Bali, Indonesia {Day 5} – Water Temples & UNESCO Rice Terraces Tour

We had an 8am pickup this morning for a day exploring Bali's largest rice terraces and three of Bali’s most impressive water temples: lakeside Ulun Danu Bratan Temple, the sea temple of Tanah Lot, and Luhur Batukaru Temple, on the slopes of a volcano.

We covered a lot of ground today but the time in the car was very interesting. Our guide Risk was easy to talk to and was happy to answer the hundreds of questions we had. Very informative.  Risk brought his cousin to drive the windy mountainous roads so that Risk could be fully at our disposal.

We drove by a field getting prepped for planting.  This would serve as an interesting comparison to the rice field we would see later today.  

The Ulun Danu Bratan Temple on the shores of Lake Bratan was very peaceful and scenic. The Hindu religion and culture are fascinating and I loved discovering so many similarities (and differences) from own. There was some sort of ceremony going on which apparently doesn’t happen very often so that was cool to see.  It didn’t feel like we were at a tourist destination. This was a very much an active temple and a sacred place for the Hindu people.  It was built in 1633.

There was a man on the shore with a shotgun. Apparently he'd modified the gun to shoot an arrow instead of a bullet. It seemed he was going to attempt to "catch" a fish at any moment so Justin waited taking video, but it was taking too long so we moved on. 

The rice terraces of Jatiluwih were next on our agenda and they were incredible! Justin and I both agree it was a must see and a highlight of our trip! We walked through the terraces taking picture after picture.  

There were a few cheesy props for pictures – tourism is a major income producer for Bali so they try to appeal to all the new instagramers here and there.

I'd never given much thought to how rice is grown and this definitely gave me a greater appreciation of that process. The rice was almost ready to harvest so it tall and green, so beautiful. Such a unique experience for us.

A buffet lunch was provided at a little restaurant overlooking the fields. Perfect setting and the food was pretty good too.

The Luhur Batukaru Temple sits at the base of a volcano, but the clouds were low so we couldn't see much beyond the temple grounds. We had to wear a sarong on the grounds and they had some very interesting rules…

This is our guide's favorite temple of three we visited today. I can understand why, it was the least touristy and most natural and simple looking, lots of moss, etc...

for washing

Tanah Lot is an impressive temple on the cliffs of the sea. Definitely the most crowded of the day but for obvious reason. Before we even saw the Tanah Lot we walked by this beauty.

another gate we had to get a picture of us in

so many offerings everywhere

The tide was out so we were able to walk around the temple. 

The locals believe that it is a miracle that there is a fresh water spring at the base of the temple. Justin and I walked another half mile or so down the shore and climbed up a little hill to take on the views.

our guide musta taken this one

On our way back to the hotel we passed people dancing on the streets.  Fascinating culture!

We had some time to hit the pool back at the hotel. Our little pool didn't get any sun in the afternoon so we scoped out a few rays at the main pool.  We had a hard time figuring out what to do for dinner and ended up sharing a pizza at one of the hotel restaurants.

Bali, Indonesia {Day 4} – Sunrise Hike & River Rafting

We were picked up by our driver at 2:20am. The hotel provided a to-go breakfast for us which was a nice surprise. We had about an hour drive to the base of Mount Batur and we were excited to climb to the top to watch the sunrise.  

We met up with our guide and visited the “restroom” before starting up the mountain. Our guide provided toilet paper and the “restroom” was basically a hole in the ground.  Not a very pleasant experience.  There was a large trough of water in the room with a large ladle/cup to scoop out water to “flush” the hole.  Justin didn’t grasp the concept and used the ladle and water to “wash” his hands.  Ick!  Justin took a video of the restroom when we revisited after the hike.

We started hiking at 3:45am. We expected we'd be sharing our guide with a group so it was a pleasant surprise to find we had a private guide and that we could set our own pace. She told us it typically takes people 2 hours to get to the top and that 1.5 hours would be a fast climb. We were up in 1:20. It was a tougher hike than we expected - a 2000 foot elevation gain in just under 3 miles.

We had about an hour at the top before the sun started to rise at approx. 6:15am. It got a little chilly, likely because we'd worked up a sweat during the assent. Our guide provided us a hardboiled egg, hot cocoa, a warm banana sandwich and a candy bar while we waited.  The egg was supposedly cooked by the steam from the volcano we were sitting on top of.

We were above the clouds and the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous. 

Mount Agung in the background 

(which erupted May 25 and June 13 just days and weeks after we were there)

After taking some pictures, we walked along the ridge of the volcano, checked out the steam vents, and even stood in one.

While getting our picture taken a bunch of monkeys decided to join us.

The walk downhill is always harder for me than uphill because of my knees. Justin and the guide found it easier at times to run, I took it slowly. It took us just over an hour to get back to the parking lot and reunite with our driver.

Our driver stopped on the way out of the valley so we could take some pictures of what we couldn’t see under the clouds.  Apparently there was a lake down there.

We decided to combine our hiking excursion with a rafting excursion. Our driver had us to the rafting place by 9:30am because we skipped going to the coffee plantation portion of the tour. Since we were there earlier than expected we needed to wait for other rafters to arrive. We were on the same raft as a family from India. They were a very nice family, but the eleven year old boy was a bit spastic and nailed several of us with his paddle throughout the day. Thankfully we were required to wear helmets.  We had to walk down a ton of steps to get to the river. Not terrible, but when you'd already hiked a mountain that day and you are wearing a stuffy helmet, lifejacket and carrying a paddle it was tiring.

The rapids weren't too crazy, though the guide tried to make things more interesting by purposefully running into rocks, walls, etc... The river is at the bottom of a canyon so there was lush jungle all around. Towering cliffsides, monkeys in the trees, a big lizard, stone carvings along the canyon walls, and lots of waterfalls. Justin did a little swimming. It was so beautiful, we wished we would have kept Justin's cell phone with us instead of keeping it tucked away in a dry bag so we could've taken more pictures. 

We had to wait a little while to be picked up after we arrived back to the main road.  

Lunch was provided afterward. I thought it was great and ate my fill of chow mein “noodles” and rice.  We ate next to a small rice field.  

Our hotel room wasn't ready when we got back since we'd accidently left the do not disturb light on so we went to the pool for a while to relax and try to stay awake.

love all the plants and flowers on the hotel grounds

We decided to go out for dinner tonight and were able to snag a cancelled reservation at Bridges, which had good reviews. We both ordered the sampler selection, Justin meat and me vegetarian. It allowed us to try several items from the menu that sounded delicious and they were, but the quantity of each was very small. No regrets, but we aren't usually the dainty eater types. The flavor combinations were amazing!