Indonesia is not only an island state, but also a volcanic state. There are about 150 active volcanoes on the territory of the country. Just think about this figure! Most of the country forms the "Pacific Fire Ring", and periodically on different islands earthquakes occur. A little scary, right?

In my opinion, it would be a sin to be on one of the islands of Indonesia and not climb to the top of a pair of mountains. After a month of living in Bali, we finally decided on such a brave step - an independent ascent to the volcano Batur.

  Why independent climbing to Batur?

To begin with, I can say that you can use the services of local guides. You can book a group excursion in any travel agency or on the spot at the foot of the mountain, even if you came to her at night. At night, just guides and go hunting. The cost of services on the spot is 500,000 rupees, and the group can be recruited up to 4 people.

⚫️ Since the theme of my blog is budget travel, there was no question of buying a tour and could not go. How to get to the top of the volcano itself without outside paid help has become the end in itself of our trek.

⚫️ Despite the fact that the height of the volcano reaches 1717 meters above sea level, the height of the main cone is about 700 meters relative to the foot of the mountain. A leisurely step and with stops for a respite can climb up to 1.5 hours for sure. I think for beginners, like me, trekking will not seem the most difficult, well, not the easiest, too :) I'll tell you the truth, for me it's the first hike uphill, the fire-breathing mountain.

⚫️ Independent ascent to Batur means unlimited time and complete freedom of action. We decided at times which way to go, although we had a ready trekking in the navigator. We were not driven by guides, and we could enjoy plenty of magnificent views, both at the top and during the descent. On the way back we got a little lost and, feeling like an Amazon, we made our way through the forest jungle to our mopeds. Unless with guides we could experience all the charm of adventure ?!

  More about the adventures and climbing the Bali volcano

Tests fell to our lot before the trip.

When I was looking for a company with whom to go to the volcano, I posted an advertisement in social networks. Approximately 20-30 people responded to the call. There were also warnings about the danger, threats, and doubts of travelers like us. However, the brave ones turned out to be few. Our company of 5 people - 2 guys and 3 courageous girls - received unforgettable emotions from climbing, dawn and boiled eggs in the volcano :)

We were heard about the aggressive guides at the foot of Batura, who can also pierce the wheels if you do not pay for their services. Allegedly, accompanied by qualified guides, you can climb the volcano. There is some truth in this, but only a fraction. These "guides" often receive complaints and even petitions from tourists. Our friend, too, was not too lazy and shared his impressions of the meeting with the local mafia.

I boldly declare: we did not meet the aggressive guides, because we safely drove through the parking lot and, before they reached it, we turned into the forest and left our bikes there. Probably, we are very lucky? :)

After 15 minutes of lone trekking through the forest, we came across a group with a guide. The guide, of course, muttered something like "Police is waiting for you when you come back". We did not take his words to heart, successfully overtook a group of tourists, and the higher we climbed, the more people we met and overtook :)

The trip was not so terrible, as I imagined before. All the fatigue, pain in the muscles and thirst passed in an instant, as soon as we appeared on the top and saw the first rays of the sun. I have never seen a dawn from a height of 1,700 meters above sea level in the mountains. For the sake of such moments and it is worth traveling!

At the top of the hill there are several tents where you can warm yourself by the walls, drink hot tea and even eat eggs and bananas cooked in the crater of the volcano. Initially, we took the eggs with us, but on the top we found out that only the liquid was spreading from the eggs throughout the rucksack. By the way, the cooked eggs were provided to us by an adequate guide.

The more clearly the sun appeared on the horizon, the more people were accumulating at the top. On the next hill we saw even more crowd of tourists, there just lead the guides of the group. There is a hill below ours, and the platform is already there. Here's another reason for you to climb yourself on the volcano Batur.

The descent from the volcano proved to be more difficult than the ascent: either from daylight, or indeed more dangerous moments. Sometimes it was necessary to walk along a narrow path, and on the left and right side notice sharp rocky cliffs. I, as a beginner climber, was scared to hell. I braked very much, gathering a crowd, apparently, experienced climbers.

