I was lucky that while I was planning this trip, my friends Mal and Ayesha were also planning a little vacation. We thought it would be perfect to meet up for 10 days to explore Bali and it's neighbouring island, Lombok.
First stop was Ubud, the cultural centre of Bali. It has gone through many changes in the past few years thanks to (or depending on who you speak with, not thanks to) a little novel, some of you may have heard of called "Eat, Pray, Love". The author travels to Ubud after Italy and India and finds love...apparently it has inspired many to follow suit. Ubud is situated among rice fields and is teeming with restaurants, yoga studios, crazy luxurious retreats and shopping....it's a shopping paradise from the regular knock-offs to one of a kind artisans.
To better understand the culture and history of Bali, we set out for a day of bike riding from the base of Mount Batur back towards the town of Ubud. It was one of my favourite days thanks to our amazing guides, Dharma and Dewa who were full of knowledge and personal stories of life in and around Bali. As we biked, we passed through 'banjars', communities of compounds. Extended families still live in compounds and every day make offerings to the family and banjar temples. The majority of people on Bali are Hindu, but not quite the same as Indian Hinduism, as many of their beliefs blended with the animist traditions that were around before Hinduism. Balinese architecture is stunning and black rock, ornate temples were around every corner.
Throw in a stunning rice field in full bloom, and I get why people flock to this paradise.
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| Mount Batur |
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| Learning to make Balinese offerings |
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| Downhill biking in Bali |
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| Stunning rice fields |
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| All smiles while biking in Bali |
After exploring Ubud (and making plans to end our trip back there), we grabbed a boat to Lombok and the port town of Senggigi for some serious beach and pool R&R and to plan our Rinjani hike. Unfortunately, Mal had been feeling unwell for a few days, so only Ayesha and I set out for the grind up Rinjani. It is the tallest peak on Lombok at 3726m, and we decided to climb it and descend in only 2 days, in retrospect, what the heck were we thinking!!!!
This was definitely the most difficult hike I've ever done. The terrain was steep a lot of the first day, and after hours in the 35 degree heat and humidity, I had sweat out more than I could take in. Fortunately, our guides and porters had us covered with a ton of water. We made camp and enjoyed sunset, but it was an early night for a very early morning. 2am wake up to summit for sunrise. We started off strong, but I was hurting on the last hour of climbing scree to the summit. Now the weather was closer to zero especially with the wind chill. We didn't stay long on the summit, took some photos and made our descent. 2700m, my legs were jelly, I was covered in dirt and blisters, but mission accomplished.
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| Approaching Rinjani's summit - and camp! |
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| Base camp - well deserved R&R before summiting |
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| Dusk at Base Camp |
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| Looking down to the volcano crater from the summit |
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| WE DID IT! Freezing our butts off |
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| View of the lake after breakfast at camp. |
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| The intrepid crew - Ayesha, me and our guide and porters. |
