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Indonesia Bali-Sumba Discovery 2023

Day 3: Sambangan To Kintamani

- Of Mountain Views & Hot Springs

Bali, Indonesia : Wednesday, 31st May 2023

This is part of a non-cycling road-trip recce Tour of Bali & Sumba, Indonesia:

Sambangan>Sangsit>Kubu Tambahan>Kintamani.

Time : 10:00 am to 5:45 pm

Time Taken : 7 hrs. 45 mins. (including treking to & enjoying waterfall, stop for lunch, tea, & scenic views and many photo opps).

This is page 3 of a 8-page blog, Click Here To Go To Title Page.
< D2 : Sambangan | Go to Other Days | D4 : Tambolaka >

Route Recommendations, here're some tips on travelling in Bali:

1. Traffic Directions!

Traffic in Indonesia, is right-hand drive, so drive/cycle on the left. Same thing applies when crossing the road, take note of the direction in which traffic is approaching from!

2. Getting to Bali & Sumba and Packing Light.

Bali is a favourite tourist destination and many airlines fly direct to it's international Ngurah Rai Airport. We flew Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur to Bali, buying our tickets 2-3 months earlier and paid between MYR700-800 (approx. USD200) per pax for a basic return fare, without checked in luggage and other frills.

For the flight back from Bali to Kuala Lumpur, we did buy the minimum 20kg of check-in luggage for some shopping to bring goodies back for friends.

3. Covid-19 & Customs Requirements

We applied for Covid-19 clearance through the e-forms submitted to the SatuSehat mobile app, which required uploading of vaccination details & PDF copies of vaccination certificates, and got on-line approval. Upon arrival at Bali Airport, there was a small counter for SatuSehat, but it was not manned, so perhaps this is not required for Bali.

Submission for customs e-clearance is advised for getting past the airport customs without a fuss. E-submission can be done prior to leaving for Indonesia, Click here for to access and fill up the Indonesian E-CD (Electronic Customs Declaration) forms for approval. Upon successful application, a QR Code is given, save this to your phone and show it to the customs officer upon arrival. With a quick scan, and one is cleared to enjoy one's holiday.

4. Clearing Immigration for Senior Citizens and families with infants, etc.

Prior to the pandemic, there were special counters at the Malaysian & Indonesian immigration exit points for senior citizens above 60 years old, but these are not there anymore. No worries though, if there are long queues, just asked any helpful officer for help for senior citizens, and one will be directed to a fast-track counter.

5. Route & Traffic Conditions

This past few years, Kuta, Ubud and the surrounding regions have developed tremendously and traffic along most roads can be quite busy. Drive with care and do take note that there are many motorcyclists around. As one goes further north towards Kintamani, the traffic gets lighter, but at hilly areas some stretches can be steep with winding roads.

Our route takes us slightly further north, and then down to the beaches of Sangsit for some yummy grilled seafood before heading back north, higher up to another even cooler part of Bali, i.e. Kintamani and were surprised to find hot springs there! Enroute we recce-ed another waterfall. Having viewed Kintamani (which is actually Mount Batur) from afar in previous trips, coming here to its immediate foothills was a revealing experience!

6. Weather

Weather at Bali differs a lot between the lowland and highlands. In June, the average day temperature at Kuta was 28°C, while night ones averaged 24°C. Up in Kintamani, and Bedugul (where we stayed) it was 22°C, and 15°C respectively.

Useful weather forecast sites for the Indonesia is AccuWeather. For more detailed weather, including cloud cover and wind speed, use Weatherspark and Ventusky.

7. Communicating with Each Other

When travelling in a group it's important to be able to communicate with each other, especially if one got lost from the rest. Compared to the our previous trip 5-years ago, this time round it was more difficult to get the Indonesian pre-paid phone sim card. For security reasons, there is a need to register ones's passport and phone's IMEI #1 and IMEI #2. One cannot just go to any local shops to buy the sim card as they are reluctant or not equiped to provide such a service. As such, most local phone shops sells only to locals.

