The main goal of today was to climb Mount Batur (Gunung Batur) which is 1717m high. The lake is situated around 700m. It’s approximately a 4 hours walk return. Our guide, Budi, was really kind. He is the one with the red hat and the blue/yellow shirt on the picture above. The landscape from the top was impressive as we could see at 360 degrees. We could sight the Danau lake, the Bali sea and the Batur’s crater. We had the breakfast cooked on site using the heat from active hot sources smoking out of the rock. Finally we walked down to the hotel and drove towards Amed where we will spend the night. Tough day! :-)
Map.
This morning our guide came at 3:45am to wake us up. He provided us torch and we started walking through the forest until the top of the Volcano. We were completely in the dark and could see at some point, some other lights at the top of the mount. Lots other people were there already when we reached the top. The weather is now covered. We hope we won’t miss the sunrise!
It’s not really cold here but definitely colder than down there. They built shelters here and they might be used when Balinese people do ceremonies.
Hard to get clear shot with all that smoke.
We are not late, the sun is slowly coming up :-)
Looks like the fog is moving away.
I followed Budi who show me how they cook eggs and bananas. There is a hole in the rock. It’s not really deep but the heat is coming out at 90 celsius degrees, enough to cook anything!
The reddish colour is coming.
Where is the sun?
Somewhere there.
We can see a bit further now.
Hey, finally :-) We did miss the beginning because there is too much clouds at the horizon but fortunately the nature let us a gap view.
Bali, wake up!
In few minutes, the sun will have disappeared again.
Time for pictures :-)
And the sun leaves us again.
Panoramic video.
Danaum lake.
The colours keep changing to our delight.
A soft pinky/orange color filled the sky.
Sun rays let nice lights and shadows onto the hills down to our feet.
The cooking is still on! Now we can see something compare to minutes ago :-)
The bananas are cooking :-)
Budi our guide :-)
More colours.
Is this guy lost?
An “offering counter” front of the sunset.
Everyone enjoy his breakfast and the view.
Even if we can see the sun directly it still does a nice job to the landscape :-)
It’s time to walk back. But before we are going to visit another summit.
Family picture.
Family picture plus crater (Thanks Budi :-)
This is the other side of Mount Batur. Down there, the black area is lava. The green area in the center is called “lucky island” as the lava did not covered it. Naturally, Balinese people built a temple there to honor this place.
Let’s go down this summit.
Quite steep here and sandy. Budi is actually running down here when everyone is going carefully and slowly.
I would try to run like him if I could but I did not bring my shoes. My “4WD thongs” are not stable enough ;-)
Hey, there is more monkeys here!
This dog would love to play with this baby monkey but the adults are defending the group. They are a bit aggressive and just wait for food. A guy was giving them some nuts by hand when another monkey came fast and stole the packed he had in his hand. Bloody monkey! At least they should learn how to recycle plastic paper, it would be useful.
We have done about halfway back. The day is now on and soon it will be too hot.
back to the forest where we were early this morning.
We have finally reached the hotel again, got to the car and drove towards Amed. The GPS indicated us that we could go directly from the hotel to the coast but after 20 minutes driving on a chaotic sandy road we had to give up. The gravel road started climbing a very steep hill and few hundred after we have started there was a truck that was stuck in the middle of the road. It was too heavy and not powerful enough to get to the top. We agreed that it was a bad idea to continue on this road and came back from where we came yesterday. I should have taken some pictures but I was driving.
After all, we arrived in Amed. This town is one long street situated along the coast. There is Hotels, Hotels, Hotels, Warung, Money changer, French diving lessons, Hotels, Warung, French diving lessons. From what we’ve heard, most of the tourist who come in Bali say on the beach around Denpasar. Here and since Munduk, most of the tourists are from France, Belgium, Switzerland or Germany.
This warung looks good :-) We might come back here tonight if our hotel is not too far.
Here we are at the Barong Cafe. We’ve finally found it after 20 minutes driving from the “town centre” of Amed. It’s looks good :-)
Even very good!
Sea view :-)
This is our terrasse.
At night it’s even better.
This is another hotel over there.
Those lantern are really nice. They look like pineapples.
The night at Villa Manuk we didn’t, last night was another short night. So, tonight I’m gonna sleeeeep :-) Good night!
Superbes photos Damien vraiment ! Surtout le volcan qui s’illumine, je n’en avais pas une seule de potable, du coup, je collecte dans ton nouvel album : “Damien en Asie”. Bisous
I love the family photo. I can see the similarity between you and your mum. :-)
Were the bananas and eggs tasty?
The hotel looks luxury, beautiful view over the balcony.
It is interesting that European people have same taste of holiday destinations.
Have you ever taken off your flip-flops since you came to Southeast Asia? Seriously? Climbed the mountain with that? haha…Now I know where the family photo comes from! And I like the sunrise!