After she's gone, and I've taken a few selfies, I have a look on the memory card to discover a selection of photos and videos of Indonesians going about their day, and before that, some American girls in a small village in Africa. Having contributed both to the supply (my old iPhone) and the demand (my new camera) of Kuta's black market I decide it's probably time to leave. I get on my bike and head south. My next destination is Uluwatu, the southernmost tip of Bali.
I soon discover that I am better than ever at losing my way, and without my phone re-finding my way becomes a lot more troublesome, but I get there eventually. Padang-Padang beach is in a beautiful little cove, and appears to be a haven for surfers. I have my dinner by the sea and watch on as children play in the waves and a young couple have their pre-wedding photos taken in the deepening light. Pre-wedding photos are a big thing over here (mainly in Australia I think). It involves dressing up as if you've just gotten married and getting photos taken in locations that usually have very little in common with where you will actually get married. don't really get it.
The next day I head off to visit Pura Ulu Watu, another of the nine sacred directional temples, responsible, I presume, for the South. I walk down a wide tree lined path and approach a group of buildings at the foot of a small rise. I know we are on a cliff but from where I am I cannot see it. I decide to bypass the temple for now, and as soon as I do the cliff reveals itself. I peer over the wall and see the sea long below, great crashing waves reduced to languid white ripples by the distance between us. Back along the path the cliff rises even higher and protrudes out to the ocean like the hull of a great ship. Adorning it's peak I see a tiered roof poking above treetops, a shape now both strangely familiar and enticingly alien.
My path takes me through a woodland and to a cliff greater still. The face is dark but mottled with the brightest of green. The emerald land surrounding me seems to spill over the sheer edge and cascade down to the far water below it. An emperor's bounty of jade and malachite. And the water. The water is the purest of blue; sapphire, topaz, and silver glass. And it is perfectly reflected by the sky above. Great swathes of surf blossom from tiny waves and briefly dominate the shore before fizzling to nothing as quickly as they arose.
The clifftop path takes me thought a patch of grassland and for a moment I am in Britain on a summers day. The breeze cools the heat to recognisable temperatures and meadow recedes to rolling forested hills. Cows graze in the distance and rest in the shade of a lone tree. It's only the monkeys that ruin the image.
I return to explore the temple and it is much the same as any. I find that I can easily describe, and forever gaze upon, scene upon scene of the endless natural beauty that surrounds me, and yet the temples are growing wonted or even mundane, and I tire of writing of them. I do find an enticing white stone avenue, a feature I have not seen before (which is unusual) and therefore it greatly intrigues me. It leads to the pagoda on the cliff but unfortunately is of bounds for tourists.
My next stop is 'Impossibles' Beach. I am not sure if this is so named for the difficulty of the surf or the difficulty of finding and reaching it, but I suspect both. After much driving and clambering I reach a perfect and abandoned patch of white sand. Great boulders mark its edges and a sheer cliff its back. Two dogs dart across but there is not a human in sight. On my return I find one of the dogs firmly entrenched in the middle of the path, guarding an unmarked territory. He growls whenever I get too close so in the end I have to scramble my way up a rocky hillside to get around him.
Like an orange tip, but huge!
The next day I set off early, not really knowing my plans. I decide to return to Tasha's for the night and plan from there. After getting hopelessly lost (again) I finally arrive. The big move is now complete and there is barely a spare patch of ground in sight. After catching up I decide I might as well carry on right away, and I hit the road once more with the destination of Lake Bratan. As could be expected, I lose my way. I fail to even find the main road I am supposed to take and instead end up slowly winding my way through the dark country back roads of central Bali. I do enjoy a scenic route, but unfortunately it is dark, so I can't even see the scenery. I'm sure it was stunning though.
About three hours later than planned I pull into Candikuning, and lo and behold the homestay I was going to stay in is bolted and chained, and only dogs answer me. I ask in the local shop and am swiftly, after finding someone who understands my plight, directed to another. It is comfy and clean and I suddenly find myself to be unbearably happy, the memories of my missing phone at last forgotten.
Up here in the mountains it can feel as cold as at home when the sun is away, which seems to be most of the time. And the even the fauna and flora are different, they grow strawberries and herbs such as rosemary and basil, the trees of the jungle are replaced by towering Kauri pines, and swifts dive and swoop through the air by the thousand.
On my first morning I get up early, my plan is to hike the rim of Lake Bratan, the edge of a volcanic crater, to a temple upon it's peak. Unlike the similar hike I did up Mt Lempuyang this temple is completely off the tourist trail, and even I suspect the local trail. The temple itself is marked on a map in my lonely planet guide but nowhere does it say how to get there or what the walk is like, it is not mentioned anywhere. What little information I manage to gather online speaks of an all but abandoned path through an overgrown jungle up the steep slopes of the mountain. It sounds ideal, I just need to find it.
