A True Adventure

We left Ubud on Saturday 20th March. We were picked up by a driver from the Surya Hotel, in Kedisan, where we were heading. This was a free pick up, included in the hotel price. The journey from Ubud to Kedisan was about 1 hour. The driver kept trying to get us to go to places on the way, to get money out of us. We kept saying no, just take us to our hotel, but he kept on asking!

As we got closer to our hotel, we started to ascend up hill, so I assumed we would be staying up high. Then just as we got close, we went down a very steep, winding hill, that took us down to a lake, surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. The whole area is a feature of volcanic eruptions called a caldera.The larger caldera is 10km by 13km and was formed 28,500 years ago and the inner caldera which is 7.5km wide was formed 23,670 years ago and now contains lake Batur.

When we arrived in our hotel our driver continued to ask if we wanted to be taken places later, we kept telling him no, but I don’t think he understood! We were met by a member of staff from the hotel and taken to our room. We had asked for a standard room, which costs $10 a night for both of us. When we went to pay, the man charged us $15 dollars a night, I didn’t realise until I went back to my room, so I went back to enquire about it. He told me that the room we were staying in cost that much. So I explained that we asked for a standard room, which according to the website cost $10 a night. He just kept saying this is the price my manager told me. We were finally shown another room, which they said was the standard room for $10 a night. It only had cold water, even though the website states that all rooms come with hot and cold water. We were ready to leave and find another hotel, until the guy told us we could have the original room for $10 instead of $15, so long as we didn’t tell any of the other guests. Maybe the information on their website needs to be changed, to stop more confusion in the future! We had planned on staying in the hotel for 3 nights, but left after the second night. The rooms were not clean, the toilet didn’t flush, there was no fan in the room and there were bugs everywhere. We were also sick of being sold things every 5 seconds. It was either a knock on the door trying to sell us art, or whilst tringto sit and relax in the bar, we were being told that we must come on the trek up the mountain with them, for $35 dollars each. This hotel is fantastic for location, as it is only 30 mintues walk from the foothill of Mount Batur, but other than it having a great location, I would not recommend it. There are a few other hotels in the area, so it may be worth looking around.

After we finally settled in our room on the Saturday, we went for a walk around the tiny village of Kedisan. We also walked to Pura Yati, another village close by. There isn’t many restaurants or shops around the area, and I didn’t see any cash machines, so take cash with you. We finally found a small cafe, so we decided to stop for something to eat. There wasn’t much choice on the menu, we just decided to get some frys each and some garlic bread. The garlic bread was very interesting. It was two slices of buttered bread sandwiched together. We took the top slice of bread off, to find cloves of chopped garlic spead over it. Well I guess they took the name ‘garlic bread’ litterally.

Just before we left the cafe, we asked the lady where we could start the trek up Mount Batur. Everyone keeps telling us that we must go with a guide and the guides are charging between $35 and $60 each. We found out from research on the internet, that this is not true, and that the locals just say that to make money. The lady in the cafe, kindly told us where we could start the trek. She also warned us about guides trying to tell us that we needed a guide. She said just say you are just looking, if they ask.

We decided we would do the Trek up mount Batur the next morning. Leaving at 3 am to arrive at the top in time to see the sunrise.

We will post a blog soon about our amazing trek up Mount Batur

Ruth and Paul:)