Mount Batur, Bali

We booked an excursion to hike up one of Indonesia’s active volcanos, Mt Batur. A very popular option is the sunrise trek, however this requires a 2am wake up call to get to the summit in time. It sounded great, however we weren’t too keen on the early start and were slightly concerned about the evening and following day being written off, so we booked a morning day trek instead.

We met our local guide and finally reached the top 1717m above sea level after just over an hour of hiking. The hike itself wasn’t too bad and once at the top, Jess as a geographer, was in paradise! There was a ridge to walk along looking down into the crater with hot steam pockets lining areas of the volcano wall. From the top we could see the high altitude lake, the old lava field and a couple of small towns. The lava field covered a wide area during its eruption wiping out a local town, although the town’s temple was the only surviving building and can be seen in the middle of the black rock, now called lucky temple. Standing in a natural steam pocket really was hot. Local guides cook eggs and bananas in these steam pockets for group tour breakfasts during the sunrise trek. Because the last eruption was over 20 years ago, vegetation has now grown in the crater so it didn’t look as you may expect. A really good morning and we’re pleased we opted for the morning trek after discovering that it gets really busy at the top for sunrise, with an average of 500 people everyday. In contrast, for the majority of the time we were the only people at the top of the volcano so had the place to ourselves, plus it meant we weren’t tired for the remainder of the day! We had a cheery local guide who spoke good English but was keen to learn more so we did teach him ‘lovely jubbly’ at which he laughed at but very much appreciated it. After spending about an hour and a half at the crater, we made our way back down, met our taxi and drove back to the hotel. An enjoyable excursion and great to be stood on an active volcano.Read more