We returned to the foot of the caldera, from time to time taking pictures of the delightful scenery around. But all the beauty of the seen places will not be transmitted by any camera. I very, very strongly advise all guests of Bali to rise to Batur. This, however, is not so scary :)

Going down, it's up to us to find our iron friends. But, judging by the map, the road lay through the forest, and the only path we saw was not in the wrong direction. A little delayed, we still, like real Tarzans and Amazons, rushed down the slope of a narrow path, now and again rolling down the black sand and making their way through the branches of dense vegetation.

Voila, the trail led us to the mopeds. In a light coma, we sat down and drove home. Andrei and I no longer had the strength to study the sights of the island, I wanted to get to the bed soon. And waking up, I felt a strong pain in the calves, yet the lack of physical training played a role.

1. Refuel the bike / car in advance, as at night all refuellings are closed, and the probability to meet gasoline in bottles on the roadside is zero.
2. Put on comfortable shoes.
3. Do not forget about warm clothes. On the way to Batura at night it is very cold. We even put on raincoats to make it warmer. And no matter how hot it was when you were climbing, a cold wind, or maybe a rain cloud, would meet you at the top.
4. Take flashlights with you: the more, the better. The road in the woods at night seems very scary, so the brighter the path lighting, the better.
5. The camera or action camera should also not stay at home. Believe me, there will be many moments that will need to be photographed for memory.
6. Water and breakfast are also useful. The path to the mountain is tedious, and thirst often arises, and at the top there is still a feeling of hunger :)
7. Navigators or compasses take with you. If you do not mark the point where you parked your bike at night, it's unlikely you'll find it in the morning.
8. Do not forget that the volcano of Batur is active. And jokes with him are bad! :)

The rocky and ribbed top is a path along the perimeter of the volcano's caldera

1. The volcanic activity of Batura began about 500,000 years ago.
2. In the crater of the volcano, the world's largest mountain lake Batur (8 km in length and 3 km in width) was formed.
3. At the foot of the volcano there are Hot spring thermal springs with a splendid view of Lake Batur.
4. The last major eruption occurred in the 1960s: many settlements on the island were destroyed. Remember, I told you how to restore parks and?
5. In 2000, the release of ash from the volcano was 300 meters in height.
6. In 2011, the volcano "pleased" the local residents with sulfur dioxide and Batur Lake, which was thrown to the shore by dead fish.
7. However, the Balinese do not frighten all these facts. They continue to farm at the foot of the active volcano Batur.

Sayan Kutuh, Villa Nyoman 80571   Ubud, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia +6281558451279

Inside the large caldera of an ancient volcano. Volcano and Lake Batur, the village of Trunyan, Mount Abang and the magical temples.

Estimate:

The volcano of Batur, Lake Batur, the village of Trunyan and other things.

Kind time of the day, wonderful readers! We continue to tell you about the sights. For some reason, it turned out that one of the most visited places in Bali was the volcano Batur and its surroundings, where we often visit. Sometimes even to just admire the sunset.

In general, we learned this space well enough! Let's show it to you! 🙂

It should be noted that the large caldera, in which the volcano itself is located, and Batur Lake, once in ancient times was a huge crater of a giant volcano.

Many call the whole space of the volcano and the caldera of Batur - Kintamani (Kintamani district). In fact, Kintamani is only a mountain village, attached to the edge of the caldera.

In addition to the village of Kintamani in the Batura caldera, there are other villages - Penelokan, Kedisan, Abang, Trunyan, Songkan and Toya Bungkah.

From some points here you can see at once three great Balinese peaks - (1717), Abang (2152) and (3142).

Watching the sunrise is an amazing experience for travelers who came to.

The view from the Batur volcano is, indeed, a cosmic one. There are two peaks immediately before us - Abang, the sacred Agung and the beautiful sunrise of the sun. Beauty and only.

The Batur volcano (Gunung Batur) is a stratovolcano, and that is a volcano in a volcano. In the hollow of the volcano, at an altitude of 1000 meters, there is another large volcano.

