Bali, part 3: volcano hikes, toxic sulfur smoke, dolphins at sunrise and meeting up with friends

One night we were hoping to find something to help our sweet tooth. 😋 We drove around with our scooter and checked menus of different restaurants. One had a massive list of different types of cakes and we decided to give it a try. The restaurant is called Cafe Batu Jimbar. We ordered some chocolate mousse cheese cake and coconut pie (never seen that before) and both were so delicious! Edda couldn't stop thinking about the chocolate mousse cake for the next few days!

Then, all the sudden, it started to rain heavily. We were wondering whether if we would wait or go. Well, the rain might take a while so we decided to go. In the video below you can see that in just a short time the streets were covered in water! (sorry about the bad quality in the video)

Edda's friend, Maija, and her husband Tommy came also to Bali for their honeymoon. We decided to crash their honeymoon and invited them to hike up to Mt Batur (an active volcano) in hopes to see a sunrise. It was nice to see them after such long time and to do some activity with them. We had to wake up at 1am because a car picked us up at 1.30am. Edda had managed to sleep between 7 and 9pm, Markus between 11pm and 1am. Not very much. Our driver picked us up in the night and we noticed the car didn't have seat belts... Apparently it's not very important in Bali, but we would've wanted to have them. Especially when the driving in Bali is totally crazy with last minute overtakings and not really following any rules. We picked up Maija and Tommy from Ubud and two other girls joined as well. They were not very talkative. The tour included breakfast. It said it would be banana pancakes. Well, little did we know that everyone received ONE pancake. Hmmm, had we known that, we would've eaten something earlier or bought a snack. We drove to the starting point and got ready. Using the toilets was not a very pleasant experience. On this side of the world toilets are always completely wet from walls to floor and you cannot even think of sitting on the toilet seat because it's completely wet. 😱 For us in Finland it feels so strange and we don't understand why others make it so dirty and unpleasant for others...

Anyhow, then we started our hike. We had a young woman as our guide and she told us she goes up the mountain almost every day. She didn't even need a flash light, because she memorizes the entire path already. And the path is not the easiest to go up (or down) because it's old lava and very uneven and many places had loose stones/sand, etc. 

When we got up, it started to get lighter quickly. It was amazing to see how mountains, Lake Batur and houses started to appear. There were quite many clouds, but we did see some sort of a sunrise and it was beautiful.

All the sudden a big group of monkeys came up the mountain. They had learned that when the sun comes up, people start to eat their snacks and they will always get lucky and get something as well. We had to quickly secure all our belongings because those thieves are really fast!

Something we learned from another hiker was that the day before, local people had carried a living cow up the mountain and then, as a sacrifice, they threw it down the crater! For us, it sounds horrifying! They had thrown some swans as well, but luckily they just flew away. But we have learned that in these countries animals are to be eaten or they are used as labor. We don't see animal rights playing a big part over here, unfortunately. 😢

On our way back we saw many local people in their daily work. There were mainly chili plantations. We hadn't seen such before.

Our ride back was not the best one. We had driven for maybe 30 minutes when the driver turned around. We tried to ask him several times why we were going back but he just said "one moment". The road is in terrible shape and we were really not in the mood for going through the bumpy ride again... Well, didn't really have a choice. Then we met another car and we had to switch cars. The reason was that they were going to the hot springs and we were not. Maybe something that could've been agreed and organized earlier? Well, bumpy ride back and we were on our way to Ubud and Sanur again. After Maija and Tommy got off, we fell asleep in the car.

We took it easy the rest of the day because the following day we were picked up around 6.30pm for a tour to East Java. The idea was to see blue fire in a crater of Mt Ijen. We drove first around 4 hours, then took a boat for maybe 45 minutes, then again by car for around 2 hours. The ferry was bad. Many of the local people wore breathing masks and we could understand why. The smell from the engine was terrible. Also, even though there were 'no smoking' signs inside, the workers smoked there all the time. People were trying to get some sleep on the benches but they played very loud karaoke videos, so that would've been impossible. There was also a cockroach in the toilet.

When we arrived to the starting point, our guide told us we could not start before 3am so we could try to rest for a while in the car. At one point we woke up and it was already past 3am. We woke our guide up and said we should go. We used the soaked toilets and asked whether if we should go to the starting point. Our guide said that not before 3am. We showed that it was already 3.20am. But little did we know that Bali and Java had different time zones! So, it was really only 2.20am. We still had to wait a while so we bought some fried bananas and coffee.

At 3am we started our hike with our guide. There are many miners that work on Mt Ijen because there is a lot of sulfur that they gather for different industries. The miners carry around 90kg of sulfur up from the crater (200m) and then down the volcano's slopes to the starting point. They do it several times a day. But what is really sad, is that they usually only have a damp cloth to cover their nose and mouth. They cannot afford gas masks or gloves. According to an article from BBC in 2011, the miners get around 10 - 15$ per day for the extremely hard and dangerous work. The clouds that smashed also into our faces when we walked up are not just smelly and unpleasant - they are dangerous. We felt that our eyes were burning and it was not something we would like to experience again. The miners experience it every day. The toxic smoke can, in time, dissolve the miners teeth! We had gas masks but there were many people going up with no masks at all! Even many parents (tourists) with small children! We don't know whether if they didn't know about the toxic smoke or if they didn't care.

