A journey to mount doom...
Assault on the senses. Every home and garden must have ornament for sale on the roadside from 10m high buddas to mirror tiled coffee tables to wood carvings, stone carvings, weavings, silversmiths, obscenely large and large and obscene! Small bird cousins in cages, large noisy roosters ready for fisticuffs.
As the road climbs higher we move to fruits. mandarins, melons, huge Balanise orange fruits that are so large they defy gravity and hang from wholly unsuitably small stalks.
Elephant cave temple - 1100 years old rediscovered in the 1920s a veritable Indiana Jones valley of fallen statues, natural springs, rock carvings, under ground temples and a guide to show us how new buildings keep the site as a living place of worship and meditation. A tranquil oasis.
Villages smaller, road more uneven but then a convoy of trucks laying a wide new tourist quality highway up the hill.
Traffic police vehicle check - the drivers licence with money folded inside isn't enough and cigarettes are required also. First of four more that we encounter. Month end bills must be due.
Rice paddy fields, verdant green jungle below the road then almost into the clouds and the volcanic crater rim with restaurants built way out over fresh air with the roughest looking of concrete. Flimsy enough to make any self respecting Kakapo a little nervous.
Looking out into the large crater with lake and doom like peak at the centre. A sea of black lava lies below with trucks swarming around it like ants, taking it away to build with elsewhere.
Driving back through Ubud. It's smarter than its neighbours. Has a bit of a Queenstown brashness about it. Organic coffees and traditional Italian cuisine. Hmmm. We'll see its' soul when we stay later this week.
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