I could have skype conversations…and I needed access to a scanner…as much as I love amed, it’s not the greatest when it comes to internet…I wasn’t thrilled to be back in kuta, especially after amed…kuta is obnoxious, it’s only redeeming factor is a giant beach…

Sometime very recently, Indonesia has changed it’s immigration laws so that visitors can extend a tourist visa without leaving the country…in the past they were pretty strict, and you pretty much had to leave the country and come back if you wanted to stay longer…the extension process takes a few days though, and I completely forgot about  it until I didn’t have time to do it anymore…so I booked a round trip to KL (kuala lumpur)…easy enough I suppose…my flight out was at 0600, which meant waking up at 0400 and walking out the door around 0415…yippee…I didn’t get much sleep the night before, only about 3 hours…and I woke up before my alarm, at 0340…I was a bit anxious about finding a cab at that hour, but it wasn’t difficult at all…the flight took off on time…

The awesome part of the flight was looking out the window on the other side of the plane as we took off…it was sunrise, and I could see the amazing colours of the sky behind the volcanoes I’d already visited on this trip…pretty cool to see a red, orange, purple, etc, sky, and the dark profile of the volcanoes in front…AWESOME…

Landing in KL was easy…I’ve been in that airport quite a few times…it’s the terminal they call LCCT (low cost carrier terminal…basically totally for the use of air asia) which is nowhere near the terminal for the “regular” airlines…the bus into the city is easy, and cheap, and I knew where I wanted to go…straight to Chinatown…I chose a hostel layna had stayed at when she went through KL, mainly because it had free wifi connection…I wasn’t in KL to see the sights, I’ve already done that…

I did leave the room, though not a whole lot…a trip to the supermarket got me oatmeal, two packets of looseleaf paper, (narrow ruled of course, that way I can fit more writing on each page) tea, and Tupperware…a random assortment, I know…I ended up eating dinner at a random street stall, it was awesome…eating with my hands, just like everyone else there, though they did give me silverware…and it was really cute to see the daughter of the lady tell her mom what the price was for me in English…the second day in KL I went to the post office…in addition to getting another visa to Indonesia, the post office in Malaysia was my other big goal…mail in Malaysia is sooooo much cheaper than bali…if I’m doing my math correctly, it’s about 17cents to mail a postcard in Malaysia…in bali it’s about $1.30…when you mail as many postcards as I do, that adds up, really fast!!

My second day in KL, I walked, just for the sake of walking…first I went to a temple I hadn’t seen before…a hindu temple, it was being renovated each time I went through KL a couple years ago…as with most hindu temples, it was really bright and colourful…I loved it…perhaps the best part of the visit was a guy telling me the story behind one of the pictures at which I was looking…it was really nice to talk to someone w/out wondering when I was going to be asked to sign up for a tour, or asked for a donation…I’m so used to that sort of conversation that I’ve realized I don’t talk to many locals like I should…I kept walking, through a market, and little india…

I headed toward the petronas towers, which were the tallest in the world (I think) when they were built…not so much anymore…the first time in KL I queued up really early one morning to get tickets to go up and see the view from the walkway connecting the two towers…it’s not that great, and I didn’t need to repeat that experience…though it is free, which is a rarity when it comes to going up big tall buildings for the views…I figured I could wander around the mall that takes up the bottom 5 floors of the towers…i recognized the streets I started out on, but for whateva reason, they didn’t connect the way I remembered, and somehow I ended up on a highway that runs through town…whoops!! Fortunately, there was a small sidewalk, so I wasn’t walking on the highway itself…close enough…I got quite a few honks from cars driving past, I’m sure they’re not used to seeing anyone walking in that area…the highway took me right past the towers, but there was an exit just after, and I knew that particular bunch of streets…so I did get to the towers, it just took a bit of a detour…lol…

Shopping was fun, though more for the people watching experience than the shopping itself…I find I’m not keen to buy things like clothes when I’m traveling…I don’t need them…and I don’t really have room for them…it’s hard to get excited about much of anything when you don’t even know when you’ll have a job again, or where…buying clothes, then shipping them back to IN isn’t much fun…the aircon in the mall was nice too…the weather is the same as bali, but because it’s a city, with no beach it doesn’t feel so great…walking back to the hostel I was on roads I knew, and got back easily…without any detours…

