Ascending Mount. Batur

Branches valve the above me as my faithful scooter lumbers up the jungle road.

Rays of sunlight flicker through the foliage and overhead vines and lianas dangle, almost close enough to touch. I have left most tourist havens behind me and taken aim for Bali’s volcano, Mount Batur.

The traffic jam that is Ubud lies far behind me and now children line the road on their way home from school, all in beige and brown uniforms, all with black hair and coco colored skin.

I pass through of farmland and patches of palm trees. There is a serenity to the landscape, like it has been this way since the beginning of time. Cows that have never even seen a fence post grace in shaded meadows and in the distance I can sometimes catch glimpses the other mountains, Agung and Bratan, shrouded in wisps of clouds.

According to Bali’s Hindu-animistic belief system, the closer to heaven a place is, the more divine are the spirits that dwell there are. The deep ocean thus is a place for demons and most be appeased with offerings or risk them causing earthquakes, while ceremonies held to the higher divinities are made for health, harvests and protection.Making the concept of up or downhill is a very important concept to their way of life, like a Balinese Feng Shui.

I feel that in the midst of all that I’ve wanted to write about I have forgotten to mention just how incredibly beautiful this place is. Trees that bloom all year around line the streets with flowers of every imaginable color and the people are some of the kindest humans I have ever met.

I once came back to my bike to find that someone had decorated it with a small flower.

Small anonymous acts of kindness, the world needs more of this stuff.

Even though most of them are incredibly poor you would not believe it in the way they smile at you. They have such a warm and lighthearted way of looking at the world. If you seem lost they will ask if they may help you, if you ask for a place to stay they will welcome you into their homes and even though they earn next to nothing, most of them spend half their income on their religion. And so their houses look like temples, gardens full of shaded pathways and hidden goldfish ponds.

Here is a gate guardian in the form of Vishnu the elephant. Statues like this is placed at the door of homestays to give privacy and deter evil spirits from entering as they are unable to turn corners.

Anyway; I am driving along this jungle road, my light and slightly sunburned skin stands out among the natives and a fellow bike rider drives up alongside me and asks me where I am going.

Somewhat befuddled I answer.

“Just up the mountain, to see the view.”

He presents himself as Nyoman and we exchange a precarious handshake between our scooters at 60 km/h.

“You should check out this coffee place just up ahead, they have the best coffee in all of Bali.” He tells me. Why not, I am in no peculiar hurry I think to myself. I’ll check it out and if it looks dodgy I’ll just scoot-scoot my scooter onwards up the mountain.

Nyoman leads me up the road to a forested parking space. ‘Bhuana Asri’ a big sign at the parking space proclaim. Calm music can be heard through the bamboo trees. I am introduced to a guy my own age called Wayan who leads me on a graveled path and as we goes along he points to different plants and explains what tea or spice they make from them.

“This here is a coffee plant, you see?”

He points to a bush with glossy looking leafs.

“So this is a coffee bean?” I ask, lifting a branch covered in small green buds.

“Yes, but not ripe yet, see here.” He picks a red one, the size of a small olive, opening it to show the white seed inside.

“So that is how you know when to pick them?”

“Actually we do not pick our coffee.”

“Okay...? What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you.”

I follow him around a bend to a small cage, Wayan makes a whistling sound and from a small dwelling inside a furry face sticks out its nose, it is something like a mongoose or an otter. Wayan explains;

“This is a luwak, or a toddy cat.”

“Ooooh!.” I exclaim. “They make the legendary poop coffee! I’ve heard of this.”

“Well yes.” Wayan laughs. “When the Dutch settled on Bali the natives were not allowed to pick the beans for themselves. But the luwak’s stomach is not strong enough to process raw coffee beans and the natives harvested the leavings. It turned into a delicacy and now it is the most expensive coffee in the world.

“That is fascinating.” I proclaim.

Wayan adds with a smile.

“Would you like to try some?”

“Of course!”

I sit down at a table with an amazing view of nearby rice fields and far off Bratan mountain. Wayan brings me a tray with ten different flavors of tea, a tiny pitcher of honey sweetened water and not one, but four different cups of coffee.

“This is amazing” I tell him. “How much do I owe you?”

“You only pay for the luwak, the rest is free.”

I thank him gracefully and try the beverages starting with the teas.

There is ginger and lemon, coco, coconut and vanilla. And just as many different kinds of coffee. I never imagined the taste of coconut or ginseng coffee. If you ever get the chance I urge you to try it, there is so much more to coffee than the bitter blend we are used to back home. Even the Italians (who in my humble opinion make the best coffee in Europe) could learn a lot from the curious and colorful taste mixtures the Balinese have thought up.

Then it was time for the luwak coffee. I took the lid of the cup and lifted it reverently, it smelled strong. I closed my eyes and took a sip. I smacked my lips expectantly and took another sip. And another one. It tasted like coffee, nothing special or peculiarly about it. Just your average cup of poop coffee. Clearly the luwak industry is driven by novelty, not quality. I heard a joke once about artificial meat and how some people would eat anything, even poop, if only the right magazines from New York told them it was the trendy thing to do. If I still had any doubts then this would be the proof that persuade me, the infinity of human stupidity and so on…

But the people at Bhuana Asri were lovely in any case. I thanked Wayan for his stories and his company, payed for my coffee and continued my journey up mount Batur. The end came sudden. The road never felt steep enough or even zigzagged as if I was close to the top, but all of a sudden the trees were gone and I was standing atop the rim of mount Batur. A fresh breeze in my face as I was greeted by an astonishing view. Inside the giant crater stands three smaller mountains, volcanoes in their own right actually, flanked by a half moon lake. The three small peaks reminds me of a Bali in miniature. Spreading out from the smallest of the peaks is a field of blackened stone. It erupted back in 2000 and the ground is still black from where the molten stone covered it.

For now the rich volcanic soil is what gives Bali its natural beauty. The rains still drives the nutrients that feed the rice fields and the people from the peaks down towards the flat lands and the sea, like a blessing from the high divinities. But what happens when divinities go to war? Wayan told me stories from the Ramayana epic, the Hindu book of faith, wherein there are gods who throw mountains in their fury. I can not help but think of these people and their innocent and peaceful way of living. On how much they live at the mercy of the fire contained inside their mountains. One day these mountains might erupt again like they did when this island first rose from the ocean floor in fire and bubbling brimstone. But these people believe that through their faith and their offerings they can persuade the gods to keep them safe from disaster.

Belief is such a funny thing.

It gives one the strength to face things we have absolutely no power over and overcome them. It is what gave humanity the power to alter reality and create the world we see around us today. It can help us do absolutely anything. I have no doubt in my mind.

I have belief.

#Bali #MountBatur #Belief #Faith