Deciding to go north, we extended our scooters and rode in the direction of Ulun Danu. We got hit with some rain and while parked at the temple, decided to go find a room. Mark found an awesome place up in the woods on the side of the hill, overlooking the lake. We dropped our bags off, tried to warm up a little, and walked back down to the temple. The rain picked back up and we stopped at the restaurant across the street for more local eating. Large buses would pull out into the street, with horns that made party music so that it didn’t sound like a constant blaring for the 2 minutes it went off as it slowly inched out into the street. To my surprise the buses were mostly full of other Indonesian tourists that came from other islands. The temple felt more like a zoo, manufactured for families with places to take pictures and hold animals, than an actual temple. Yes it was beautiful, though the water levels were much lower than they usually are in the iconic photos, but overall the whole experience felt like a cash grab. We were bombarded with children who wanted to practice their English, came up taking photos with us and asking us questions about Indonesia, such as where we came from, and what our favorite food was. The kids were adorable and the teacher gave me his card and said if I’m ever in his part of the world to hit him up and he would let me stay at his house. The hospitality of strangers in SE Asia is the best.
With not too much time left in the day we went off to catch some gigantic waterfalls in the area. A small boy who didn’t speak much English came flying out of his house to assist us with a tour. He asked for 100,000 rupiah for the tour but accepted 1/10th of his initial offer. While he did not seem like a legit part of the tour business, his company was great and he showed us two waterfalls, Gitgit and Galungan. They were very brown from all the rain and the kid told us they were chocolate waterfalls. We sang Spongebob songs and made our way back and he ran off back home, and Mark and I returned back to our cozy spot up on the side of the cliff.
Continue to the next page for additional photos from the day