A quick bus to the airport the next morning…(there is little to no traffic at 0700 on a Sunday morning)…the flight back to bali was smooth, and I was thrilled to see a volcano poking it’s crater up through the clouds at one point…this time I did get a photo…

bali:amed

The drive from the batur area to amed was my longest drive yet…just over three hours…down the mountain on twisty, curvy roads, that were sometimes pretty steep…locals go zipping down those roads at speeds that would terrify me…I suppose if I knew the roads I’d be going a bit faster, but still…then along the coast with glimpses of the water peeking through trees from time to time…on the mountain I was cold…driving through a cloud and winds, I got so cold my teeth started chattering, and my body shaking…and I knew I had to keep going because the only way to warm up was to get down…amed is an area on the east coast of bali…it has only recently begun to develop, but it’s still nothing near the level of kuta/legian/seminyak…the sand is black, the beaches narrow, the water super clear…I’m glad it isn’t as developed, but it won’t stay this way for long…there is a lot of building going on, locals have realized the income possible if tourists come in larger numbers…

I found a place for a reasonable price…it’s smaller than my room in batur, but cheaper…and toilet paper and a towel are provided! After relaxing and settling in, I headed across the street to the beach…I followed a small path, and found the beach…NO ONE ELSE TO BE SEEN…that’s even better than the amazing west coast beaches in new Zealand…I did see and hear a couple goats, but that was it…the sand is black, the waves calm, the water the perfect temperature…I WAS THE ONLY PERSON ON THE BEACH!! At some point a jogger ran by me, and a lady walked past twice as she walked along the beach…but that was it…awesome…

Dinner that night was barracuda in some kind of sauce, with veggies and rice…and one of the best banana milkshakes I’ve ever had…followed by a two hour walk, again it seemed that every guy along the road wanted to offer me transport, diving tomorrow, etc…annoying, but I liked the walk anywho…

The next day about the only thing I did was go to the beach…and eat the same dinner…with two banana milkshakes this timeJ

The third day I got up a little earlier and after breakfast, hopped on the motorbike and drove to a place called tirta ganga…also called the water palace…the guy who built it was really into water, so there are pools all over the place…not surprisingly, after I parked (there was no parking fee, yippee!!) someone tried to attach themselves to me as a guide…I had to be direct, and tell him I wasn’t going to pay him anything…he said he just wanted to tell me some information, but I knew that if I let him continue walking with me he’d demand a “donation” when I left…I enjoy the beauty of places more than anything…I love history and culture too, but with all the temples and such I’ve seen here, I know there is no way I’d be able to keep things straight if I had a guide everywhere…

When I tried to pay the entrance fee (which was only for foreigners, there was no fee for locals) they didn’t have change for me…they told me to come back after I was finished and pay then…gotta love the honour system…I could’ve left w/out paying anything at all, but that would’ve been bad…I enjoyed walking around the area, though I’m not sure where the temple part was…there were stepping stones across one of the pools, and statues, so photos were fun…i’m glad I got there early, as about the time I left a lot more people were arriving…

on the way home i stopped a bunch of different times to take photos of the rice paddies i was seeting everywhere...they were amazing...so beautiful...at one point i got a bit distracted by the photo i was trying to take, and forgot to look at where my feet were...oops...i took a step forward, and before i knew it, was in a rice paddie...whoops...i'd taken a step when a step wasn't there...fortunately, the fall was only a couple feet, and there wasn't anything stick or rock like in the area where i fell...i laughed at myself, and was somewhat embarassed when i got back to my room with mud all over...the camera didn't get wet at all, and that was my first concern...lol...obviously, i had to wash off the seat and foot area of my bike...i have a gazillion photos of rice terraces, so i didn't need to be taking anymore, but there is just something about them that's so beautiful...

After the “temple” it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what I did with the rest of my day…go to the beach of course…followed by the same dinner and drink, and another walk…life is good…

bali:batur

As usual, the drive didn’t take as long as I expected…it ended up being about two and a half hours from lovina to toya bungkah…most of it involved driving up, or along mountain ridges…since I was going toward the middle of the island, and up, I was cold…even though it was sunny…when I got to penelokan, and was able to look out over danau batur (lake batur) and gunung batur (batur volcano) the view was fantastic…a blue, half moon shaped lake next to a volcano with at least two craters to be seen…