In addition to the volcano, part of the caldera is filled with the same name Lake Batur, several villages, vegetable plantations and endless lands, with frozen lava.

From the village of Kintamani you can go down to the caldera. What is the strange word "caldera"? I will explain - it is a hollow or a hollow with a more or less flat bottom, which appeared due to the failure of the top of the volcano and the adjacent territory.

In this case, we will travel around the caldera, whose diameter is 13.8 × 10 kilometers.

Lake Batur (Danau Batur)

Between the volcano Batur and the Abang volcano, in the heart of the caldera, we can observe the blue lake Batur (Danau Batur),in which the god Batara Danu and the goddess Dewi Danu dwell.

Lake Batur is especially revered as balits. It is believed that it is filled with water with the help of eleven holy celestial sources. And in turn, the lake feeds with pure spring water of the island.

Lake Batur is in the center of the caldera and is considered the largest in Bali, 3 km wide and 8 km long. Villages on the shores of the lake are called "lake stars".

Now we will symbolically circle around the lake (physically this is impossible, after the village of Trunyan the road is interrupted). Therefore, first we will go along the eastern shore of Lake Batur to the village of Trunyan. After that, we'll go to the opposite side.

We stopped near the pier

Above the cloud hung a cloud giving the view a mysterious look. Nebula and clouds are a common thing inside the caldera.

We pass by the beautiful peaceful landscapes of the lake and plantations. Tomatoes, cabbage, red chili peppers, cucumbers are grown there. Mmm thorny plantations, however.

Children bathing in the lake

The village of Trunyan is the abode of the Bali-Aga nationality.

We come to Trunyan. Quiet village, there is no one on the streets. Here live Bali Aha (not to be confused with Ali Baba and Baba Yaga).

These people claim their true Balinese blood, that they keep all the most ancient customs and traditions of the people of Bali. Bali-Agi - animists (animism - belief in the existence of souls, spirits, in the animated nature), they worship the spirits led by the deity Ratu Sakti Panchering.

What is interesting, we have long tried to find out about which ancient customs of bali-aga the data have been preserved?

And all the answers were reduced again to popular tourist entertainment, to all the famous bali aga cemetery. In which the dead are not cremated and buried in the ground, they simply put the body in the roots of the magic banyan tree of Menyan, while the body is chopped off.

When only the skin and bone remain from the physical body, they are thrown into a common pile of skeletons and skulls. Here they are, these mysterious people from the Bali tribe are.

Everyone happily wanted to see us see the skulls of the local dead, telling us about the terrible and aggressive custodians of cemetery secrets that do not like tourists and sometimes eat them. And without escorts there can not be.

We refused to visit the cemetery, but instead we wandered through the village of Trunyan, searched for the ancient Bali-aga (Bali-Aghiyan?). By the way, "aha" is translated as "a resident of the Balinese mountains".

People in the village were ordinary, nothing much different from ordinary Balinese. All tried to communicate in their own way, with interest, but not strongly obsessive, considered. And sometimes they continued, winking conspiratorially, to call to the cemetery.

Trunyan was the last point where we could get to the eastern side of Lake Batur, then the road broke off.

You can climb higher.

And see the village of Trunyan and Lake Batur in all its glory.

In the rainy season, Truignant floods

Chandi Bentar or the split gates of Truignan and the volcano of Batur

Happy Truignant, it's time for us to go home)

And now we are heading towards the western part of Lake Batur, where the volcano itself is located.

Batur volcano and hot springs

The volcano of Batur is one of Bali's most active volcanoes. Over the past 200 years, there have been more than 20 eruptions, the latter occurring in 1994.

The strongest eruption of the volcano Batur was in 1917, it took thousands of lives, destroyed houses and temples. Old people say that it was "the year when the world shook" (more than a thousand people died, 65,000 houses and 2,500 temples were destroyed).

We meet the ruined walls of the houses of the whole village, which, as we think at first, remained to our days, as a monument to the eruption of the volcano Batur.

