Getaway to Bali - Mount Batur the volcano

Throughout the 8 days of my Bali trip; the itinery for the hiking at Mount Batur is the most exhausted, yet a pretty interesting experience for me. This is my first time climbing an active volcano, somemore at the wee hours just for the sake of viewing the sunrise from the peak.

It was 2.30am when we dragged ourselves out from the cozy bed, we reached the foot of the Mount Batur after an hour drive from our hotel at Ubud. The moment I got out from the car, I was awake by the freezingly cold breeze; I started to realize wearing shorts and t-shirt for this hiking is a bad idea. Luckily Danny brought along his jacket and he gave it to me. :)

After meeting with our tour guide; we started our trekking. It was all dark, we can hardly see our surrounding with just the dim light from our torch light. I was shivering while walking and find it hard to breath either. It's really not an easy one, the volcanic ash and sand is not easy to walk in, somemore my sneakers just don't mean for hiking.

After struggling for about 2 hours, we reached the peak. There is a hut where we can sit down and took our breakfast while waiting for the sunrise. The breakfast provided by our tourguide was bun and egg. Not a good one after an exhausted exercise like this. But of course, the view is great. We can see the colourful sky nicely set up on top of the Lake Batur surrounded by the greyish volcanic ash. It's BEAUTIFUL~~~

After the sun rose, we were guided to the back of the hut which is a crater. The crater was emitting steam and there are rocks with warm water dripping; the dripping water is said to be the holy water by the locals. We walked around the mountain for some sightseeing, then it's time to go down the hill.

It's not any easier to go down the hill than going up. The slope is very steep and slippery due to the volcanic ash, moreover there are no shades and we were exposed under the big hot sun for hours. I have no idea how long we have walked, but seems like a decade for me and finally we touched down at the base and ended out hiking..... then at night, I got fever.. -_-'', told ya, it was exhausted, isn't it?