Toya bungkah is the starting point for most treks up batur…I didn’t really care to do the trek, I just liked being close to the volcano…and from what I’ve read and seen, there is a LOT of hassle when it comes to trekking in this area…there is one group (the name of which I don’t remember off the top of my head) that has a monopoly on guides for this climb…and  you have to take a guide when you go up the volcano, and it isn’t cheap…I do want to climb up a volcano in Indonesia, just not this one…this area is visited by day trippers from ubud quite a bit I think…

From the porch of my ridiculously HUGE room, with a king size bed, I look out over the lake…beautiful…

After checking in, I got back on my bike and started driving toward the town of tampaksiring…it’s halfway between toya bungkah and ubud…just north of tampaksiring were a couple temples I wanted to see…the first was called tirta empul…it’s one of the most important pilgrimage temples for the Balinese…the temple is situated right next to natural springs…people come and bath in the springs (a couple man made “pools” allow this) then visit the temple…the springs are outside, so everyone bathing is wearing a sarong, and it’s coed…there are spouts all along one edge, and people queue up in front of each one…it’s neat to see…there is even a little locker roomJ…the entrance fee for this temple has more than doubled since lonely planet did it’s research, booo…there is a holy pool (you’re not allowed to get into this one) in the temple itself, if you look at the right spot in the pool you can see water coming up into the pool…the temple itself is otherwise just like so many other temples I’ve seen on bali…just up the hill from the temple is the presidential palace, built by sukharno, (sp?) indonesia’s first president…despite him not being the best of guys, the palace is still used when high muckymucks from other countries visit…getting from the temple back out to the carpark involves going past a gbillion souvenir stalls, which is just plain annoying…

The second temple was called gunung kawi…it’s a candi, meaning there are different groups of altars within the temple complex…and the complex is spread over a small valley…the entrance fee for this one is also more than double what is in the guidebook…I wonder when the prices went up, and how much they were previously…since tampaksiring is relatively close to ubud, I wonder if it’s the eat, pray love factor…argh…and you have to pay for parking at this place too…argh…anywho, to get started, you walk down a whole bunch of steps, past a lot of souvenir stalls…I ignored the ladies telling me to just look, and thought about the fact that I’d have to come back up these steps to get back to my bike…exercise is good, right? What makes this temple unique is that much of it is carved into rock faces…awesome…it was fun wandering all over, hoping I’d seen all the different groupings…a lot of the holes in the rock no longer have anything in them, but they’re still neat to see…there were also some lovely views over rice paddies…coming back up the steps I was breathing hard and dripping sweat…eww…

On the way back to the lake I stopped at a roadside warung, and was actually charged the local price for lunch…woo hoo!! Not only did I get my plate of food, but I got a cup of soup and a glass of water…yay for yummy surprises! The not so good surprise on approaching the lake: having to pay a fee to enter the “tourist area” of gunung batur…nevermind that I’d already been in the area (I didn’t have to pay a fee earlier since I’d come from the other side) and I’m not just checking it out for the day…this is the first fee of that kind I’ve had to pay, and I don’t like it…

The rest of the day I spent camped out on my porch, looking out at the lake and reading…it was rather windy, so I was cold as, with chicken skin…but totally worth it…

My second day in the batur area dawned (yes, I was awake when the sun first came up) not nearly as beautifully…there was a rain cloud hanging over the mountain on the other side of the lake, and as I looked, much of gunung batur was covered as well…a good thing I hadn’t arranged for a trek of any kind, I wouldn’t have been able to see diddly squat…I sat around for a while, working on postcards and writing part of a couple letters, and having banana pancakes for breakfast…

Eventually I got on my bike and started driving up to the crater rim…driving through the clouds…not fun…at all…it wasn’t raining, but it was spitting, and my clothing was definitely not water resistant…there was an unmarked turn as I got to the top of the crater, thankfully someone was around so I could ask which way I needed to go…I was headed in the direction of pura besakih…another temple…this one translates to mother temple…it’s on the most holy mountain in bali, gunung agung…for whateva reason, gunung batur is a lot more popular for climbing…I’m guessing the view is probably better, or something like that…but you can climb agung, and from what I understand, it’s a lot less hassle…

Pura besakih is huge…it isn’t just one temple, it’s actually 22 interconnected temples…in terms of tourism though, it’s not much fun…it seemed like every local there was out to make money from the temple, and I didn’t like that…the entrance fee was the highest I’ve paid yet…at least I didn’t have to pay more for parking or a camera…I had a sarong, but was forced to rent a sash…I don’t think it was absolutely necessary, as I saw quite a few people w/ only a sarong, but they weren’t about to let me get away w/out spending something…