Kai takes me to where I think I need to go and with the help of some locals I manage to find an extremely faded sign that looks like it might be directing me to where I want to go. The path I take starts off surprisingly wide and robust, I even see the odd scooter pass. It winds around the hillside for a while and before too long I realise I am on a definite downwards route. I hadn't seen any turn offs so I carry on regardless and after some time come to farmland, I carry on through, taking in the rows of crops and long views across the plateau. The land bears little similarity to farms at home with their acres of imposed order, more with a market garden, but spread across a whole hillside.
I hail down a man on a bike and ask him the way to the temple, in Indonesian, he looks confused so I repeat the word 'pura' at him, which means temple, a lot. He says he doesn't speak English and I try to explain that I'm speaking Indonesian then I say pura some more but it doesn't seem to help. At last he just nods and smiles then drives off. I carry on and come to a little lady hard at work in her field. She speaks no more English than the man but she understands my attempts at Indonesian, and proceeds to laugh in my face. She points right back the way I came and shakes her head at me. I turn around and head back the way I came though heat that is slowly building to the temperatures I expect from Bali.
After having wasted well over an hour trawling through the farmlands I come across a path that heads directly into the jungle off of my original trail. I explore it briefly but it seems to peter out after a few meters so I turn around and head for home, beaten, I think, by the mountain. No sooner have I done so than a bike comes along with someone who thankfully understands exactly what I want. They point up the dent in the jungle that I just emerged from and nod vigorously. I head back up it and after climbing over a large collection of dead and growing plants I find that the path does indeed continue. At last I am on my way.
The rim of the crater rises swiftly and soon the ground is far below. I climb over fallen trees and duck through tunnels of fern and bamboo. Huge lizards scramble from the ever narrowing pathway. The air cools dramatically, and after about an hour the path suddenly steepens. I find myself climbing muddy slopes and rocky ledges, literally scrambling on my hands and knees more than on my feet. I am reminded of a similar hike in the Daintree Rainforest I did with Amy and Libby, only there ropes had been put in place to help you pull yourself up. Here, of course, there is nothing.
I pass a group of middle aged Chinese women, the only people I have seen, and my wavering faith that I am on the right track is restored. The path grows steeper and narrower and steadily more treacherous. Occasionally I catch glimpses down and out to either side but all I see is white, the ground long since left behind. We enter the clouds and water drips from every leaf and twig. I feel I am on an endless journey, that the temple, and perhaps even the top of the mountain itself, is but a legend. My knee starts to give me trouble so I select some appropriate hiking sticks from the roadside and carry on. I have no idea how far I still have to go, but I am very aware that I will also need to come back. I seriously consider turning around, but then I remember the group of ladies still struggling, I assume, up the path behind me. If they can do it then I have no excuse.
At last I see a patch of blue through the branches above me, a glimmer of possibility amongst the eternal world of grey, then it is gone. I feel as though the trees are thinning. I crest a rise and the temple reveals itself. It is small and simple, but it is perhaps its simplicity that makes it stand out in my mind.
Here it lies, in a cloud, among pine and grass, alone and all but abandoned. A tiny collection of shrines and a single tiered tower reaching to the heavens in praise, of what god I do not know. Swifts speed across this island in the clouds and dart around my head with a skill and precision only seen in the instincts of the natural world. It is completely silent save for a distant roar. At first I think it is a waterfall, or perhaps a far off motorway, but it comes and goes and I conclude that it is the wind streaming though the clouds around me.
To either side the world is a sheet of grey, I peer down the sides of the hill and see the trees fade away after twenty meters or so. I am on a tiny spit of land, shrouded in a pale cloak, it could be anywhere, any time. The world beyond may as well have crumbled away to dust, leaving nothing but a hidden temple forever adrift. Wisps and phantoms of cloud twist their way inwards, sometimes from one side sometimes from the other, sometimes from both and then the tendrils meet in the middle where they twirl and dance about each other in ephemeral flirtations.
I spend at least half an hour just wandering around and taking it in, and on occasion I am taunted with patches of blue, revealing a place outside where time still moves freely. As I am intent on one of these small glimpses, desperately willing it to open up to a view, something makes me turn, and as always seems to happen, my breath is taken away.
The mist on one side of my island has fallen away, and a great wall of cloud is revealed before me. In the far distance it stretches down, melding with the wall of the mountain that drops fast and steep, and it ranges up, in roiling boulders to a rocky peak. It is as though I am on the edge of a great bowl or ring of cloud, but vast on a scale I can scarcely even now conceive. It is like the view through a plane window, but here there is no panel of thick plastic to remove the immediacy of the beauty before me. Here, I am right in the middle of it, and it is almost unbearably immense. It feels almost a taunt at the intimacy and closeness of my world not five minutes before.
