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…