Indonesia

June - July 2022
A 29-day adventure by Reagan Read more
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  • Day 7

    Day 7: Coffee and Waterfalls

    July 5, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 19 °C

    After 2 days in a row of early starts we decided to have a relaxing morning. Breakfast was delivered to the balcony - fried egg on toast for me and scrambled again for Sam. We watched the clouds roll in over the hills whilst we had some alone time together, accompanied by a local stray dog who tactically turned up at breakfast and dinner for the rest of our stay…she knew what she was doing!

    Around 11am we kicked ourselves into gear and headed off on the new moped we had hired - we were informed that “it comes with purse”, a random small purse with a broken zip that was rusted so you couldn’t open it 😂 not sure why this was necessary but was a hilarious addition all the same!

    First stop of the day was Lake Tamblingan. After driving down what we were convinced was a footpath, we arrived at a large open grassy area with a lakeside temple. We didn’t have a sarong so couldn’t go in but looking from the steps we can say we ticked that box. We watched a local set off in his boat and directed some Americans to a footpath that we weren’t even sure existed.

    Next up was the twin lakes view point. This looked over Lake Tamblingan and Danau Buyan. We admired the view for a while before heading to Sam’s request of the day, Munduk Coffee. We were directed into the ‘tasting room’ and sat down to choose a drink. Whilst we drank, the staff talked us through the different methods of processing (Natural, Honey and Full washed) as well as the different roasting methods used to achieve the blends. They then went on to produce 2 more tasting shots of blends we were discussing…and 1 shot of Luak! 💩 Can’t say the latter went down too well 😄 As I’m not a coffee drinker at the best of times, I was truly Shakin’ Stevens by this point.

    We eventually made it to Banyumala waterfall after a stop to refuel and to buy a poncho, as at this point the heavens had opened! Sam braved the dip first. By my turn the mist had rolled in which made for an eary setting. We headed back via the Eco cafe to have a very late ‘lunch’, which was a cafe supporting women in the community as well as local produce.

    Back at the villa, we ran the bath which we enjoyed whilst the sun was setting. As it was our final night here we though we would treat ourselves to a restaurant we had found up the road which looked very ‘Bali’. It was certainly a sketchy scoot there with a very dim headlight on twisty mountain roads but luckily it was only 5 minutes away! Dinner was delicious - I had pesto pasta and Sam had lentil Bolognese.

    We made it back in one piece…although we did see one individual who hadn’t been so lucky and had come of their bike which we were ushered on past!
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  • Day 8

    Day 8: Munduk -> Songan

    July 6, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    We woke up to another beautiful morning as we headed down to try and see the Red Coral and Labuhan Kebo waterfalls. Despite it being 7am, we were spotted by who we later found out to be the ‘ticket lady’ from her house, who then raced us down to the ticket booth…she knew a short cut! We didn’t realize you had to pay so hadn’t brought any money with us! They charge for everything here 💰

    After attempting to interpret questions about where we are staying/names etc she let us through, but said we must pay the staff at our villa. The Red Coral was worth a visit in the end, but after 3 wrong turns we wended up in Munduk village instead of at the Labuhan Kebo waterfall! We decided to head back and spend an hour relaxing before we had to pack up, but to do that we had to walk past the ticket ladies house! On the approach we kept quiet and tiptoed our way up the stairs trying to keep a low profile, but then BOOM 💥 there she was…waiting. There was lots of uncomfortable eye contact and more questions that we could barely understand. We assured he we would pay the villa staff but she for sure didn’t trust us!

    With the waterfall payed for…or so we think 🤷🏼‍♀️ we met our driver at 11am to take us to Songan. Sadly the nice weather didn’t last as we had a day of rain ahead of us! A good chance to make the most of the ponchos nonetheless. On route we stopped at a restaurant for lunch which turned out to be the most expensive place we had been to! It was an all you can eat buffet made up of 90% meat dishes which wasn’t ideal for us newly found vegetarians after Sams 💩 disaster. I ended up with a plate of fried rice and noodles and decided to try every sauce that was available. This turned out to be a terrible idea as the spice level was through the roof 🔥 I shoveled down the green beans in hope of some relief only to become the new fire breathing dragon on the block covered in sweat 😅 Learning from my mistake Sam decided to go for the meat after saying a short prayer to the poo gods 🙏🏻

    We checked into our next place and it was safe to say it was FREEZING! The temperature here was definitely different to the south of the island. The room however was spotless and the host Edi was amazing. We had a swim in the natural hot spring from the volcano and wondered around the local area to get our bearings. At one point we spotted to most humongous NEST of spiders 🕷 From then on, everywhere we looked there was more! With a bit of research it turns out that this town is known for being infested with these spiders, supposedly harmless 😱

    After recovering from the spider trauma we had a cheap dinner from the supermarket…pots noodles and eggs and seasoning for Sam - sounds strange but is a fairly standard Sam meal. Early night in preparation for our sunrise Mount Batur trek in the morning 🌄
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  • Day 9

    Day 9: Mount Batur and 😴

    July 7, 2022 in Indonesia ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    The 3am start was as bad as it sounds! After a quick bowl of cereal we met our guide at 3:30am and followed him from the hotel to ‘basecamp’. We were greeted with a hot drink (tea and coffee) whilst the guides sorted out the kit…kit being a handheld torch as we were on the cheap trip so weren’t privileged to a bamboo stick! There was already a lot of other groups here and as we began the trek you could see a line of torches making their way up the volcano.

    It quickly became clear that we had in fact hired a mountain goat and not a guide as advertised. We were soon overtaking numerous groups much to the disapproval of my lungs! He did however graciously allow us to stop a few times along the way for a few snaps and to catch our breath. He had said if we were quick we would make it to the top in 1hr 30mins…we made it up in 1hr 13mins! Despite this achievement meaning we got a good seat, part of us wished we had been back with the slow coaches as we now had to wait for a whole hour before sunrise…FREEZING.

    Our cheap tour didn’t include breakfast but our guide kindly got approval from his boss to make us some, winner! Egg sandwich for Sam and banana sandwich for myself, complete with some tangerines, caramel wafers and boiled eggs. The sky was so clear walking up, but in a typical fashion we were completely submerged by the clouds at the top in a howling gale! Sadly that meant we missed some of the beautiful sunrise colors but we were lucky enough for it to clear towards the end and got to see some amazing views.

    What we had not realized in the dark was that we had been walking on sand the whole way up. This meant for a hilarious run/slide on the way down in a grand total of 39 minutes…a new record apparently! Sams face when the guide suggested “Little bit run?” was a picture…his favorite activity 😄.

    The rest of the day was pretty relaxed as we were back at our hotel for 8am and had a good soak in the hot springs. We headed up to a coffee shop overlooking the lava field from the eruption back in 2000, where I had the most amazing hot chocolate 🍫 We then hit the gym (somehow still awake) and stopped for lunch on the way back down by which point we had crashed!

    After a little siesta we had another evening of pot noodles…the last of the holiday I swore!
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