Why did we choose Mount Batur?

Inititally we planned to climb Gunung Agung, which is the highest mountain in Bali, after the Gunung Rinjani plan failed. But we were told by the tour agent that even though Gunung Batur doesn’t rival Gunung Agung in stature, but its accessibility and beauty are beatable especially the view of sunrise. So changed our mind and hike Gunung Batur instead.

It was about 2 hours drive from Sanur to Batur. 2 hours in the van at 1a.m. in the morning… what else can I do besides sleeping? Yup, I took a 2 hours nap in the car but couldn’t sleep at all as the van was too shaky. While doing nothing in the car, let me introduce to you the background of Gunung Batur.

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Height: 1,717 meter
Major jump-0ff: Toya Bungkah, Kedisan, Bali
LLA: 8.242° S 115.375° E, 1717 MASL
Hours to summit: 3-4 hours (depend on your speed)
Specs: Minor climb, difficulty 5/10
Features: Volcanic sand, night trek

Tour Guide Fees:
Rp 370k per person (We got it cheaper than the prices offered in the brochures that we got from the airport).

It was an 8 hours hiking tour from 3a.m. to 12p.m. includes exploration of crater rim and the transportation.

Danau Batur:
The Batur area was formed 30,000 years ago by the eruption of a gigantic volcano. Confusingly, the entire area is sometimes referred to as Kintamani, although this is the name of just one of several villages dotted along the rim of the ancient crater.

Another group of villages is situated around Danau Batur at the bottom of the crater: Toya Bungkah is the start of the main route up Gunung Batur, and is the chief accommodation centre.

The highest points on the rim are Gunung Abang (2153m) on the eastern side, the third highest mountain in Bali, and Gunung Penulisan (1745m) on the northwest corner, with Pura Puncak Penulisan perched on its summit. Rising from the floor of the main crater, Gunung Batur (1717m) is an active volcano with four craters od its own. Every morning, trekkers set off before dawn to climb the peak and admire the sunrise from the top.

Eruptions at Gunung Batur:
Gunung Batur has erupted more than 20 times since 1800. In 1917, a major eruption destroyed 65,000 homes, 2,500 temples, and killed 1,372 people. But lava stopped just outside the temple of Batur village, which was at that time situated in the crater beside the lake.

Considering this a good omen, the population remained in the village until August 3, 1963, when another eruption completely engulfed the village and the temple, and the people of Batur were evacuated up onto the crater rim.

The longest-lasting eruption took place in September 1963, a few months after the massive explosion of Gunung Agung, and continued until May 1964. At Yehmampeh, on the road around the base of mountain, you’ll see lava flows from an eruption in March 1974.

The newest crater, Batur IV, was formed during the eruption that started pm August 7, 1994, and that continues periodically. It’s startling to see the volcano still smoking, but local belief is that it;s better if Batur lets off a little steam regularly rather than saving it all up for a major blow.

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We finally reached the destination at 3a.m. and it was already freaking cold at the bottom of the Gunung Batur. The temperature was probably less than 20 Degree Celsius and I was wearing a sleeveless shirt with a thin piece of sweater! My boyfriend was even superb, he wore only t-shirt and shorts without any jacket. It was freezing cold that I almost wanted to give up, I really hate cold. I wonder why the travel agent guy didn’t tell us what to prepare or at least what to wear.

It was the 14th day of the month, i.e. one day before full moon (the next day was Lantern Festival). So the moon was nearly full and it was so bright that we didn’t even need to use the torchlight hiking in the dark. We started quite early at 3a.m. that we were the first team to start the trek. There was another team, German group, followed behind us. After about half an hour hike, the cold feeling has gone. I guess the energy used up and the sweat kept me warm. Even the tour guide removed his jacket. Thank God the coldness didn’t follow me all the way up to the summit.

The hike wasn’t difficult compare to some of the mountains in Malaysia. The only different is the ground is formed by the volcanic sand and rocks. The routes were very rocky that I kept tripped by the rocks. The volcanic sand and rocks add the difficulty to the hike as the route was slippery. The trail was quite steep but I didn’t have any single fear at all, guess the darkness took the fear away when we couldn’t see things clearly. At about 4a.m., when we were half way to the peak, we looked down to the mountain and saw many lights in the distance, each one a group coming up the mountain behind us along the trail we had just covered. We could see that some of them were just starting at base camp at the bottom of the mountain. We were shocked to find that there were many people who hike in Bali. We always heard about people saying watching Gunung Batur from Kintamani but no one mentioned about hiking there.

At the Summit
Finally we reached summit at 5a.m. It was too early for the sunrise, as the sun only rises at 6a.m. There was a hut at the summit for resting and to serve drinks and food. I have to say that it was extremely freezing cold that it reminded me of the winter time in Jiu Zhai Gou. Our tour guide wore the winter jacket hiding himself inside the hut. We were too cold to enjoy the view and hid ourselves inside the hut
waiting for the sunrise. It wasn’t a good experience without bringing any jacket at all.