I have often looked up at distant clouds and wondered how large they were, and what they would look like near at hand. If this is anything to go by then my conclusions always fell far, far short of reality. We are so proud of our achievements as humans, and everywhere wants to have the tallest tower or the largest building, and yet have we ever built anything on a scale such as this? Even our Great Wall pales to nothing besides this one that is greater still, that whips itself up and tears itself down in a mere hours.
As the cloud twists slowly around, my island recedes back into its body and the celestial arena is hidden from view once more. Unless a plane stays through it there will be no one on earth who can see it, and certainly not as I did.
I decide it is it time to take my leave, and I begin my slow and unsteady descent. Only when I pass the group of ladies again, now on their way down, do I realise that they never made it to the top. I was the only person that day, perhaps even for a few days, to set foot in that unknown place. The Chinese must have made it tantalisingly close, I decide not to break it to them just how near the summit they were. By the time I return to Kai I am feeling uplifted and satisfied, though my body is tired, and my knee thankfully gives me surprisingly little gyp.
I spend the rest of that afternoon wandering the markets, then head to a temple built on the shores, and somewhat on the waters, of lake Bratan itself. The cloud lies close to the ground and the ridge I climbed is now completely lost in its depths. The temple is just another temple, though there is a small island and shrine built on the water itself, dedicated to Vishnu, and another to the water goddess that is the source of the water and fertility of the whole region. The sun sets, devoid of colour. The grey world slowly fades to black.
Testing out my new Macro settings.
My path.
The next morning I head to Bali's botanical gardens. A sprawling stretch of land across the side of a hill that contains greenhouses, woodlands, ponds and parks. Apart from one very exciting tree I find the whole thing rather disappointing, and I don't last long. From there I drive up and around the edges of the three lakes that make this region famous, get a few nuts dropped on my head by marauding swifts, and wind down from the hills into Munduk, where I will stay for the next two nights.
From the window of my room I get superb views down the mountains and across north west Bali all the way to the distant sea, and even to Jawa beyond. I sit in a valley that points almost exactly west, and the sun sets at its far end framed perfectly first by the hills to either side, then by two pale and far Jawan volcanoes. The distant world lights up in a halo of purest gold, burning fierce, bright and swift between the layers of misty purple hills.
Munduk is simply superb, it is cheap and friendly, and the people here are so kind and so accommodating. I take a drive into the hills and explore the local area. Some builders let me into their building site to take views of the rice terraces that lace the hillsides in ribbons of green. I visit three waterfalls. The first is a dramatic spout that cuts through the dark rock in a single streak of silver. The second is smaller and gentler, nestled amongst the fields and houses that cling to the steep valleys. Dogs follow me suspiciously along the path, barking with every step. The third is vast and powerful, pouring into the sky high above the ground and cascading down through a steep and enclosed hollow, sheer sides thick with jungle. It hits the ground and explodes into the air with a force that creates a driving gale down the valley away from it. I battle my way closer getting wetter with every step. I feel like I am walking into a hurricane. I take a few hasty photos then scarper, completely soaked. I climb the steps to the top and a rainbow glimmers into view, masking the savage power beneath it.
I spend a lot of time sitting in the restaurant writing, places like this inspire me, and when I can live easily on ten pounds a day it makes it hard to find reasons to leave. But It is time to return Kai to his owner, and I told Tania I would return to hers for a few days before I take the ferry to Lombok.
No idea what this is trying to tell me.
The most bizarre spider I've ever seen. Any ideas?
So do I go up or down?
Houses perched on sheer hillside.
It is with a heavy heart that I begin my return drive through the mountains. For the first time there is not a cloud in the sky, the world is bright and alive and the distant sea sparkles with possibility. I drive back past the three lakes, dodging the swifts and their flying nuts, and stop for a few photos of views of deep green hills glistening in the sun, only now revealed from their clouds. I can even see a large part of the ridge I climbed a few days previously, and the exact point where it underwent a dramatic increase in gradient.
The mountains are quickly left behind, the cool wet world of clouds and waterfalls, of deep verdant valleys and wide sprawling vistas, winding rice fields and crystal lakes.
Of all the places in Bali I have visited so far I think this was my favourite, I could easily spend weeks wandering these hills and relaxing before the magnificent views. But it will be nice to return to Tania's, my home from home, and who knows who I will meet there or where it will lead.
I drive to Denpasar in about a third of the time it took me to leave, avoiding the scenic route the entire way, and bid my farewell to Kai once and for all. He has been wonderful and I will miss him dearly. I return to Tasha's briefly, and it is just as crazy as ever. Fences and gates are starting to appear from the rubble, but the work still to be done appears endless. As much as I enjoyed my time here, I am glad that I am going to Tania's, where life is always relaxed and there seems to be nothing to worry about.
Tasha's old land, now abandoned.
Farewell Kai.
No comments:
Post a Comment