17 May - Kintamani to Pedang Bai

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I got a 3:20am wake up call this morning intended for Christina who had already left the room. This woke me up with a jolt, largely because I didn't even know the room had a phone, and then had to find it while still largely asleep. It also meant I had trouble falling back asleep for almost an hour which I wasn't impressed by either but not much I could do about it.

Woke up around 7am and had a leisurely morning of breakfast, Internet and reading, before heading to the volcanic museum at 9am. There is very little to do in this town except for that and a volcano trek, and given I had opted out of that I thought I should try to learn something about volcanos while here. Turns out they erupt a lot more than I would have rather known about, and ones with lakes at the bottom are more dangerous. Thankfully though, while we have great views of it we weren't staying incredibly close to it!

So we checked out and left at around 10am. Christina and Grant reported that the sunset was lovely and the trek harder than expected so I was grateful I decided not to do it! Legs still stiff and sore today too.

On the positive side, today was significantly clearer and I could see a little more of the lake and volcano than I could the previous day.

First stop of the day was a temple at Besakih. This mother temple is said to be one of the most important, the largest and holiest temple of the Hindu religion in Bali. It is built on the south slopes of Mount Agung, the main volcano of Bali, and is made up of more than 20 temples and lots of stairs which lead upwards towards the mountains. I was a hard slog for all of us today I think - me because my legs are still aching and Christina and Grant as they had spent five hours this morning trekking up and down Mout Batur.

After about an hour or so there, we headed to the next temple - Klungung temple. It had some stunning mural paintings, which (funnily enough) are all painted and created on asbestos. Very healthy, the government here haven't banned it yet.

Anyway there are some royal pavilions and a court section, where the paintings showed what the punishment for certain things was. So, for having an affair or sex before marriage, the giant would throw knives at you. For farting, you would be stabbed in the bottom, and there were a whole lot of other weird ones.

There was also a museum of historical significance and cultural importance that we wandered through - looking at some artifacts and art. From there it was towards our hotel, stopping at a local place for lunch where we had their speciality, which was fish kebabs, rice, peanuts, fish soup.

Actually very tasty but incredibly spicy! And cost less than $2. Then it was a short drive to the hotel, where it was time for a couple of hours by the pool. Slightly overcast this afternoon but still warm enough to sit by the pool and read a little. Then the three of us headed out to dinner at Buddha Bar and Restaurant, where I had the tuna steak, salad and chips, before we had a fairly early evening.

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