Soon after we arrived summit, there were more groups arriving filling up the summit. Surprisingly that we were the only Asian team. Well, I guess the fun part of this trip is that all of the white people who stay in the country with 4 seasons wearing winter clothes and long pants while 2 Asians living in hot country wearing only t-shirt and shorts. So all white people sat at the best spot to view the sunrise outside of the hut while the other 2 Asians hid themselves inside the hut trying to get some warmth from the stove.

Let’s see what whites wore.

And let’s see what we wore.

Well… at least we were the only Malaysians in 20 years that conquered Gunung Batur. I’m not making it up, we were told by our driver who has been working there for 20 years that he could hardly see any Asians hike in Bali and we were the only Malaysian trekkers that he has ever met. Hehe… I was quite proud of it :-p

The sun was finally rising! The wind was so strong early in the morning that it was such a tortured experience to have to stand in the wind but we must defeat the coldness to fully admire the sunrise.

Here we admired the sun slowly lighting the whole lake, caught glimpses of Gunung Rinjani, Gunung Abang and Gunung Agung.

The 2 nearer mountains opposite Batur Lake were Gunung Agung (highest mountain in Bali) and Gunung Abang (second highest mountain in Bali). The furthest mountain in the picture is Gunung Rinjani in Lombok island which is the the highest mountain among all. This is what make Gunung Batur unique with its spectacular sunrise view.

After the sunrise, we were ready to explore the crater rim and descent by another route.

This is the crater of Batur. The newest crater formed in 1994 eruption. We trekked along the crater rim to explore the nature of volcano.

This is the big steam hole that we can feel the heat from the behind.

Can you spot the steam coming out from the ground?

On the way descending, we were brought closer to the lake.

We stopped by at the crater to have our hard-boiled eggs as breakfast! The eggs were burried inside the steam hole.

They were then c
overed with the dry grasses and stone to speed up the steaming process.

Here you can see uncountable steam holes around the crater rim.

After about 15 mins, the eggs were ready to be eaten. Our tour guide digged out the eggs from the hole.

On the way back we finally saw the trail for the first time as it was too dark to see anything during the night hike. The same sandy volcanic trail that we had to scramble! Some sections of the trail were too sandy and steep that we had to let ourselves free fell by letting our shoes slid down the sand for hundreds meters. It was really exciting and one of the coolest experience that we wouldn’t find other than volcano or desert.

Here is the route where we trekked across the other summit to the way down to bottom.

After the fun of sliding, our shoes were full with sand. It felt so uncomfortable that we had to remove the sand from the shoes.

We reached the bottom at 12p.m. and ended our journey to Gunung Batur.

The only Bad Experience We Had
I have to say that most of the Balinese are friendly and honest except our Gunung Batur tour guide who really upset me by being too cunning and greedy. If it happened that he was assigned to you as your tour guide, please say NO and get someone else.

During our hiking to the summit, he was so quiet that he didn’t give any instruction or explain anything to us at all. We didn’t even know that we had arrived summit while he just went into the hut and slept. He wasn’t friendly at all at first and only after the sunrise, his attitude was like 360 degrees changed. He smiled at us, took pictures of us and being very helpful. After that he told us that our package was actually covered only hiking up to the summit and descending by the same route without further exploration to the crater rim. If we wanted to do that, we had to pay him extra as the tips so he will guide us through the routes. He requested Rp 100k.

We were puzzled as when we talked to the travel agent that we found at Seminyak area, it was very clear that the package included exploring the crater rim and descend by the other longer routes. That was why we were given eggs to be cooked at the crater rim. We had the impression that this tour guide actually cheated us. We were fine with the travel agent guy, he has been quite honest with us in all the packages we got from him (include diving packages). We believed this tour guide was trying to con us.

Besides, he started to tell us the story about his son, who does very good in acamedy and was sent to Singapore in the student exchange program but his son refused to go as they were too poor. I was like, why did you tell me this? After that he said my backpack was very nice and asked where did I buy it. He wanted to get a nice one for his son. He kept telling us how smart and good his son is.

Then he requested to take a picture with us. Right after taking the picture, he told us to send the picture to him, and send the backpack as well. WTF… even though we might be richer than him that we get to travel to Bali, while he never step out from Bali island, but does that mean we must pity him by giving him gifts and money?

The saddest part was that he was being so friendly with us with the purpose to find the chance to get some advantages from us.

When we arrived at the bottom, we found that other tour guides actually asked for tips from other tourists by telling them the reasons why they need the tips. Well, at least they were being honest to request for tips and it was up to the tourists whether they want to give or not. Unlike our tour guide, he tried to con us! It was a freaking bad experience that I really hate this kind of people.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say that all Balinese are cunning, in fact most of them are trustworthy. We were just too bad luck to meet someone like this.

On the Way Back to Hotel
The driver of this tour is a very nice guy. He was the one that told us we were the only Malaysian’s team that hiked Gunung Batur. On our way back, he told us that we can stop by any where to visit if we want. No extra charges incurred. We asked him to recommend us for a place to have a drink. He drove us to the coffee farm whereby we can get to taste Balinese coffees and teas without any charges. It was the farm that make and sell coffee, cocoa and tea. He reiterated that we do not need to buy anything if we don’t feel like it. He was very friendly and talkative, he told us a lot of things about Bali. It was a pleasure to ride with him.

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