Mount Batur

From there we wound our way up the mountain to the restaurant overlooking Mount Batur. This is an active volcano that has devastated the surrounding area frequently, most recently in 1994. It is a sacred mountain to the Balinese yet it can be climbed. We settled for the scenic view of the mountain.
The best part of the journey was just beginning. We went over to a small, country road – well, it was all small country roads, this was just a smaller, more country road than some of the others. We all chose a bike and headed off downhill (yeah, just my style). We traveled through steamy jungles, hundreds of rice fields and many towns where the children ran out to high five the foreigners as we road by. We dodged potholes, dogs, kids, drying rice, coffee and peanuts as well as motorbikes and the occasional car. Kept you on your toes!
Our guide(s) stopped periodically to tell us about things we were seeing. We hiked through a rice field to learn about how they still harvest rice – by hand! It’s a reasonable source of living for many people, selling rice to the local hotels and stores for – we foreigners supporting them whenever we have a meal. They use nature whenever possible, bringing in ducks after harvest to eat off the bugs and to fertilize the fields, rotating crops (beans, peanuts, corn or chili) to keep the soil in good shape.