16 May - Ubud to Kintamani

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Up early this morning to gorgeous sunshine and blue skies. So after breakfast it was straight to the pool for some swimming, sun bathing (mostly in the shade for me) and reading. Unfortunately the swim up pool bar hadn't opened by the time we left at about 11am though.

After showering and checking out, we sat down in a gazebo at the beach for about 40 minutes before we got back into our van and drove down the Harbour for lunch. Again, I wasn't overly thrilled with the lunch I ordered, but maybe it was my choice rather than the restaurant itself! Had veges with satay, called Gabo Gabo.

After lunch we headed towards Kintamani, on the way stopping at another temple which was quite pretty and a little more entertaining than some - with statues of people playing musical instruments and animals, etc. After that it was a bit of drive on winding roads in fairly heavy rain as we headed towards Kintamani.

Basically a small town with nothing much, excluding what was supposed to be outstanding views of the volcano Bakur. But when we arrived, it was pretty much all fogged in and we couldn't see anything. However, the hotel had the best wifi so far as far as speed goes, so after checking in we chilled a little, played a game of pool (I lost to Grant), had a drink and headed to the restaurant at the hotel for dinner as there was basically no other choice.

The clouds and mist started to clear so we got our first glimpse of both the lake beneath us and the volcano opposite as the sun started to set. Very pretty.

The others decided to trek up the volcano, leaving at 3:30am to see the sunrise, but I opted not to, largely because I was still struggling a bit with stairs and walking in general, having been in pain since my random trek down and up through rice fields a couple of days ago. Never been in so much pain and for so many days, it must have been a great workout that's for sure!

So they headed to bed at about 8am and I sat up and read and used the wifi for a bit before I turned in fairly early as well.

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