Bali 4-day DIY itinerary: Mt Batur sunrise trek and Uluwatu Temple
October 2, 2018
For folks who follow my blog, you’ll know I always try to do one hike per trip per location. Well, Bali’s no different. I’ll admit, this was my very first sunrise hike though – so I was woefully unprepared. Hence, why I’m writing this blog – so you won’t suffer the way I suffered!
Despite the pains and struggles though, I can 100% say that the Mt. Batur sunrise trek was the highlight of my Bali trip. Hiking through the dark with a hundred other tourists – with only a flashlight to light up the path felt kind of spiritual. Likewise, watching the sun come up over the horizon, was like watching a master painter use the sky as His canvas
Table of contents
- Tour for the day
- How to prep
- Mt. Batur sunrise trek
- Warung Babi Guling Sari Kembar 99
- Uluwatu Temple
- Total costs for the day
Tour for the day
Surprise surprise, I had also booked the Mt. Batur Sunrise Trek in advance. For this one, I opted to go with the Klook tour. The tour includes:
- Hotel pickup (1:15 – 2:00AM) and dropoff (11:00AM – 12:00PM)
- Mountain tour guide
- 1 bottle of water
- Breakfast (Banana sandwich and hard boiled egg)
Personal recommendation: Klook
Cost: IDR 275k per person
How to prep
Attire: Windbreaker jacket (it’s chilly at the top, but you’ll start sweating like crazy once you start the climb), exercise clothes, rubber shoes with good grip
What to bring (use a backpack, as you’ll want both hands free during the climb)
- 1 bottle of water (they’ll give you a bottle also, but I personally don’t think 1 bottle is enough, so BRING EXTRA)
- Towel (to wipe your sweat when you’re at the top of the mountain)
- Extra food – the breakfast is yummy (or we were just hungry?). But honestly, it wasn’t enough. Good thing we had brought bread with us #boyscouts
- Cash to tip the guide at the end of the trek
1:30AM Pick up from AirBnB
They can pick you up anytime between 1:15AM to 2:00AM – depending on who they’ll pick up first. The van can accommodate ~9 guests in total. Sadly, our accommodation was the farthest from Mt. Batur so we were picked up first. Try not to be late, as the guides have timed everything carefully. As such, being tardy by ~5-10 mins is equivalent to spending ~5-10 mins less time at the top of the mountain (but the bigger problem is if you miss the sunrise because you started the hike late!!)
I know, I know. 1:30AM is ridiculously early. So, I highly advise you to shower and sleep early the night before (we were in bed by 9PM), and pack your stuff already!
4:00AM Arrive at Mt. Batur parking lot
The good news is – you’ve got 2.5hrs in the car, so you can use that time to sleep. The bad news is – the road’s bumpy in some areas and it’s quite difficult to sleep in the car…
Anyway, by 4:00AM, you should arrive at the Mt. Batur base. There are toilets here – make use of them! These are the only toilets you’ll see for your entire trek
After the toilet break, your tour guide will hand over a bottle of water and a flashlight to each person. Don’t lose the flashlight – you need this to light up your path, plus they’ll ask you to return it at the end of the trek
4:15AM – 6:00AM THE CLIMB
Mt. Batur isn’t a difficult mountain to climb – I’ve climbed much much worse. Here, the trails are well-marked, it’s rocky (which is good as your shoes will have better grip), and you’re surrounded by people – so it’s quite difficult to slip and fall. Having said that, the last 30 mins of the climb is pretty steep and you’ll need both your hands to scramble up some parts
What makes this difficult (in my opinion), is that there’s a long queue of hikers going up and you’re time-constrained (you MUST reach the top by the sunrise). The climb’s not difficult, but the CONTINUOUS CLIMB for 90mins with minimal rest breaks is damn tiring! Plus the threat of missing the sunrise is pretty stressful…
6:00AM SUNRISE
Our guides said we were extremely fortunate because 50% of the time, the weather isn’t great and you won’t get to see this glorious a sunrise. Well, thank you Lord for small favors. I don’t know how I would’ve felt if I’d hiked up for 90 minutes and seen a crappy sunrise (reminds me of my Yogyakarta adventures – thank you for not letting me down Bali). I’ll let the pictures do the talking now
You know what’s even better than snapping nice photos? Having a nice breakfast at the top of the mountain – overlooking this stunning view. Here’s a snapshot of our banana sandwich (surprisingly good!) and hard-boiled egg.
