Strangely enough, at 1069 metres above sea level inside the crater, it is very chilly for me during the day. The night is somewhat cool with no wind but the springy bed accounted for half the cause of my body ache. After a dose of Panadol soluble during dinner the night before, I was in bed by 8pm to sleep off the fever. I woke up feeling relieved and was ready to take on Pineh’s offer to take me to the Lava Station!!!
Pineh was the guy who corresponded with me to get here and though he could speak English, I spoke Bahasa with him to polish mine. Breakfast came in the form of Banana Pancake with Chocolate sauce and a cup of hot chocolate. It’s great! Off we went on his motorbike to get to the spot where the volcano spewed out lava in 1917 when it erupted. We walked up a lonely, desolate hill….or so I thought until I found a big puddle of chicken shit, leaked off the little poultry farm nearby. We continued on to see lava rocks.
And banyan trees that the locals revered because of the spirits that resided therein. A shrine is usually placed there for them to make offerings should they come into the vicinity to collect/harvest the lava rocks to make cement and other ornaments. They believe that the offerings will bring them peace and prosperity. One particular banyan tree was exceptionally big, standing out amidst the barren hill of lava stones, pebbles and rocks. Apparently, despite the two major eruptions in 1917 and 1926, the molten lava stopped short of reaching this tree hence it is highly revered. We trekked further up the windy, dusty road with me trying to marvel at the view and negotiating the crumbling pebbles and sand beneath me at the same time while praying that I wouldn’t step on a depression that would lead to another embarrassing episode.
Pineh said that prior to 1917, this place was once a thriving community made up of six villages. Mount Batur’s community spans 35 kilometres around what is known as the lake now. The eruption of Batur destroyed them completely as the mouth of the volcano inferred. Just as they rebuilt some of the dwelling area in the same place, the second eruption in 1926 wiped them out again, causing the government to put an embargo on this site. Before Lake Batur was a lake, it was a village.
The third major eruption occurred in 1963, in which the Balinese suffered the most as another live volcano on the island, Mount Agung, also erupted in the same year, destroyed almost half of Bali island. As a result, a lot of Balinese transmigrated to Lombok, Gili, and Sulawesi. There we were, standing on the ground where civilisation once took place. The place is isolated with a piece of history that many in the village do not want to remember.
Coming downhill, Pineh took me round the other side to Buahan Village and Kedisa Village to see farmers tending their crops of Kailan, chillies, shallots, garlic, tomatoes and spring onions! We got down to the farms where the villagers use a compressor to pump water from the lake to water their crops. Here, the view is even more spectacular with the fringing lake before Mount Batur. The road ends at Desa Abang, just at the foothills of Mount Abang. There is a special tribe just after this site which can only be reached by taking a boat across but word has it that the unscrupulous boatmen will stop in the middle of the lake to demand more money to get there and you would have no choice but to pay or you will get stranded. The tribe has a practice of not burying the dead and will place them in an upright position with skulls and all hanging outside, something that you would only see in National Geographic. Morbid, I know but I wish I had brought enough money to get there!!!
Circling the village in the cool, crisp winds of Lake Batur, I know my system can only hold out as long as I allowed it and as soon as I set foot in the hotel again, my fever returned and my eyes burned like a kiln. With the temperature hovering around 20 degrees or less, I’d fare better indoors. My Titanium Columbia waterproof jacket is serving me well but I would like to return to this area to do a full study on the history of the Baturians in the crater of Batur someday…..