Then, at the counter where they were supposed to check my ticket, the guy took my ticket and set it aside…I reached and took it back…then he pushed a book at me and wanted me to sign…when I asked what it was for, he said it was the names of people who had visited, where they were from, and how much they’d donated…I signed, but left the donation space blank…after all, I’d just paid a large entrance fee…the guy didn’t like that, and said I had to donate, because the entrance fee goes to the government…I don’t know who gets the entrance fee, but some of the numbers I saw in that book were pretty large…sorry, but I have no desire to “donate” 5x (or even 20x!!!) the entrance fee…the guy tried to say that I had to give, that I had to have a local guide with me because there was a ceremony in the temple, and I couldn’t go by myself…

I already knew that if there was a real ceremony, the temple would be completely closed to visitors, and I wouldn’t be able to walk around at all, so that line was a lie…and they are temples, so locals are going to be praying at various times as I’m walking through…in that sense, these temples are like a giant church, when someone is sitting in a pew with their head down…I went back and forth with the guy, knowing that I didn’t have to have a guide, and him trying to tell me that I did, all the while a woman was trying to rent me an umbrella…the guy said people wouldn’t let me in if I was by myself, and I told him that if that happened, I’d come back…but of course it didn’t…and I didn’t rent the umbrella…I REALLY don’t like it when people lie about religious things…it taints what I’m seeing, if that makes any sense…even though I managed to get away from them w/out “donating” I still had to say no to every man I walked by on the way to the entrance of the area…

Finally I got to the entrance of the area…the temples go up the side of the mountain, I wasn’t exactly sure where to go…so I followed my eyes…if it looked to be of interest, I walked in that direction…in the end, there was only one temple I wanted to see that I wasn’t allowed to see…the guy outside that temple said I could take a photo from outside, but not inside…okay…keep in mind that none of these temples have roofs…they’re all outdoors…so with the crappy weather, all the normal colours of decorations weren’t as fun…I wonder how often they replace all those decorations? The only negative to wandering around were the two girls at the very top temple, one of whom kept bugging me to switch sarongs with her…I must’ve said no 10 times…continuing to hassle me does NOT make me likely to buy what you’re selling, or to do what you want…I wandered around the temples for an hour or two, and I would’ve stayed longer if the weather had been better…

On the way back, more ladies on the road tried to get me to stop for another blessing…argh…does it ever end? I got back to my hotel, and again camped out on the front porch…a bit before dark I went for a walk, just to use my legs since all I’d done was sit during the day…(except for wandering around the temples, but that wasn’t much)…as I was walking back from that nearly every guy on a motorbike stopped to offer transport…or trekking the next day…one guy even offered a free massage…now that was totally creeptastic…yuck…even though I liked the place I stayed, and the views of the lake/mountain, that was all I liked about the area…the rest of it was too much hassle, and I wouldn’t recommend it…

north coast of bali

It took me less than an hour to drive from munduk to an area called lovina…I don’t know why it’s called lovina, it’s actually a series of four villages on the north coast of bali…I stayed in kaliasem…I’d looked in the guidebook to see what type of accommodation I could expect to find, and I went for the cheapest listed…for the first time I can ever recall, the price listed in the book was the same price I paid…amazing…I was expecting it to have gone up a dollar or two, but I’m definitely not complaining…the room is as nice as what I had in munduk, and I’m paying a whole lot less…less than half, actually…and it still includes breakfast…what it does not include though, is hot water, a towel, or toilet paper…fortunately, I have something I can use as a towel, and I have toilet paper…(never ever travel in asia w/out toilet paper)…I wasn’t expecting to get here so fast, but as I continually learn, distances in bali just aren’t that big…

Lovina is a beach area…the beach is black sand, and fairly narrow…it’s not stunningly beautiful, but I still like it…(you’ll be hardpressed to find a beach I don’t like)…kalibukbuk is the main village of the bunch, that’s where most of the accommodation and food is found…how you know which village you’re in is beyond me, I never did find blank space in between the villages…anywho…before heading to the beach I went for a walk around the area, to get my bearings and see what I could see…not much…the area is just like kuta, only far less crazy, and far less crowded…there are touts on the beach, though far fewer of them…(far fewer people in general, which I love)…spas, shops, restaurants, accommodation…not much else…and just like kuta, I was able to ignore everything except the beach…