7:30AM VOLCANO TOUR
After taking in all possible configurations of the sunrise, it’s now time to go around Mt. Batur. The guide will share some factoids with you, and you’ll be shown the crater and the remaining black lava from the latest Mt. Batur eruption which occurred in the year 2000
8:00AM HIKE BACK DOWN
Can you imagine it’s only just 8AM? It’s now time to head back down. And while going up is tiring, going down is terrifying! It took us ~1 hour of carefully making our way down the path before we reached our car
Why was it faster to go down? Because there was a shortcut! What the heck… Why couldn’t we have started at the higher elevated parking lot instead?!?
Before you wave goodbye to Mt. Batur, make sure to take a snapshot with the fearsome mountain in the background. Here’s a shot of our tour group – feeling VERY proud of ourselves. Note – we also left a tip for our tour guide (completely optional, you don’t have to if you don’t want to!)
11:00AM – 3:00PM HOME SWEET HOME
Can you imagine you’ve still got half the day left? As for us, we were pooped and slept for the next few hours!
3:00PM Warung Babi Guling Sari Kembar 99
Babi Guling is THE dish you must try when in Bali. It’s essentially different ways they cook their pig (one of which is like lechon, yum!) Do note that their cooking style is VERY spicy, so I’d fortify myself with lots of water when eating this dish
Now, there are a couple of famous babi guling restaurants. One of the most famous would be Babi Guling Pak Malen (which was a literal 10 mins walk from our AirBnB). It’s supposed to be extremely touristy though – so we opted to check out another highly recommended restaurant instead -> say hello to Warung Babi Guling Sari Kembar 99
The outside looks extremely unpretentious. In fact, this place is frequented by locals, and/or is the place where they get their takeaway babi guling. Sounds promising so far? It gets even better. For IDR 30k, we got this beautiful and sumptuous nasi special dish – delicious!
4:00PM – 5:00PM Drive to Uluwatu Temple
After the amazing babi guling lunch, we headed to Uluwatu Temple. Here’s the tricky part, I’m 100% sure we didn’t do the right thing here… But I’ll relay our experience and I hope you can learn from it
We took a Grab to Uluwatu Temple. Quoted price was IDR 120k, but the Grab driver messaged asking for IDR 150k instead (first time this has happened to me in all the times I’ve been taking Grab!). Because we were in a hurry, we decided to accept. As soon as we got in though, the Grab driver CANCELLED our booking, and asked us to just pay him in cash. The audacity…
Anyway, our troubles didn’t end there. When we got to Uluwatu Temple (after an hour-long drive), our Grab driver offered to wait for us. At that point though, I felt he was super shady and decided to let him go. BIG mistake on our part. Why? BECAUSE ULUWATU TEMPLE IS A NO GRAB ZONE APPARENTLY. You can only use the taxis waiting in the area – and they charge you an arm and a leg to go anywhere. Absolutely ridiculous
My advice? Either do Uluwatu Temple as part of your one-day tour (with your own car and driver), request your Grab driver to wait for you and just pay extra, or skip Uluwatu Temple altogether…
5:00PM Uluwatu Temple sunset
I didn’t really enjoy Uluwatu Temple much for a couple of reasons (chief of which was because my friend realized he had left his iPhone in the Grab Car and we had no way to contact the driver!). But anyway, here’s the sunset photo I snapped of the temple
6:00PM Heading back to Seminyak
The original plan was we would head to Sunday Beach Club after Uluwatu Temple. However, after checking the taxi prices (IDR 250k for a ~20mins ride to the beach club), and given we were all pretty stressed out over the missing iPhone, we decided to call it a night and head home.
We ended up calling for delivery via Grab Food instead – here’s our super delicious bakso(for only IDR 12k!)
Total costs for the day
Please do check out my other Bali blogs as well <3
Guide to Bali for first-time DIY tourists
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