Bali Trip – 16th April 2010 – Day 5
Day trip to the volcano Mt Batur
After breakfast we were met by our guide & driver. The first stop was to see a traditional dance called “Bali Barong & Kris dance” in the town of Batubulan this took about 1hr. We were given a program to read which told us a basic story of the dance & even though they sang & talked in Balinese you could still get the gist of it.much like opera. The costumes were colourful & interesting. & was very energetic. We took heaps of photo’s.
The next stop was at a silver jewellery factory, we were shown the different stages of how they made earrings etc & were then taken in to the showroom where you could purchase any of the jewellery or figurines.unfortunately I don’t like silver, so we didn’t part with any money here but it was interesting.
We then travelled to Cheluk, where we stopped at an old guest house, with large grounds & a nice pond area which was located next to a really green rice paddy where we tasted some traditional deserts ( sort of like a ball donut) with a nice cold drink. 
Next stop a Coffee, spices & orchid village, Sribatu where we wandered around the pathways seeing all the different fruit trees & plants. We came to a designated area where we were served a selection of coffee, hot chocolate & tea’s to try, cant say that I really liked any, but David didn’t mind the ginger tea. We then walked up to an area where we could see & smell the different spices in open containers & try some of the fruits such as lychee, Jack fruit & snake fruit which were grown here. Then once again we were taken to a little shop where you could purchase goods – we bought some bali coffee- not the animal one !. (Apparently there is a coffee produced on the island that is collected from the droppings of Mongoose, after they have digested the beans, and is said to be quite expensive..YUKKKKK)
We stopped at various bends on the road to take some photos of the volcano, & were constantly harassed by ladies trying to sell shirts & sarongs etc.
This is an active volcano & our guide pointed out where the steam & gases from on the side were escaping 
You could really notice a very large area where the lava had travelled from the last eruption (1963) it was all very barren.
The clouds were now coming over quickly. We eventually stopped for lunch at a restaurant at Kintamani ,where we viewed Mt Batur from the window while eating a smorgasbord lunch, there was a huge variety of traditional food to try & was really quite nice.
We had a large storm & the rain pelted down before we left & all the roads were once again flooding.
The next stop was Temple Sebatu (Holy Spring Water Temple) where we all had to wear a sarong skirt before going into the grounds. It was really beautiful, built against the side of a mountain, everything was lush & green. There were lots of ponds & fish (kept Brendan occupied) as well as the usual worn statues covered with moss.
The last stop, on the way home, was to view the Rice paddies at Tegalallang, 
They go all the way down the side of a large mountain,.It was really huge & everything was sooo green – very picturesque. David, Brendan & the guide went out to take some photo’s & ended up going down into some peoples house which was also a store, they didn’t buy anything though.
We finally arrived back at the hotel after a very long day & said good bye to our driver & guide. We quickly changed & went in search of another restaurant to try out. We ended up having dinner at Warung Patrick Mexican restaurant- wasn’t too bad, thankfully it was only around a couple of bends from the hotel.thank goodness as we had already walked for miles during the day ! We all slept extremely well.