The first day I relaxed in my room, then went to the beach…then checked internet, then went home, then went to dinner…nothing terribly exciting…the next day I got up and had breakfast on the porch in front of my room…tea and a sandwich with fried eggs and tomatoes…when breakfast is included in the price it’s always interesting to see what breakfast is…then I hopped on my bike, and drove through the nearby town of singaraja…it’s the biggest town on the north coast, but there isn’t any real reason for tourists to go there…out the eastern side of town are a couple temples, and another one even farther east…even though I was expecting more of the same temples I’ve already seen, they still fascinate me…I’m weird, I know…

The first temple was the best of the three…soooo much carving…most temples in bali have a lot of carving, especially on the main entrance…but this one had a lot more…including human faces, not just the scary faces I’m used to…the shape of the temple was different as well, though I’d be hard pressed to explain how…it just was…to get to the second temple, I walked along a narrow path next to the first, and over a bridge, onto the next road over…about 200m up the road I could see the second temple…what I couldn’t do was go in this temple…all the gates were closed…argh…but I could still see some carvings on the outside, as well as tell that this temple was quite small…an informative local searching for snails in the rice paddies (to feed his lobsters, if I understood correctly) told me that this temple had all the carvings depicting where you go when you’re dead…hmmm…the way he said it was pretty humourous, I guess you had to be there…

The third temple involved more driving…as I was on my way there, I realized I was running really low on petrol…really really low…and then I saw a petrol station…phew…I pulled in, only to realize that it wasn’t open…eeek…so I kept driving, hoping I’d see another one soon…but I got to the next temple before I saw another petrol station…I parked, put on my sarong, and gave a donation…the guy was rather put out that I didn’t give a certain amount…he said all the tourists give more than I did…I didn’t say anything, but in my head I was thinking “if you want a certain amount from everyone who visits, you should just charge an entrance fee and call it what it is”…anywho…this temple wasn’t all that interesting, but there was a particular carving worth nothing…it’s a guy on a bicycle, and the wheels of the bicycle are made of flowers…I laughed…that’s definitely not something I would’ve expected to see anywhere in a Balinese temple…awesome…

After that temple, I started driving back…past the petrol station that wasn’t open…I pulled into the next one, only to be told that they didn’t have petrol for motorbikes…AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!...by this point, the needle on my bike was below E, and I was seriously concerned…but I kept driving…eventually, I saw another petrol station, with plenty of motorbikes pulled in to fill up…phew…it wouldn’t have been that hard to get help if I needed it, but it would’ve been embarrassing…lol…

The afternoon was spent at the beach, of course…at dinner the meal I ordered came with chili peppers on the side, in case I wanted it spicy…and I did…I put them all on the food…they’re spicy all right, and I was sweating while I was eating, but I loved it anywho…spicy food is awesome…

My last day in lovina was spent mostly on the beach…at some point while I was baking, there was a local ceremony of some kind on the beach…putting offerings in the water, chanting, etc…everyone in traditional attire…neat to see…

central bali: munduk and around

After the longer than necessary trip to tanah lot, I figured it was a good idea to get a proper map of bali…I’ve always loved maps…I feel much more secure when I can point to where I am on a map…after looking at the map for a while, I figured out how I’d taken the long way to get to the temple…figuring that out also made it easier for me to figure out how to drive north…I’d been baking on beaches for a little over a week, and I’m as dark as I have ever been…(which still isn’t dark compared to some people, but that’s besides the point…you should see my tan lines!)

I counted on getting lost several times while trying to bypass denpasar, and I tend to drive more slowly than most people on this island, so I got on the road early…it was Sunday morning, which meant there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic…yay! I managed to get all the way to munduk without having to turn around at all…woo hoo!! I was actually able to keep track of where I was the whole time…signage isn’t always there, but I’ve gotten better about guessing which way to go if I’m forced to make a turn…when going through towns the main road often turns several times, which is hugely annoying…I’m always terrified I’ve gotten off the main road without knowing it…

