Bali has a few active volcanos where Mt Agung is probably the most famous (and active). It reaches a top over 3000m and while you may climb it, I felt it was a little bit to much for a day tour in 30 degrees. Instead I aimed for Mt Batur. This only reach 17000m and hasn’t had any eruption since 2000 compared to Agungs kind a large one 2017-2018
A tour was booked and in the middle of the night we left my hotel in one of the shittiest minibuses I even seen and trust me, I have seen many during my trips around the globe. The tour was supposed to include transport to/from Mt Batur, 2x breakfast, one simplir before the hike and one at the actual top and of course, a local English speaking guide, that was not quite what I got…
I have already described the transport above and breakfast number one was one slice of fried banana and a cup of coffee. Now, don’t believe we are talking about a luxurious version honey or any kind of berries. Nope it was just a single banana which was sliced into three or four slices, fried and we were offered one slice per person, served on a napkin together with your cup of coffee. Here they also handed our some styrofoam boxes which was the breakfast number 2, supposed to be eaten on the top of the volcano in the sun rise.
At the foot of the volcano we met our guide. He was a happy camper for sure and were nice however his English had some, improvement potential. I roughly understood 30% of what he said and my fellow group member, who many came from Ireland and England looked just as confused as me. Anyway, we understood the most important things and with the goal to be on the top at sun rise we had to close run the mountain, the sweat was dripping and it was really, really steep.
This hike is not really hard but it is a steep one, according to my watch it was roughly 600 altitude meters, the first on steep tarmac road but the second part really narrow and steep path where you have to climb large rocks. Another ting that adds to the difficulties and actually removes a lot of the fun is that this is a popular tour, such popular that it is more or less a queue all the way up to the top and there is a lot of places where you have to take a break and just for the queue to start moving again.
Once on the top you will get a beautiful view though and we were more or less exactly on time for the first rays of daylight. It felt really magical, at least until I open my box for second breakfast and realised that it contained: two slices of dry, white bread, one rotten banana and one egg. Nothing to add on the bread, nothing more, nothing less. I gave my box away and hiked down the volcano on an empty stomach.
By the way, our current hotels do new figures everyday of the our towels, you just have to love it!