A miner tying sulfur pieces on his cart

We managed to walk up (not pleasant when you couldn't see even 1m forward due to the toxic smoke that smelled really really really bad) and sat to wait for it to get lighter. It was cold up there! We waited and when it became light we saw that there was only smoke everywhere. Our guide said we should wait a while in case it would disappear. It didn't. So we didn't see the blue fire nor the lake in the crater. Our guide made us a small cup of very sweet tea and then we decided to leave. The image on the mountain was creepy with the rock formations and the smoke. It started to rain as well. 😕 In Finland we would call this a 'hukkareissu'. Mainly because it took us forever to get there from Sanur and the way back was very long as well and we were extremely tired. The entire trip took about 22 hours - we were back around 4pm and slept well the following night!

We had found online that there are a few surf brand outlets near Kuta. We decided to check them out and drove with our scooter there. There were many things that had much lower prices than the brands would have normally. Markus found some surf shorts for 24€ (normally around 50 - 60€), Edda some dresses for around 10€ each (normally around 50 - 70€), etc. Nice! We drove also a bit in Kuta and stopped for some frozen yogurt. Other than that, the city didn't look inviting. There were just many stalls selling fake items.

Driving through a very narrow path in Kuta

Then we finally got some sun! We had already many times went to one restaurant at the beach near to our villa because they had sun beds 😁 We stayed there for a few hours every time, ordered something to drink or some lunch and hoped to get some tan, heh. 

Busy writing post cards 

The restaurant where we stopped at a few times, cafe Kesuma

Then it was time for our last early wake up! We woke up at 3am to get to Lovina beach in the North of Bali. The idea was to see dolphins. We had seen a few in New Zealand, but they were very far away. This time we were hoping to see them close. We had booked our tour through Bali Golden Tour and their driver was the best one we had had until then. A) the car had seat belts and b) he didn't drive like a crazy person. That was nice. He also spoke good English, which made the trip nicer. We arrived to Lovina Beach when it was still dark but we didn't have to wait very long until we got to go on a traditional, small, wooden boat with two other people and the driver. There were quite many boats with tourists, but not all went to same direction every time.

The weather was perfect! Some clouds that made the sunrise look even more beautiful and a feeling of a soft breeze when we drove with the boat. At some point we even forgot that we were there to see dolphins because it was so lovely anyhow!

Then they appeared! They were many and right next to us! Unfortunately, some of the boats drove very close to the dolphins and scared them away, which we feel was just stupid... But our driver kept himself on the side of the dolphins and didn't try to steer in front of them. Points for that.

After seeing the dolphins, the driver asked if we would like to see some corals from the boat. Well, we didn't really understand but said "sure" and off we went. Then we came to a point where it was pretty shallow and the water was clear. There we could see some corals through the water but they were mainly dead. We would guess because of the boats and people stopping and swimming there all the time... Darn.

Next part of the tour was to see Gitgit waterfall. We were not very enthusiastic about it since we had seen quite many waterfalls during our trip, but it was nice to see it since it was on the way! And we were lucky - there was no-one else. 

A temple at the waterfall 

For our next part of the trip we were more excited. We were going to see the Pura Ulun Danu Bratan temple that you often see in travel guides and post cards from Bali. Usually the picture has a beautiful sky, the water is mirror still and the light makes all the colors of the temple bright. Well, had we seen it like that, we would've been extremely lucky because as our guide told us - it's usually cloudy or even rainy up there. It's also quite cold! But it didn't rain, which was nice! We were actually quite lucky and saw a ceremony where local people carried some statues and offerings from one place to another. They played music and were dressed in traditional clothes.

On the day before we had to leave Bali, we packed a big box with our clothes that we didn't need anymore (for example Markus' wetsuit, our hiking boots, our jackets, etc.). We took it to the post office (it took some time to find which post office is good, we took the one on Sunset Road) and filled in the paper work. There was only one dilemma. The post office could insure the package (in case it would get lost) for the entire amount, if we paid 2% extra for the shipment. But the amount was quite high since we had the clothes mentioned above and quite a lot of other clothes and stuff as well. And putting a high amount on top of a package can always be a risk. It might never come to Finland or only a part of it might and also we think that the customs in Finland might screen it more closely due to the amount. But then again, you don't want to put a smaller amount, even though it's just old clothes and stuff, because if it gets lost, you want the entire amount back. Well, we decided to put the correct value on the paper and hope for it to come home safe and not get stuck in any customs. Fingers crossed!!

Markus' friend Jani came also to Bali with his family and friend and we met them and Maija and Tommy on our last night in Indonesia. Both Jani's family and Maija and Tommy stayed close to Jimbaran so we decided to meet there and ate at White Sands Beach House. It was a restaurant that had tables on the beach and reasonably priced food for different tastes. It was really nice to sit and chat together! Later, Maija and Tommy invited us for a glass of sparkling wine that they had received from the hotel for their honeymoon. We had a great time but then it started to get late and we tried to get an Uber back home. The first one never showed up so we had to walk back to the hotel for Wi-Fi and we ordered a new one. That one also drove pass us first but came back. The problem with Uber in Bali is that it's really not liked by the local taxi drivers and many places have signs with "no Uber" on them. But it's so much cheaper, so we used it when we didn't have our scooter.