It is EASIEST to get the sim cards at the airport. There are booth selling these just after getting past customs and into the arrival hall of Bali (Ngurah Rai) Airport, the local staff there are at hand to help register one's passport and IMEIs. We opted for Telkomsel's as it provides the best coverage at Bali, and even at some of the remote areas of Sumba, and got their Tourist prepaid simcard with 16+8 GB of data valid for 30 days at IRD250K (MYR77 or USD17). 3G internet is available in the more populated areas but can drop to the slower GPRS or even Edge in remote areas. Failing to get a sim card at the airport one can try to get it at some of the Telkomsel's shop, click here for Bali shops locations and click here for Sumba shop locations.

It is possible to get these Tourist prepaid simcard on-line, but registration of passport & IMEIs are still required and one will have to select an official pick-up point, which are only available in the Bali and Mandalika Lombok areas.

Most hotels, motels, home-stays, restaurants, and airports have free Wifi; but do note that public free wifi may not be secure and registration could be required. But one can save on one's mobile data by using these, especially for uploading or downloading videos.

8. Communicating with Locals

As Bali, is a favourite tourist destination, many locals speak fairly good English. At the smaller towns, locals speak some rudimentary English. The older generation speak very little English, so knowing some basic Bahasa Indonesia (or even better - Balinese language) will come in handy and also warm one up to the locals.

9. Getting Around

We were in a recce tour group and paid MYR1,700 per pax for ground arrangements that included hotels, breakfast and van transportation, other meals & tips for guides and drivers not included - all in cost came to around MYR4,000 including some minimum shopping. There were 13 of us including the two tour guides. At Bali, a large 15-seater van with a driver took us around. Those interested in joining the guided tour can contact Nik at +6017-4881917. For those who are keen to have their own free and easy tour, contact Bali van driver Made at +6281-5580-02922.

If planning for one's own; Bali has a wide range of accommodations, ranging from six-star hotels to homestays and even backpackers hostels. If one is not fussy, cheap accommodations can be found in Bali, for as low as 170k Rupiahs per twin-sharing room per night in Kuta; click here for a range of hotels in Bali.

8. Places & Things of Interests

There were many scenic and interesting places of interest; but one should not miss the following (Note: click on the GPS coordinates for directional map to the respective places):

- Air Terjun Tembok Barak (GPS: -8.14452, 115.10050).

- Peko-Peko Kintamani Coffee (GPS: -8.20562, 115.30221).

- Pura Ulun Danu Batur (GPS: -8.25446, 115.33631).

- El Lago (GPS: -8.26745, 115.34202).

- Mount Batur (GPS: -8.24012, 115.37749).

- Danau Batur Lake (GPS: -8.25881, 115.40819), with views of Mount Batur, Mount Abang & Mount Agung.

- Toya Bungkah Hot Spring (GPS: -8.25123, 115.40025).

- Toya Devasya Hot Spring Waterpark (GPS: -8.25054, 115.40070).

- Balinese artwork.

9. Food

Breakfast: Inclusive in home-stay: fried noodles, fried rice and omelet at Sambangan Eco Village (GPS: -8.18443, 115.10722) at Sambangan.

Lunch: Grilled fish, grilled cuttlefish with white rice & pickled vegetables at Ikan Bakar PPI Sangsit (GPS: -8.07775, 115.13251) (at IDR330K for 8 pax) at Sangsit.

Afternoon Tea: strawberry juice & Bali Coffee at El Lago (GPS: -8.26745, 115.34202).

Dinner: Indonesian fare at Rumah Makanan Arlinas (GPS: -8.24999, 115.39841) - Mujair Nyat-nyat (fish) with rice 49K, satay 35K, gado-gado with rice 3.75K at Kintamani.
Alternative dinner: Fried chicken, burgers, sandwiches sets, etc at Delicious & Cheap (GPS: -8.24923, 115.40037).

10. Accommodations

Our stay for the night was at the Manik Tirta Cabin (GPS: -8.24931, 115.39682) at Kintamani, a homestay with nice and uniquely local designed chalet with it's own hot pool fed from the hot springs of Kintamani.

11. Navigation

I used MapMyRide to track our routes and stops. Geo-tagging of places of interest was via FaceBook or Google Maps.

