Woke up at 2am to hike Mt. Batur. We decided not pay a guide to help us walk up the mountain and instead just looked at the tour’s itinerary to get our timing right. Got on our bikes around 3am and ended up FREEZING in a tank top and shorts at night/ wind chill/ higher mountain air. About 30 minutes in, Carmen’s bike was very low on gas. Being 3:30am, there was no petrol to be bought, so she hopped on my bike which still had a solid half tank. 15 minutes later a man on his own motorbike pulled up next to us and griego flag us down. The conversation went something like this:
“Hey ladies, you have a tour?”
“Uh no, we are just going by ourselves.”
“You hike mountain?”
“Yes”
“Okay. Come with me.”
“Oh, thanks but it’s okay we got it.”
“You have guide?”
“Uhhh yes.” (We didn’t, but we didn’t want to miss the sunrise and had to get going)
“Who?”
*we say some lie about the name of our hostel and try to drive away* also it’s this super foresty dark part of the road and there is NO one driving by
He stops us again. “Listen ladies, there is a ceremony and you can’t wear that” *gestures to our clothing*
“Really?”
“You need sarong”
“Okay thank you for that information. We will find something at the base.” We start to drive again. He follows us at a very close distance and is very adamant about us pulling over to this sketchy garage area to “give us a solution”. I am getting pretty frustrated and arguing with him from the back of the bike.
Him: “I have sarong at my house”
Me: “We are NOT going to your house”
Carmen: “We don’t trust you”
Him: “I don’t trust you”
Carmen: “No. We don’t trust YOU”
Him: “I’m not a criminal. I’m not a criminal. I’m security”
Me: “Security for what??” He had no badge of uni or anything “I’m sorry sir, but we are going to miss the sunrise.
We speed up and he pulls ahead trying to cut us off. Carmen is killing the driving with me on the back and he starts swerving to hit us with his bike. Carmen stops so we don’t crash. We stood really close to us and tries to touch Carmen’s arm.
“Please one quick kiss then you can go” he tries to grab my leg. I yell “DONT FUCKING TOUCH US” I kick at his bike and we drive away and thankfullly he doesn’t follow this time.
Carmen and I are freaking out a little, shaking because caffeine and REALLY cold. Then 4 more guys try to stop us. Turns out they just want us to pay them to guide us up the mountain but we don’t even have the cash they are asking for so we refuse everyone. No one else is really scary and thank god first guy didn’t have any weapons or friends. I had my hydro flask and the bike was insured so Carmen and I probably could have taken him if we really needed to.
Anyways, by the time we eventually got to the base, a new guy was following us, we were way late for sunrise and the roads were so bad we couldn’t navigate on our bike. We agreed to ditch Siri’s directions and follow the man behind us who knew the backroads. This really sketched us out, but we felt pretty sure he just wanted money, nothing scarier. We followed him for a while and when a truck was blocking a sandy little passage and we were freezing and a little exhausted and on a big adrenaline come down, Carmen and I decided to just turn around and head back into town.
We had a dance party as the sun rose next to a rice patty then drove to a coffee place that let us hang out and warm up around their stove.
Once the sun was up, we picked up Carmen’s bike, fueled up and we not back to our hostel to find food and take a nap. Got home around 10am mildly unsuccessful but happily knackered. Glad to have survived, feeling strong with my biker queen. Didn’t summit, but we learned a few more life lessons and gained a wacky story to remember.
Offering for good luck from lady on the road- tucked behind license plate