I've been working on a plan for a while to climb a volcano on the north of the island and yesterday I kicked the plan into action!

I packed up my daypack with only what I'd need for one night, rented a motorbike, and headed north to Gunung Batur. It's an active volcano that's about 1730m above sea level.

The outer rim of the volcano is enormous. Truly. There's a little village inside of it on the shore of a small lake. I drove up there and got a room for the night. I also scoped out the lower flanks of the cone to find the route that I was looking to climb. It's all jungle on the lower part and super easy to get lost - especially since I planned to get up a 4:30am in the darkness to begin climbing! Anyhow, I searched around for about an hour and found two good route options, so I figured I was set.

I woke up at 4:30am as planned and began climbing with the light from my headlamp. All went well and within about 45 minutes I was above treeline and walking up the open slopes of solidified lava. Near the top the sun began to rise and I could begin to see without the headlamp. There were also several guided parties heading up.

Once I topped out there was steam rising from various points in the inner most cone. The guides were cooking eggs at the summit for their clients using vents in the rock.

After hanging out at the summit for a while, I made my way the remainder of the way around the inner rim and then traversed down to a couple of newer, more active craters where there was more steam. Very cool.

Down at the village there is an expensive tourist spa where you can bathe in spring water heated by the volcano. But below, somewhat hidden is a free public bath for the locals where I hung out. I kind of found it by luck as I was snooping around town like I normally do ;-)

It's funny - I took a room with only cold water, but I randomly tried the hot tap, and it was steaming! I kind of figure that they only say it doesn't have hot water so they can offer different rates for the rooms. All the water is heated naturally by the volcano probably, so every room has it. Nice! The first hot water I've had since Singapore... seems like ages ago.

Was cruising down the typically quiet Bali roads on the way back and saw a police truck up ahead. Naturally they pulled my over. Wanted to see my motorcycle registration, which I showed them. It checked out. Then they wanted to see my driver's license. It checked. They they wanted to see my international driver
s license. I showed them that... but they tried to tell me it wasn't "stamped" for motorcycle use. And it wasn't, but in Bali it's OK. I just stayed calm and told them it was acceptable, then followed up immediately with some random comment to change the subject. I had to do that about three times, before he forgot about the license and started asking random things about Canada. I got my international license back in my hand while trying to amaze him with stories of how there is snow on all the peaks in Canada nearly all year and it can be +30 down to -30. Had a great little chat.

Anyhow, his buddy had stopped another tourist going the other direction, so we said our goodbyes and off I went. I stopped a few kilometers down the road to rearrange all my papers that I'd just stuffed back in my pack to get out of there!

I fully expected to be stopped at some point, so wasn't too surprised, nor too worried. Everyday is a new adventure!

In other news, I got pecked by a large duck while walking down the street. Apparently it thought I got a little too close to its little one.