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| At a waterfall in Munduk |
Bali definitely has its commercialized, built-up parts, but there are also plenty of places to get off the beaten track and escape the traffic, crowds and tourist shops. This post focuses on Bali's rugged interior, which offers a dazzling array of volcanoes, mountains, waterfalls, picturesque villages and rural landscapes, and - perhaps most famously - steep emerald green rice terraces.
Our favorite spot was Munduk, a small mountain town in northern Bali where the tourist crowds thin to a trickle. Legend has it that the village was settled centuries ago by people from the mountains who were escaping an invasion of ants. (Sounds like a great topic for an exotic science fiction movie.) More recently, when the Dutch expanded their colonial empire in Indonesia from Java to Bali, they used Munduk as a mountain retreat to escape the heat and as an agricultural center to grow export commodities like coffee, cocoa, cloves and vanilla. There's not all that much to see in the village itself, but there are numerous areas for hiking, and it was a great place just to relax on the terrace at our small hotel, drink a few Bintangs, and soak up the gorgeous mountain views.
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| Want some rice? |
Another favorite was touring around to see some of Bali's fabled rice terraces. From a practical standpoint, terracing serves to maximize the usage of land on steep slopes, to prevent erosion, and to facilitate irrigation. The terraces are also culturally significant, as they represent a distinctive form of community-based agriculture that has prevailed for centuries. Aesthetically speaking, the terraces reflect an artful marriage between human engineering and the natural environment - the intricate visual pattern created by layer after twisting layer of bright green is indeed a stunning sight. Jatiluwih, the site of Bali's oldest and largest set of rice terraces, has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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| Mount Batur |
There are also several impressive volcanoes. We visited Mount Batur, an active volcano that last erupted in the year 2000. Apparently, the original eruption some 25,000 years ago is one of the largest known volcanic events on earth. The authorities in Indonesia have recently detected a marked surge in the frequency of tremors and have cautioned that it may erupt again soon. (Thankfully, we're no longer there.) It's a scenic place, with expansive vistas and a pretty volcanic lake.
The kids loved Bali and the island's diverse natural beauty was certainly one of the main attractions. Before a long hike in Munduk, the kids were complaining vigorously: "It's too hot, we're too tired, the hike is too long and we don't like hiking anyway!" But then we reached the first of several waterfalls. "This is awesome! We love this! We don't ever want to leave!" Nothing like a beautiful waterfall (or two scoops of ice cream) to change one's mind....
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| View from the hotel in Munduk |
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| The garden at our hotel in Munduk |
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| More from our hotel in Munduk |
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| View of the ceiling, our hotel in Munduk |
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| Some more shots from our hotel in Munduk |
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| Hiking in Munduk |
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| Jeremy and our guide approach a waterfall in Munduk |
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| Want some coffee? |
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| This spider eats small children - unless they listen to their parents |
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| "We don't want to leave!" |
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| Cow with mountains, Pemuteran (northwestern Bali) |
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| Here are some shots of the rural landscape outside of Ubud |
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| Here are some more shots of Bali's rice terraces |
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| More from the volcano |
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| At a stream, on the grounds of a Hindu temple |
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| Back to the rice terraces |
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| Here are some more scenic shots from the road |
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