A fantastic experience: Hiking Mount Batur – Indonesia

If you’re heading to Bali and can manage to tear yourself away from the beaches for a while, hiking mount Batur at sunrise is most definitely one to tick off the bucket list.

So when you’re on holiday, soaking up the sun and enjoying one too many cocktails and your boyfriend comes up with the corker of an idea “shall we get up at 2am and do a hike up a mountain?” You can imagine the look on my face. But okay, I had looked at this trip before we headed off to Bali and the views from the top of the mountain looked absolutely amazing, and most definitely did not disappoint.

Firstly, I just want to say if you’re jetting off to Indonesia and fancy doing this excursion do not book before you travel. You will get it far cheaper and I’m sure your money will be going to the people who actually work there, rather than to some third party company. I would 100% recommend booking the trip from one of the many sellers on the street. Most of them were super friendly and there is one literally every 15 meters.

So the minibus picked us up around 2am. I was starving (as usual), hungover (or maybe still drunk) and extremely disorientated. If you’ve been to this area of the world you will know the driving regulations are VERY different to the UK. So we got into this 6 seater minibus – there was Adam and I, 3 guys from India, a Spanish girl, a Dutch girl & the driver. A tight squeeze to say the least. He also drove at what felt like 100mph, everywhere.  It was a relief to get out of that minibus in one piece. We were taken to a little hut on the side of a mountain and served tea, coffee and fried bananas by a boy that couldn’t have been a day over 8 and my heart melted.

Climbing the mountain was really hard work and the ground was surprisingly slippery. When doing anything like this, I would recommend buying some decent walking boots. I had opted for trainers and felt like my ankles were snapping off by the time we got back to the hotel. As challenging as the trek was, it was hands down one of the highlights of our trip. I must say the photos do not do the view justice. It was absolutely breath-taking, we were lucky enough to hike on a relatively clear morning meaning the view was incredible making the trek even more worthwhile. We made great friends, hiked for 3 hours, and watched the most fantastic sunrise I have ever seen – all before 7am. All in all a great experience I would most definitely recommend!

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