Bali – Day 3

• Sit back and relax as tour agents C.Bali takes care of our Kintamani tour:

Rach and Sibran are exceeding friendly and helpful, and they helped a lot with planning the Kintamani part of our Bali holiday. I highly recommend them to anyone who wants to take a look from the top of Bali (well, almost. it’d be considered the top if you were too lazy to climb!) – contact C.Bali to go on their package tours, or customize one if you have a big group! Their website is already very informative and full of details about their tours, but Rach is also quick to respond to any queries you might have.

Other than their tours, they’ll also guide you on how to keep safe in Kintamani, avoid being scammed, and generally take care of you very well. 🙂

Pictures I took of the scenery while on the car, wish we stopped to take in the scenery! (Thank goodness the windows weren’t dirty, or I wouldn’t have any pictures at all!)

Took more pictures when we arrived at Hotel Segara (which was part of the Kintamani tour package).. As hotel rooms go, this was pretty sparse.. With a toilet on the verge of breaking down, a water heater so powerful that I’m burning up in the shower, and a toilet door that won’t lock. Also, the “dressing tables” vary from room to room with different height shelves and mirrors, so it’ll be good to let the hotel know if you need a mirror to do make-up, put on your contact lenses, preen at yourself etc…

We also had a hotel breakfast welcoming us, but we’ve all eaten at Bali Sorgawi, so we pretty much wasted the food. Me bad. (Interestingly, the breakfast menu the next day had the same food options, but had different wordings. Curious!)

• Canoeing on volcanic Lake Batur,

Wish I had pictures of our short trek down from the hotel to the lake, but our cameras were all safely tucked within the canoe flaps and our arms were full from carrying the canoes and the paddles! It’s a bit of a bother having to do the drudge work yourself, but I think it adds a sense of satisfaction when you finally get to paddle out! Being a bunch of wussies, we only paddled halfway across the whole canoeing area marked out by Rach, as we were worried we wouldn’t get back in time. The current was in our favour, so we got to take a nap in the sun and let the waves wash us back to shore.

To share some advice from Rach – the lake gets very misty and windy late in the morning, so this is definitely a morning activity. We canoed from about 9am to 11am, and the winds were starting to pick up. We wouldn’t have been able to row out! And neither would we be able to see the scenic views! She’s got lots more tips on having a pleasant canoeing trip, but nothing that would affect -planning- for a trip, so I’ll leave it to her.

• Lunch of ikan mujair (local delicacy),
• Volcanic hot springs,

After yesterday’s rafting and today’s canoeing, we were all looking forward to a day of pure relaxation, and in Singaporean slang, nuah-ing about. We took a short car ride, thoroughly entertained by Rach’s stories about the local life, and arrived at Toya Devasya for lunch and a long dip in a -volcanic- hot spring. Here’s pictures of the lava fields and the mountain itself (once again, from the car):

Here’s Toya Devasya… Which had an average swimming pool of varying depths, and two hot pools, also of varying depths. The hot pools weren’t hot enough for me, while the swimming pool wasn’t cold enough for me, so I didn’t enjoy it much… I did have a try at swimming, but I think I much prefer just.. floating. Hot springs aside, I had a wonderful lunch! The ikan mujair is possibly one of the best fish dishes I’ve ever had, other than the steamed fish from Chinatown (Singapore) and fresh sashmi. Quite possibly, lunch was worth the entire ticket price, but I’m hoping I won’t need to make the ardous trip to Kintamani just for it.

I’ve learnt since then that there’s another hot spring in Bali, Banjar Air Panas near Lovina, presumably a more authentic volcanic hot spring. I’ll try that on my next visit~ Now if only I can find ikan mujair on flat ground!

ps: I tried Googling for “ikan mujair recipe”, but only found Malay results. Anyone fluent in Malay and willing to help me sieve out the potentially good recipes?

• Very early lights out at Hotel Segara.

With neither anything planned on our itinerary nor any energy to do anything, we headed back to the hotel at about half past four. The only thing between us and sleep was dinner, which would be ready at 6pm. We were lazy to walk out and there wasn’t anything at Hotel Segara in terms of facilities (but I did spot a meagre shelf of fiction books and chess sets), we took our only deck of cards and started to play Dai Dee, ala Big 2. (We were worried that we might be arrested on the grounds of illegal gambling, but we were assured that we may play in peace.)

Here’s dinner, a plain and simple affair that I didn’t like.. Maybe ikan mujair set the standards too high, so the fried fish tasted dull in contrast.

Next, we lit our mosquito coil next to the only opened window, prayed hard for a good breeze and uninterrupted sleep, and settled down to rest however we could before our 3.30am wakeup call.

My Notes:

Those of you planning to take a tour around Kintamani might be curious about the prices; Rach has very kindly given me an item by item costing. Enjoy!

• Transport from Ubud to Kintamani and vice versa: RP500,000 to RP600,000/car
• Climbing guide: RP50,000/4 pax
• Standard room at Hotel Segara: RP200,000
• Hot springs entrance fees: RP150,000

The package we got for these two days (including tomorrow’s mountain trekking and the trip back to Ubud) was RP900,000/pax, with a deposit of US$15/pax to be made online once reservations are confirmed. Considering all the chauffeuring  about Kintamani, the canoeing on Lake Batur, and 4 meals, I thought this was a good rate. Added bonus: Good guides!