I was only wearing shorts and a shirt, figuring that would be enough…but as I got north of denpasar, I realized I was constantly going up, at least a little…and I was cold…eventually I pulled over and put on my jacket from lululemon…(thanks mom!!)…it didn’t block the wind completely, but it made a big difference…toward the end of the drive, the road was a lot steeper, and quite twisty…when it went through shady patches it was downright cold, I was relieved to have the jacket…at a couple points along the twisty parts of the road I saw places on the side of the road where people could pull off and enjoy the view…with a whole lot of monkeys joining them…what is it with this island and monkeys?  I’ve had enough monkeys for the time being, lol…

The last 10km or so to munduk involved driving along the ridge of a crater…a lake on one side, hills and rice paddies and coffee plantations on the other side…fantastic views all around…more twisting road, so I wasn’t able to look around nearly as much as I would’ve liked, but I spotted a few lookouts, and knew I could come back…munduk itself isn’t anything exciting…just a little hill town…not even a town really, just a village…I found a place to stay on my first try…it’s twice as much as what I was paying in kuta, but it’s at least twice as good…breakfast is included, there is a drying rack, they provided a towel and toilet paper, the lighting is good, the view is amazing, the room is spotless and there is a mirror…

After settling in and figuring out what I wanted to see, I got back on the bike…drove back in the direction from which I came, stopping at a few of the viewpoints…at the last place I stopped, I zoomed in a bit with my camera and saw a temple…it looked a bit like the temple I’ve seen on gbillions of postcards, and it looked like there were a lot of people there…when I got to the bottom of the particular hill, I realized traffic was absolutely nuts…soooo many cars and bikes pulled off the road to park…I didn’t know where I’d find an official spot, so I just pulled over where I found room, and started walking from there…

I thought I was going to see the famous temple…but I was wrong…the temple I did see has a very similar name though, and is on the edge of the lake, as opposed to on the lake itself…I saw pura ulun danu buyan…it turned out that the gathering I’d seen from above was a political group gathering…PDI PERJUANGAN…according to angie there are over 180 political parties in Indonesia…the colours of this party were red and black, and everyone was wearing them…flags all over…I could hear plenty of comments in English as I walked down the path, but I pretended not to…across from the temple there was a stage set up, and just as I got there, someone started speaking…needless to say, I didn’t understand a word…lucky for me, the temple was completely deserted…I didn’t know whether I’d be able to go in, but the gates were open…it wasn’t a very exciting temple, I think it’s relatively new…

On the way back I had to walk past all the same people…being a single, blond foreigner makes me really nervous at times…fortunately, it was easy to get back into traffic from where I’d parked…driving down the road I got to the turnoff to the temple I’d been looking for the first time…pura ulun danu bratan…(notice how similar the names are)…there was a big carpark, and I was directed where to go…at tourist spots like these there is usually an area for motorbikes…I bought my entrance ticket after passing a bunch of souvenir stalls…(just in case you REALLY need that bingtang t-shirt right now)…it was crowded with tourists, but not unbearably so…tourist money gets put to use, the temple is in really good shape…unless you’re a local and in traditional garb, you don’t get to go in a few areas, which is fine by me…I was able to see the temple on the lake, and have my photo taken with it…people in general were doing a good job of noticing others taking photos and staying out of them…yay!! It was sunny, the sky was blue, life is goodJ

I ended up eating lunch across the street…

Driving back toward munduk I stopped at even more viewpoints…so pretty…I like the lake side views better than the valley side views…I stopped at a tiny area that said parking for a waterfall…it said 246m to the waterfall, but I’m guessing that meant height, not distance…there was a clear path, much of it steps…some of the steps were quite large…I’ve got good knees, but that wouldn’t have been easy for anyone with slightly bad knees…I heard the waterfall before I saw it…quite pretty…15m or 20m high? To get to a decent viewpoint, you cross over the top of the waterfall, then come down…when I crossed it I didn’t realize just how close I was to the top of the falls…there is a tiny little restaurant looking over the falls…peaceful, and quiet…the water falls hard enough that you can feel the splash a ways out…I liked that…unfortunately, you can’t hike behind the falls…I followed the path a little way down the creek, to see if it went anywhere in particular…It didn’t…

Climbing back up I drove back the rest of the way to munduk, skipping signs for another waterfall…maybe tomorrow? I parked my bike at my guesthouse, (they call themselves a homestay, but it is more of a guesthouse) and took off walking…walking to the edge of town didn’t take long…along the way I passed tourist information, so I stopped in to ask about possible treks in the area…I’d like to trek, but don’t really want to pay a fortune to do it…at that point it seemed like it had been a long day already, though I don’t think it had in reality…I read in my room for a while before going to get food at a local warung…I ordered something written on the menu outside, but she said they didn’t have it…oh well…I had something else and it was fine…

