And so I did it again,
I went to the Kintamani area but this time with my friend Dennis. We arrived in
the middle of the day, found a cheap room and after a quick lunch we were off
to the Batur Lake. Once again I was impressed by the wild nature in this area,
so going twice was absolutely worth it.

We found the small
city which name I have currently forgotten, here we walked around and three
kids met us and gave a concert on their home made paperbox drums, we gave them
a few money for the concert tickets and after half an hour we headed down the harbor.
We met a couple of locals who offered us a much better price for a trip to the
place where the dead people are put under the three. Dennis, an old man, another
man, two guys paddling and I went into the small boat on our way for the most
beautiful adventure. After 15 minutes of paddling through a rough landscape we
arrived near the three, we went up and walked to the peaceful place. We were
met by a small entrance and the huge three were like a cave, as the myth says
there were no smell from the 9-12 people lying under bamboo. Besides the dead people
and us there were a lot of offering gifts and a stone wall with old skulls on. The
old man followed us and without ever asking the question we felt that it was
probably his wife which was just put under the three less than a week ago. It
was still possible to see some of her head, her eyes were popping out…… And the
flies were having a great meal! I better tell that we asked if we were allowed
to take pictures, just in respect. All over the ground coins were put and
before leaving the place we offered a couple as well. It is difficult to
explain, but the place really made a deep impression on me, it was such a
beautiful tradition and such a peaceful place with no other people than us at
the time. The local guy told us that until 15 years ago people in the village
were wearing clothe made from banana leafs.

It was getting dark
and we headed back to get a bit of food and some rest before the night trek.
Dennis and I had decided that we would do the night trek on our own, the guides
are pretty expensive and since I have already done the trip before and
therefore know the route we figured that it should not be a problem. Well, we
were soon to realize that it should not be in this way. We woke up, and already
on our way to the trekking point we were met by 3-4 guys on scooters yelling “yes,
trekking trekking” – “Do you have a guide…….” God I hate when they are SO aggressive!
We found the spot and around 30 guides were after us from the beginning,
telling us that we were not allowed to go by ourselves!! They were seriously
aggressive, a guy played strong by kicking on a big trash can, it was really
tense I felt they were acting like animals hunting… Well a long story short, we
were not allowed to go by our self and they were standing in our way to the entrance
spot so we ended up paying for a guide! The weather was cloudy and the view was
terrible this day, I am happy that the trip the week before was a better success
and at least the sailing trip the day before has been worth going to Kintamani
for the second time.

Yesterday I went to
Kuta to say goodbye to Dennis, he is flying to Singapore today. I still have four
and a half days work left on job but I begin to feel excited about my trip to
Komodo in the end of next week.

 

See the many pictures from the trip on jessiedarlings.tumblr.com

 

Jessie