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PRELUDE

Yesterday was our an exciting day, with us going north to a part of Bali which many of us had not visited before. We kicked off the day with a lovely walk at the terraced padi fields of Jatiluwih Rice Terraces, then continued on to visit the secret Golden Valley Waterfalls, passed by panoramic views of the twin lakes of Danau Buyan & Danau Tamblingan - before ending the day with camping (for most of us, anyway) at the Sambangan Eco Village.

Today will be our last full day in Bali before we fly over to Sumba, so what's in store for us?
Read on to find out, but we did find another secret of Bali - natural HOT SPRINGS!

___________________________________________________________________________

THE TRIP

Small Group (Non-cycling) Recce Tour of Bali & Sumba, Indonesia:

Sambangan>Sangsit>Kubu Tambahan>Kintamani.

Our route takes us slightly further north, and then down to the beaches of Sangsit for some yummy grilled seafood before heading back north, higher up to another even cooler part of Bali, i.e. Kintamani and were surprised to find hot springs there! En route we recce-ed another waterfall. Having viewed Kintamani (which is actually Mount Batur) from afar on previous trips, coming here to its immediate foothills was a revealing experience!

(Click here for Sambangan-Kintamani Direction Map)

Good Morning!

All of us woke up to a lovely view of the rice field terraces here, a view that stretched all the way to the sea at Singaraja and Lovina!

But before leaving, many of us had a dip in the Sambangan Eco Village's pool .....
it's cold! Up here in the highlands, morning temperatures was below 20°C and the water was even colder ..... Brrrr.....BRRRR!

Anyway the above are photos of us, one just of the pretty girls and the other with us guys! Which one is nicer?

Anyway, just before leaving, I noticed Goh's backpack. Often the tours by ?? included some hiking to the destinations and a backpack comes in very handy. But Goh's backpack comes with wheels so that it can be pulled at flatter even trails! Surprisingly even with its aluminium frame, it was still quite light; it's an Osprey 40l Ozone 2-wheel backpack, which although light is very durable!

I MUST get one of these!
(Osprey is available in Kuala Lumpur, click here for the link)

Our van still had a problem with the steep and winding roads leading out from the village, but now problems! Trusty motorcyclists ferried us and our luggage out to the waiting van.

Our first destination Air Terjun Tembok Barak, a waterfall just 5 km. drive away. But after that, it was a 3 km. light hiking through the local village along small canals, and secondary jungle trails - well don't forget this is a recce tour and would include trying out routes to places like this and seeing what they are like (meaning are they worthwhile places of interest) .....

..... through flooded vegetable plots .....

The soil here is very fertile, a demure Emily standing next to a yam plant to show how big it is and taller than here!

And then continued down steep stairs (thank goodness there are stairs here!) .....

... and trampling through rocky streams!

Just before reaching the waterfall, a small shrine for prayers. It's called Pura Aman Suci - which means "Holy & Safe Temple".

Yipee! At the Air Terjun Tembok Barak, is not one of the more impressive waterfalls of Bali, but it was still enjoyable to swim in.

We did have some difficulty finding the route to the waterfall, fortunately, the locals dispatched these two young girls to help us. Many thanks... MATUR SUKSMA!

Do note that there is an entry charge of IRP20K per pax; a local will be waiting at one of the entrance roads.

1:00pm - Fifteen kilometres north and half-hour later we were at the beaches of Sangsit, admiring the out-rigger fishing boats and the deep blue sea.

But we were not here just to admire the beautiful scenery!

It's lunchtime, and we took a short walk to Ikan Bakar PPI Sangsit;

We had two types of grilled finished, not sure what species they are but one of them looks like what we Malaysians call chicken fish - no it does not look like a chicken. Does it taste like a chicken, perhaps a little bit; but I like it as the meat is sweet and not overly tender. The fish were seasoned in spicy curry seasoning and then grilled over a timber grill. It was pretty good but not as good as those found at Jalan Alor, Kuala Lumpur.

Other than the fish, we had grilled calamari (ie squid) which was surprising fairly tender, like they had been confit cooked!

