Day 6 - Sidemen

This morning we pottered down to breakfast at 0730 after quite a chilly nights sleep. We are higher up now so it’s a little colder at night. Breakfast consisted of tea, toast, scrambled eggs and pancakes which were lovely!

We all met at reception at 0900 and met our guide for the morning. And then we commenced the 2.5 hour walk. The starting temperature at 0900 was 28 degrees so you can imagine the state that we were in by the end.

We started by walking through the village of Sidemen and our guide showed us all of the chillis, lemongrass and cloves that grow wild along the road. He then invited us into his home to meet his wife who would spend 8 hours a day for 10 days straight making ceremonial sarongs for weddings, funerals and festivals. Each sarong, dependent on size, would take around 80 hours to complete. They were beautifully intricate with wonderful colours. Considering her “work station” consisted of sitting on a dirt floor with a few poles cobbled together to make a weaving loom it was fascinating to watch.

We then headed off the road and started walking along the start of the irrigation system to the rice fields. We walked for about 10 minutes before turning a corner and being presented with the most incredible view of miles and miles of rice fields all twisting and turning to form intricate patterns. I’ve said before, these are purely used for agricultural purposes so the fact that they are so beautiful is just pure coincidence. We proceeded to then spend the next hour walking along the irrigation system taking care not to fall in, some of us more careful than others. We made a few stops for water and to mop the sweat off and then proceeded to where our lunch would be, underneath a huge Banyan Tree. Lunch consisted of traditional banana leaf parcel with soya bean cake, spicy shredded chicken, rice and vegetables. It was delicious.

Once finished we walked another ten minutes back into the village and back to the hotel where we spent the next two hours by the pool before packing up, getting into the bus and heading off to Batur for our hotel for the next 6 hours before our trek up the volcano!