Day 2 - Sunrise on Mt Batur

---

Today’s activity was a visit to see the sunrise on Mt Batur. Woke up very early this morning for our 3.00am pick-up (although they were 15 minutes late). I figured that this was the best day to do this because our bodies hopefully were still on Sydney time which meant 5.00am. Seemed to work although we didn’t get to bed as early as I had planned so we only got about 5 hours sleep. It was a 1.75 hour drive to the jeep pick-up, so we both managed a bit more shut eye before then. It was a 25 minute drive in the jeep, 5 minutes on a sealed road, then 20 on a steep, bumpy dirt road. It was actually a lot of fun.

We reached the viewing area at 5.25am, along with about 200 other jeeps. Kadek, our guide/driver told us that and it was quite a spectacle in itself. We were given some hot chocolate on arrival and taken to a good seated area with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains and lake. The time went quickly as we watched the countryside slowly light up over the following hour. We were also given some breakfast and Kadek is a photography student so took some nice shots of us on the jeep. Even the drive back down was interesting with some beautiful rural scenes in the early morning light.

We then changed back into a car and drove a short distance to the Floating Temple and then a visit to a coffee plantation where they make the “poo” coffee, Kopi Luwak. The Asian Palm Civet eats the coffee cherries and the bean comes out in it’s faeces. We had a cup of both the male and female versions of the poo coffee. The coffee is expensive with the male one more expensive then the female one. They were both OK but we’ll be sticking with our cheap Aldi coffee beans. Also part of the deal was we got a tasting tray of all the different coffees and teas they make, so it was quite a fyn experience. We ended up buying a couple of the teas.

We finally got back to our hotel around 11.00 am and we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. We went for a walk up the main road and had a nice barramundi lunch at Apa Kabar restaurant and Daisy had a facial and a swim. I went through some photos before it was time to watch the State of Origin, which wasn’t really worth watching and we then had a late dinner at the hotel restaurant again.

---