A number of the treks I’d seen in the information office had waterfalls, and my guidebook had a couple listed, including the one I’d seen my first day in the area…my second day in the area ended up being a day of waterfalls…I started by going to gitgit, which angie had recommended…I had to get back to the main road, and head north…the entire way there was twisty, and I was constantly amazed at the blind corners on which people passed…I don’t have the guts for that kind of driving…I was expecting a bigger sign, but I only saw one…and the carpark was tiny…the guidebook said entrance was 6000rp, but it was only 3000rp…(less than $1USD either way, so it didn’t matter much)…there is a path all the way to the waterfalls…there were actually quite a few in this spot…while first walking on the path I came to a spot where I could either keep going straight, or cross a bridge…I went straight, and eventually got to a spot where I saw two waterfalls pouring into the same pool…beautiful…I could see a rainbow toward the bottom, but it doesn’t come up very clearly in any of the photos…I had fun putting my camera on a timer and posing…I can be really shallow sometimesJ…after running down the battery, I walked across the bridge and followed that way until I got to see a whole bunch more waterfalls…each of them very different from the others…awesome…after checking out every path I could find, (including one that took me close to someone’s home, and the dogs came howling after me) I got back to my motorbike, and drove a little further…

the guidebook said there was a second set of waterfalls about 2km down the road, and angie had mentioned something like that as well…the second set was by donation, and the donation wasn’t actually required, which was nice…I gave anywho…this set of waterfalls wasn’t nearly as good as the first bunch…but there were several more paths to check out, and at one point I realized I’d hiked back up to the first set of waterfalls…nifty…I realized that when I ended up in front of a house I’d walked by earlier…I was about to go back, when I heard a little voice say hello…it wasn’t loud, and I couldn’t figure out where the kid was at first…then I looked up into a tree, and there he was…he then proceeded to rock out, much to my amusement…singing quite loudly, shaking the tree…it was awesome…I watched for a couple minutes, then went back down toward the waterfalls…I checked out every path this time as well, and ended up trekking around for over an hour…fun…it’s a beautiful area…

the only thing I didn’t like about these waterfalls was the way “guides” try to forces themselves upon you…they ask if you want to know anything about the falls, and tell you they are trying to create jobs…they start to walk with you, and you have to say no thanks, I just want to walk by myself…if you let them walk with you, they’ll end up asking for a guides fee when you leave, and it’s usually quite large…I know that much of what is said wouldn’t be remembered, and I don’t need a guide when I can see the paths on my own…I did end up seeing several small groups with guides, though none of them were the guys who tried to talk to me after I parked my bike…I’m guessing these were official trekking guides, and that these people had signed up for treks the day before…given that I found various paths on my own, I was relieved I hadn’t signed up for a trek…I’m sure they have plenty of information, and could’ve shown me great places, but I was content with what I did…

on the way back to munduk I saw a pretty temple and pulled over to check it out…I don’t know how I’d missed it on the way down, but I guess it wasn’t in my line of sight as I was driving…the main area was closed, but the front bit was open…I’m guessing it’s a fairly new temple, the rock still had really sharp edges from the carving, and no moss growing…at least, not yet…

the waterfall I’d skipped yesterday was where I stopped next…there were two carparks for this one, each really small…and unlike yesterday, there was an entrance fee for this one…still less than $1USD, so I’m not complaining…the path took me straight there, the only time I had to choose which way to go was at the spot I paid the entrance fee…there was a sign there pointing which way to go, so I went…that was the most crowded place I went all day…four other people were at the bottom of the waterfall when I arrived…it was pretty, though not spectacular…the falls were thin, but strong…a couple of the guys had clearly gone swimming…as I walked back up to my bike, I took the other path at the ticket office, just to see where it went…it ended up at the back side of a resort, after winding through quite a lot…I’m pretty sure that’s not the way people usually get to the resort, as the path was quite narrow…

after returning to my bike I realized I was quite hungry, and had a very very late lunch at a roadside warung…I got to have what I wanted last night, yay…from there it was back to my room, where I finished a book and relaxed for the rest of the eveningJ