As we were told later, this village of "walls and foundations" is a temporary camp for pilgrims who come here once a year to the ceremony of "worshiping the strength of the volcano." This happens in the summer. In this ruined village comes a lot of Balinese, live near the volcano for several days, participating in a grandiose ceremony. So they respect the Batur volcano and worship his violent strength.

After the eruption of the volcano, the streams of magma in a quick clock reached the waters of the lake. The whole western and north-western slope of the ganunga of Batura is flooded with volcanic rock.

On the frozen lava of the volcano Batur.

Volcanic rock of the volcano Batur

In the middle of an endless landscape with lava, we turned into an unexpected green line. Here begins the guerrilla path to the top of Batura. Or you can just walk in a coniferous forest.

  And in Bali you can communicate with almost fir trees, I like coniferous trees, they are magical.

Here and there, we see unexpected plantations right on the volcanic rock ...

You can drive to the shore of Lake Batur. Look, my pet Abang trustingly looks straight into the camera and is not at all embarrassed, does not cover his top with clouds, how often it happens. Given the cloudy weather and sneaking rain - this is a super honor on his part)

By the way, below I will return to this magical mountain of Abang and tell you a little about it.

On the shore of Lake Batur you can see fishermen. You can also go fishing. Fishing rod - 10 thousand rupees, bait its own.

We go further. In the northwest, the caldera becomes completely deserted, the houses and plantations are over, a continuous magmatic rock (here it is called volcanite). Apparently, here the eruption was the most active. There are local residents with shovels, mining the breed.

After the eruption of the volcano, the lava that descended from it froze on the surface of the Earth and formed very valuable for processing rocks - basalts, diabases, andesites, rhyolites, etc. Therefore, in Bali volcanic rock is actively extracted, processed and created numerous local statues, used as a building and facing stone (for example, gravel and cement from the same song). Also local craftsmen use volcanic dust, or, volcanic ash for drawing and hand-made articles.

We began to meet busy local trucks, laden with volcanic rock and carrying it from the caldera to different points in Bali for further processing.

Strolled through the village and went to the temple of Pura Ulun Danu Batur, whose turrets were seen from below from the caldera. It turned out that the temple consists of a whole complex of temples and has an interesting history.

Originally, the temple of Batur and the village of Batur were located down in the caldera at the foot of Mount Batur. Strong volcanic eruptions in 1917 and 1926 destroyed the village and the ancient temple, except for the most valuable for the Balinese sanctuary - the 11-level Meru tower dedicated to the goddess Devi Dan. The villagers moved up and settled on the edge of the caldera, where they rebuilt their village of Batur and the temple with a shrine.

In general, the top of Mount Abang is a whole layer of history. Sasha described it in detail in the article: The absolute peak of Mount Abang is 2151 meters above sea level. Mount Abang in ancient times was called Kulit Biyu, which can be translated as "mountain of banana trees."

And at the foot of the Batur volcano there is another temple. Very unusual temple with idols. See for yourself. We seem to have got into a fairy tale about a leshe and his friends.

The upper church itself is small, but on its territory there are about 50 statues that could still see how the temple on this hill was built, developed, passed into the possession of different kings. Here you can just close your eyes and see the old Bali, where on great holidays, dozens of bulls and deer heads were sacrificed, which were collected by all surrounding villages. And much earlier, here they made their sacrifices and prayed to the spirits of the earth, water and fire from the ancient tribe of Bali-aga.

Well, friends. This concludes my story. Here it is, the caldera of an ancient volcano, temples, Mount Abang, the volcano of Batur and its surroundings. Will be in Bali - be sure to visit this space! 🙂

P.S. On September 20, 2012, UNESCO introduced the caldera area of ​​the Batur volcano into the global network of geoparks (Global Geopark Network).

P.P.S. Have you noticed anything unusual in this story? If not, then notice, we changed clothes in this narrative several times. Well, it's all because we were in the vicinity of Batura many times.

Friends, attractions of Bali we collect on our. And if you are going to Bali, we recommend reading more than 100 copyright articles, which we collected with love to this island - \u003e\u003e.

In Facebook we began to fill the group with useful information -