Into the mountains

Bali is a volcanic island, and yes, it does have mountains. In fact, the mountains where we went this weekend are higher than any peak in Pennsylvania. We were at about 4000 ft elevation, while the highest peak in PA is just over 3000 ft elevation. Because of the volcanic nature of the island, the peaks in Bali rise up pretty sharply. They are not too shabby to look at, and create some pretty nice views of the valleys below. The highest mountain in Bali is Gunung Agung, an active volcano which rises about 10,000 ft above sea level. On a clear day you can see this volcano from just about anywhere on the island. We can see it from Ubud when it is clear, which unfortunately is not very often since it is the rainy season now and it is usually cloudy. Because of the size of Mount Agung, and because you can see it from all over, it has a pretty important place in Balinese culture and religion. But I digress, because that is not at all where we went this weekend.


On Friday we took the bus to Bedugul, which is up in the central mountains. Bedugul has many Muslim and Buddhist inhabitants, making it a little bit different than the rest of Bali which is something like 97% Hindu. We went to Bedugul because it is in the mountains and there is a lake there, but really, there is not much else. We did find a hotel with an awesome view of the lake: 

But don't get too excited - there was nothing else about this hotel worth writing home about. It was pretty run down, and if you are looking for a nice place to stay, I wouldn't recommend it (unless you can go back in time and stay there 30 years ago). We spent most of our time on the porch reading. Which I guess really isn't so bad - we got to see the lake from our porch, so who cares if the room inside was yucky and didn't have hot water? All we did was sleep there.

Anyhow, the lake is an important place to the Balinese because it provides water and irrigation to all the valleys down below. Because of that, one of the most important temples is built on the lake and is a shrine to the lake gods (or something like that - I hope I am not totally botching Balinese religion). Temples in Bali are a dime a dozen. They really are EVERYWHERE. Each family has a temple in their family compound. Each town has 3 temples, and since most towns are very small, as you are driving through it can give the impression that there is just temple after temple. I still think that the temples are cool, but eventually they all start to look the same. But this particular lake temple is really pretty different and remarkable. It was definitely worth a look.

After dinner, when we were wondering what in the world we were going to do up in Bedudul the next day, we ran into Amin. Amin is a local tour guide and he offered us his services. It was a bit expensive, but we took the plunge. It ended up being totally worthwhile and better than anything we could have done on our own. I'd highly recommend Amin's tour to anyone, but i'll save those details for the next post.