A short five-minute ride from Batur Temple to a stretch of restaurants along the highway in Penelokan, all serving buffet lunches that cater to the hundreds of tourists visiting the area. Mob scenes both in front of the restaurants and inside. TIP: The lunches are usually tastier than hotel dinners for some inexplicable reason. And, if we do end up eating large plates of noodles or rice around 2:00 p.m., are usually not hungry for dinner. Our druthers is to just skip lunch because of that. However, the restaurant had a buffet we couldn’t refuse, Ian said this was the best buffet in Bali and everything looked so scrumptious. There were pork sates, fried chicken, fried noodles, rice, onion rings, vegetables, soup, tea, coffee, tofu, beef strogonoff (of all things), fish, more items I forget the names of, fruit, black rice pudding, fried bananas with honey (my favorite), and yellow watermelon. It cost 75,000 Rupiah ($7.50), plus 21% tax/service to eat yourself into a food coma, a really good value.

Another big plus was the view from the restaurant terrace facing “Gunung” Mount Batur. An active volcano within a caldera over 14kms/8 miles across left eons ago. Inside the caldera were numerous other craters and small cones. An unbelievable sight…View image.

Mount Batur, Bali 

Lunch in Penelokan, Bali 

selling outside the many restaurants in Bali
A few more bus minutes to the Lakeview Hotel, Kintamani that had views of Mount Batur from every room, and is built downwards into the side of a mountain. The Lakeview Hotel is really the only game in town but turned out to have two huge drawbacks. Gigantic semis grind their way back and forth from the base of Mount Batur up to Kintamani, 24 hours a day, hauling volcanic rock. EAR PLUGS! The second, disgusting drawback — RATS! Jasleen let out a mighty scream when a rat poked its nose through a hole in her ceiling room and changed rooms with Ian. Three rats made an appearance later in the evening and Ian changed to a dumpy room without rats.

Mount Batur briefing, Bali 

refreshing watermelon juice
Pre-rat appearance, the group…View image… gathered in Ian’s room to drink watermelon juice and hear about the proposed hike up Mount Batur early tomorrow morning.