Indonesian Independence Day Part 1

 - Saturday Aug 17th 3:20pm local Balinese time -

The last 12 hours marked our first truly epic adventure.

First and foremost, Happy Indonesian Independence Day!

The photos you see above were taken atop Mount Batur at day break on Saturday August 17th.

Yesterday afternoon and evening were relatively mellow compared to the last few days. Small dinner of beef, potato and rice accompanied by a game of poker. Why so uneventful you ask? Because today is Indonesian Independence Day, and exciting plans had been made. We were invited through our kind hosts to join up with local Balinese to take part in a yearly tradition. The midnight hiking of Mount Batur and the witnessing of a magnificent sunrise to open the day of August the 17th. It sounded like an opportunity we could not miss so we jumped. Por que No? Little did we know what we were getting into. The night was mellow because we departed Ubud at 1:30am to meet with some friends and motorbike up to the Mountain. While Bali is a tropical paradise, racing down the road at 65kmph can be a damn freezing experience. Even with jacket, jeans and shoes it was COLD. And half our party ran out of gas on the way there. It is difficult to find gas at 2:30 in the morning in the hills and back country of Bali. The ride took roughly one and half hours minus our gas hiccup and were on pace to arrive at 3:15 when I decided to take a course in motorbike 101: gravel and dirt are your enemy, even at relatively low speeds. Needless to say I'm fine, but on top of the shock of taking a tumble at 15mph, I put a nice bruise on my hip and knee. Luckily, the inury was far from serious, but it did present a small challenge as we embarked on our mountain hike. For reference, Mount Batur is a 5000+ tall mountain on Bali's northeastern portion. It is an active volcano (there was a lava flow in 1963 that killed 1,700 people) and steep! I can only imagine my father would be proud as here we were, amongst 90% locals (from what I gathered tourists really aren't invited to this) climbing up a volcano in near pitch dark with no flashlight, at some points literally clawing our way up the mountain. 2 hours of hiking with little sleep and no light. FUN! Once at the top though, we were well rewarded. As you can see from some of the images, Mount Batur has an incredible panoramic view of most of Bali, as well as a good portion of the Lesser Sunda Island, Lake Batur and other surrounding areas. Now I will say this, the Balinese are admirable in many respects, but their trail construction and general hiking regimen leave much to the imagination. Unlike most trails I've been on, this one had almost no switchbacks. In many places like I mentioned, we literally crawled straight up, for several hundred yards at a time over loose gravel, dirt and stones. On top of that, since most of the people there were not hikers by any means, they would simple stop in the middle of trail, blocking traffic and flow at several key points. But who am I to complain, the views were amazing and the journey was proved worthy by the destination. As you can see, Flags of Indonesia were on prime display. Fireworks were popping and music was playing. It was cool. Very cool. 

Flower from the hike down

  Flora at the base of mountain. It felt more Alpine than Tropical

Beautiful Panorama by Brian

Steep trails

Gorgeous sunrise over Lake Batur

Cool fact about Bali, the sun rises between 6:15am and 6:20am everyday of the year. I love the regularity!

After dispatching all of our hiking fantasies for the trip, we had to eat. So we sat down for a happy breakfast at a restaurant that actually floats on the waters of Lake Batur. As some of the photos show, it was a collection of medium sized pontoon "decks" lashed together and set with tables. And it made for some nice viewing of the mountain we had just given ourselves to. 

Pontoon "decks"

Some tasty Friend Rice and Noodles

Fish fresh from the lake prepared in the local style

The Facilities 

 And after after all that, we had to make one more stop before we fell fast asleep into a midmorning-midday nap

Beautifully terrace rice paddies

And the requisite "I just hiked a mountain; I'm exhausted and feeling ugly" self portrait

What a night-to-day. Feels like a dream. The satisfaction of seeing the sunrise, making it to the top of the mountain, sharing in the communal excitement and happiness, and following it all up with delicious food, spectacular views, and MORE spectacular views made this a 12 hour period I won't soon forget. I can't wait to see what waits for me tonight. Until tomorrow!