Coming with the fish was this plate of simply boiled mixed vegetable (bean sprout, cabbage, long beans, etc) but nicely garnished with pounded chilli. This chilli garnish was slightly pickled with vinegar and sugar.

Each of us we served with small saucers of:
1. sliced shallots pickled together with some cut chilli and boiled ground-nuts;

2. Freshly pounded plain sambal, &

3. Freshly pounded sambal belacan.

To go with the meal we each had ice "Teh Botol" (bottle tea).

!Yummy!

It was a lovely meal, with views of the idling out-rigger boat and a cool sea breeze billowing in.

2:30pm - Tummy sated, we head south-east and slowly made our was up towards Kintamani.

En route saw this poor pig being transported in this caged trolley cart pulled by a motorcycle. I don't think it is heading to be a babi guling! The owner had put leaves over it to shade it from the hot sun; so probably it's heading for the farm.

As we headed higher up, I tried to take some photos of the locality, trying to capture the mood of the place. Above are the photos that I took through the van's windscreen; they are not that clear but I do hope that they convey the chilly and misty weather in a rural setting.

3:45pm - We stopped by at Peko-Peko Kintamani Coffee, it's renown for very good Kintamani Coffee. It's located within the grounds of Icon College Indonesia, but unfortunately the whole place was closed - so no coffee for us. Interesting though is that this varsity here is affiliated with Icon College - a college of higher education locate in the heart of London! It offers a wide range of academic courses in Business, Computing, Tourism and Hospitality Management.

Along this entrance, we see a stylized rock statue of an elephant with a Buddhist Swastika, which in Buddhist tradition symbolizes the feet, or the footprints, of the Buddha. The term ‘swastika’ originates from the word ‘devanagari,’ meaning auspicious or instrumental in one’s well-being.

Lining one side of the road leading to the college entrance, were several Buddha heads with long ear-lobes signifying longevity. But at the same time next to the heads were posters promoting the Tri Kaya Indonesia Foundation, which promotes the tri basic framework of Hinduism, i.e.:
(1) namely good thinking called Manacika Parisudha,
(2) saying good things called Wacika Parisudha, and
(3) good behaviour or what is called Kayika Parisudha.

So here we are at a British affliated college, with Buddha sculptures next to posters promoting Hindu scriptures; hmmm... what a combo! Let's have a cup of coffee to ponder about it .... but then Peko-Peko is closed, damn 😆.

Another 10 km. up the road we stopped at an alternative destination, Sari Mountain View Restaurant. At the carpark, some locals were delivering Canang Sari bouquets - and offering to the gods to invite them down to nurture the land and protect the people.

This place is appropriately named as from a large opened terrace there is a fantastic view of the mountains,

This is the view from the terrace - at one side is Mount Batur, and on the other side Danau Batur Lake with Mount Abang & Mount Agung in the background.
Beautiful yeah?

At one side is a giant frame of Mount Batur for Instagrammable photos.

From there we slowly went downhill towards Danau Batur Lake, and Kedisan village. This village is renown for its fisherman, but these days demand for fishes is high and fish farms have sprouted on the lakeside just off the village.

5:45 pm - Another 4 km. north we arrived at our stay for the night, Manik Tirta Cabin - located at Batur Tengah (Central Batur). With multi sharp-arched roof of it's chalets, this place is easily recognisable. It's located slightly away from the lake but made up for this with its own large jacuzzi hot pool with hot water fed by the natural hot springs of this locality.

Inside the bed sits cosily below the sharp barrel-vault roof. The roof is lined with attap thatch, it's so sharp that the the roof forms the side walls of the chalet.

Dinner was at Rumah Makanan Arlinas, Kintamani, where we had Indonesian fare of fried noodles, satay.

Usually the noodles used in Indonesia are not the fresh yellow noodles but rather a thinner instant "egg noodles". Also oddly, the satay was served with white rice.

And also Mujair Nyat-nyat (fish), & gado-gado; both dishes were also served with steamed white rice. The gado-gado here had thicker peanut sauce and very nice deep-fried tempeh.