Mount Batur

Trip for those who like adventure This is my first adventure to climb a mountain, I often take tourists (guests) to climb but I have never accompanied them, usually I take a nap in the car at the time the the guest is gone, but this time I wanted to have a new experience. Before I left I was really perplexed and also I felt scared. "Would I be able to make it to the top?", because until this time I had never climbed. But my fears were overcome by my wish to know 'what does it feel like at the top (summit) and what is up there'? This question chased away my fear. The three of us left Kuta at 2 AM, the feelings of fear returned to the point that I was thinking of not going along to climb. But the feeling of wanting to know was greater so the fear disappeared. We more or less covered the distance from Kuta in an hour and a half because there wasn't much traffic so that we could speed up a bit ( go fast) in order to arrive more quickly. .Finally we arrived at our destination. At the start of the climb there were two trails; the one closer to Pura Jati was for those who wanted to climb to the summit starting from a further distance but a less steep ( flatter) trail. We started our climb from the other trail on the eastern slope of the trek. The air was very cold ( tiang bingung yen 'begitu', so cold, very cold, rather cold?) and it was also very dark. After we met out guide, we started to climb. Before I proceeded onward, I thought "was there anything that we needed that was at the bottom? Food? Drink?". We started to trek in the dark of the night so our guide brought us a flashlight. I was in the first group that left. I was afraid my fears would again show up because before we had traveled 30 minutes, I was out of breath because the trail was becoming steep and rocky. My friends and I walked rather slowly. Below us I was able to see a light that was moving. The closer the light got the more it moved.....the shining light was like a butterfly, the longer the time, the closer it got. Because I was hiking rather slowly, finally that group of tourists with the light went ahead of us. The farther they went the more they were lost in the dark of the night so that all that was seen was the shine of their lights. The longer I walked, the more I was out of breath. I started to think about stopping because I was really tired, and my legs were feeling really heavy. Luckily, my guide was giving us encouragement, 'Keep going, don't give up'. Our guide kept saying we were already getting close. The color red was already starting to appear in the eastern sky, and I myself slowly walked with the remaining energy I had. The conditions were getting clearer and I began to be able to see around me. The beauty was beginning to appear, before I could only see darkness. The feeling of exhaustion started to be healed by the view that was so beautiful. The sun began to appear, ...finally I myself arrived at the summit....I was so happy..the feelings of exhaustion disappeared as I was able to see the view from the summit. It was a really really good feeling....the view was so astonishing... beautiful very beautiful. The beauty of the view was worth the exhausting efforts!

The Best Tour Guide Ever Gede

“The Best Tour Guide Ever Gede” Reviewed June 16, 2012 NEW We used Gede to see Bali and he was great. He is very knowledgable about Bali and understands Australian humour as well. I would recommend his service to anybody who wants to taylor their experience to what they want rather than be given a organised trip. Gede worked with us for weeks prior to our tour so we could see what we wanted to see, 10/10.

Dear Gede san, thank you so much your good arrangement for Bali trip, it's good memory for trip. i hope i will be visit Bali again & you can guide me in other place. attached the picture for Mara. thanks him during my trip.

Sharon Bailey - 2012-06-11 08:12:27 We are a family of 5 and my sister who is a frequent visitor to Bali put us onto Gede. For novices we found Gede’s assistance of not just getting us from ’A" to "B" as invaluable but also his recommendations in relation to other tourist activities we should go see. He recommended we get passes to the Bali Safari that includes lunch and elephant rides and we were not disappointed. When we changed our itinery to come back from Gili Islands to Padangai bai instead of Sanur, he was happy to come get us instead of relying on the boat service pickup. Kuta is crazy and we all felt safe in his hands with the traffic chaos that exists, not to mention how not to get ripped off or sucked in by the bargainers - even though we still problably did. He runs a clean and affordable service and when we get back there, we will definately be calling upon his service again.