The Jakarta Post - Weekender

The Dog Hours
When the alarm goes off at 1:30 a.m., I curse the Indonesian passion for sunrises. This one had better be pretty spectacular, I grumble to myself as I pull on hiking pants and two layers of shirts.

Outside our rented room, Ubud slumbers. It’s a nice time to be out, actually. The air is fresh and almost cool. The tour company van arrives moments later and my friend Laura and I pile in.

At this hour, dogs own the road. The driver picks his way around them for an hour as we snake up increasingly narrow and hilly roads to Gunung Batur.

It’s still pitch-black when we jump out at the base camp. Nyoman, the guide, gives us sashes to tie around our waists, because Mount Batur is a sacred place. We heft our packs and scuttle up the trail, guided by our flashlights and a sliver of moon.

Gift of the Goddess
Climbing Batur is just the kind of trek I like: relatively easy, with spectacular rewards. Batur has not one but two craters. The inner peak stands next to a beautiful lake, Danau Batur; both are nestled within a larger crater measuring some 14 by 10 kilometers.

Batur has been a busy volcano over the last century, with major eruptions in 1917, 1926 and 1963, and numerous minor blowouts.

Anthropologist Thomas Reuter, author of Custodians of the Sacred Mountains: Culture and Society in the Highlands of Bali, was living near the peak when it erupted for several days in 1994. He recalls watching the volcano spit out rocks and lava; he had to sweep a thick layer of ash off his verandah in the mornings.

Despite these pyrotechnic displays, when it comes to spiritual matters, the volcano takes a back seat to the lake. According to traditional beliefs, Lake Batur provides the irrigation water for a substantial portion of the island.

“That’s crucial in rice agriculture, so the lake is the source of fertility,” says Reuter. After each year’s harvest, representatives of Bali’s hundreds of irrigation districts come to thank the goddess of the lake, Dewi Danu, and give offerings of rice.

Unlike Java’s Queen of the South Seas, who marries each new sultan of Yogyakarta, Dewi Danu is apparently happily single.

“She’s a little capricious. There are local stories about her being approached by male deities wanting to marry her and she refuses,” says Reuter. “She’s got a sort of male counterpart, but he’s not her husband, because she’s very independent.”

Of course, she lives on a lake with a mountain view, and holds a leading role in a growth industry. Perhaps the goddess likes things just as they are.

That’s what Americans say
The trail is soft and sandy. It gets steeper and steeper, and I find myself gasping for breath. As I’m silently hoping I can blame my aching lungs on the altitude, Nyoman offers his hand. I swallow my pride and let him half-drag me up a difficult section.

We reach the first lookout point at the top of the mountain well before sunrise. We take off our packs at a little hut and sit gazing at the stars, the Milky Way and the bobbing lights of hikers below us making their way up the trail.

It is here that Nyoman wins me over, because it soon becomes clear that he’s protecting us from the crowds. When a gaggle of French trekkers arrives at the hut, Nyoman chats with them for a moment, then turns and asks if we want to move on. We have the next hut to ourselves for a while. Then a large, boisterous Balinese guide walks in, takes one look at me and Laura, and bellows in English: “How ya DOIN’? THAT’s what AMERICANS say!”

I heave a sigh of relief when Nyoman grabs his pack and heads for the door.

We arrive at the fourth and last hut as the sky is brightening. A few other people trickle in, but it’s a fairly low-key crowd. We plunk down on the ground outside the simple bamboo structure. The sun spreads fingers of fire across the sky and a remarkable vista comes to life all around us.

Eggs a la Volcano
The sunrise is good. Don’t get me wrong. But Batur doesn’t need a sunrise to dress it up. It’s stunning in its own right.

Steep peaks jut into the sky. Deeply rippled valleys testify to the past volcanic upheavals. The lake glows in the sun.

Once the morning is underway, Nyoman leads us in a time-honored volcano game: cooking in the steam vents. The eggs come out hard-cooked, slightly smoky and delicious. We buy coffee from the woman who runs the hut. Then we ramble for hours, seeing smaller volcanic cones, fields of hardened black lava and farmers’ crops framed by a backdrop of ridges.

After climbing Batur in 1881, Dutch health officer Julius Jacobs wrote rather floridly: “I am not able to to sketch the charming nonchalance with which dear nature threw all this together and I feel incompetent rendering into words the majesty and the poetry of it all.”

I think I know how Julius felt. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to go and see Gunung Batur for yourself.

Hikes up Batur can be arranged at Ubud’s many tourism offices. The asking price for a short sunrise hike is around Rp 300,000 (US$33), and should cover round-trip transportation from Ubud, a guide and breakfast. Get details about what’s included. Longer versions cost more. Bring a flashlight, a rain jacket and, of course, a camera.

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