More on Bali and a week at Lovina Beach

Have been a week now anchored off Lovina, North side of Bali.   It is much like most of Indonesia, just a bit cleaner and a we bit more affluent.  Lovina is more of a budget resort town.  Like the rest of Indonesia there is a perpetual haze in the air of smoke and fog.  There is always open burning going on somewhere, burning trash or cooking over a fire or burning on farm land and grass land.  The mountains in the back are just outlines mostly, no detail and the sun sets are a fiery red ball shining through the smoky haze.
I joined the yacht Pegasus in hiring a car and driver to take us around Bali.  We first asked the driver to find a spot where we could do a hike.  He takes us to a large lake in the hills of central Bali and parks the car in a lot. We should of known there is no such thing as just going on a hike in Bali.  There was a small booth set up at end of lot and we had to pay a few dollars to hire a guide to take us on this hike.  The guide was a pleasant fellow with fair English.  He took us on a complicated route of trails, down by the lake and up through some old temples that had recent offerings in them.  Bali has much more Hindu than Muslims.  The driver then took us to a tourist trap for lunch.  It was twice as expensive as anywhere else and no choice just a smorgasbord.  So we told him to take us somewhere else.  It was a low key place but still on the tourist route.  The food was no good.  In Lovina we have had some great meals at the restaurants there.
We were then taken to a large market and just looked around as it was on the tourist route and much more expensive than our local market at Lovina.
Two days later I joined up with a tour to do a hike up Mt Batur, an active volcano.  Again this is a guided hike and they wanted to leave Lovina at 2AM to be on the peak at sunrise.   There was only a yound french couple with me in the car.  We were assigned a nice young man called Jero who set off at a fast pace.
     I would have done the hike without a guide, but apparently you really get hassled by the guides if you try it without them now.  The French guy was soon sucking wind as he was a smoker and a bit out of shape. His girl friend did great. Jero would race ahead and then stop and wait then race ahead again. The exercise felt great as I have not been getting enough of this. On top you could see down into the craters after daylight.  The view otherwise was spoiled by the smoky haze and cloud, everything was just a shadowy outline. There was steam vents everywhere pumping out hot steam, the guides cooked us some boiled eggs on the steam vents.  After the hike we drove to the SE side of island to drop the french couple off to catch a water taxi to Gili Air.  So got to explore this coastal town a bit. Lots of interesting sights along the way. Then the long drive back.
It is a bit hair raising as motorcycles are everywhere and we are constantly passing on narrow winding roads. The driver was getting very tired as he had been up most of the night. He was suppose to have been sleeping in car while we hiked up the mountain. But he said it was to cold up there to sleep and he had no sweater. It was cool up in the mountains. The driver ate a packaged cake while driving and then through the plastic wrapper out the window without a thought. If you walk along the roads out of the resorts, it is solid trash along the roads continuously.  Bali has many interesting and wonderful sight and the people are the best part of it, always friendly and helpful.  Unfortunately Indonesia is smoky and dirty and until there incomes go up probably cant do anything about it. But the restaurants we ate at were generally clean and neat.
  Later had a super meal served up by Shadwo Trader. Them and a few other boats are leaving in the next day or two as do not want to renew visa's which are coming due. 
Dorothy will be back from Canada in a few more days.