Mt. Batur Sunrise Volcano Hike

After lunch, we booked a tour for that night/morning to do a sunrise volcano hike on Mt. Batur. There are 7 active volcanoes on the island. Batur is just southeast of a 10x13 km caldera (crater) lake, Danau Batur, the largest crater lake on the island, and the slightly taller volcano, Mt. Agung. Batur's first documented eruption was in 1804 and has been active ever since. We sat on Monkey Forest Road in Ubud and enjoyed some wine. Then, it started raining and we got very, very nervous about our early morning hike.


When we woke up at 2:30 am, there was no rain. We checked out of our hotel without a problem and jumped in a car with our driver, Made (#10, not #2) to travel about 1 hour to the foot of the volcano. We hiked with our guide, another Made, up the volcano. It's about 700 meters high and took us about 1.5 hours to make it to the top... in the dark... with only flashlights.

We arrived at the time and it was still pitch black, but within 15 minutes or so, the sun started to make it's way out from it's slumber. It was absolutely beautiful.

You can the lights from the fishing town below and the shadow of Mt. Agung in the background.


Slowly but surely, it rose higher and higher.


When it began to warm up, our guides made us breakfast. We enjoyed rice with roasted coconut and peanuts, a warmed banana sandwich and eggs. The eggs and bananas were cooked using one of the steam "pockets" on the volcano. During our ascent, we past many of these pockets and they were welcome relief from the chilly night air. They are small holes scattered around the mountain where steam is released from the rumbling lava inside.

This is the small hut that they prepared our breakfast in, in the smokey morning air.

Our friends that hiked with us!

The view was beautiful! That's Lombok island in the background and there was a beautiful ring of clouds around the top of Mt. Agung.

Such a serene, sleepy, gorgeous death trap!

The early sun cast a warm glow on the city and landscape below.

After the sun was risen, we prepared for our descent. We saw another group of monkeys, and this throwned monkey particularly caught my eye.

The way down was so much harder than the way up. I felt like I could tumble down the mountain at any moment... probably because I could see it!

At the base, we walked through the remains of a town that was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in the early 2000s.

Here's Mt. Batur!

It was absolutely beautiful. After we were finished, our driver took us back to Kuta beach so Caroline could board her flight. I spent the day on the beach until my flight at 9:30 pm back to Seoul.