Bali Notes III: Mountains, Lakes & Waterfalls

The natural sights in Bali was really what I was keen on visiting. There were several new filters I’d acquired in the months before the trip that I was eager to try them out on landscapes, and specifically the graduated neutral density and neutral density filters.

The scenic highlight on Day 2 was Mt. Batur. The drive up the mountain was pleasant and on what seemed to be a major road, unlike the Day 3 drive to Taman Tirtagangga that saw us through winding and narrow roads. Apparently it’s possible for non-climbers to scale up Mt. Batur and there are day tours for that even. Dewa Marco remarked that he had a couple of customers request before for a drive up the mountain to see the sunrise, and he had to wake up at 4 a.m. just to get to them there in time.

Though it’s a little hard to tell from the pictures, the several panoramic shots of Mt. Batur were taken at three different spots. Two spots were by the road side, and the third was at Lakeview restaurant that overlooks Lake Batur, and where we also had buffet lunch (yummy tuna satay there). The sky wasn’t cooperative at all though, and there was the usual ugly gray cloud layer that obstructed a clear view of the mountain top. The base of the mountain was a patch of black too which Ling thinks is from clearing through burning.

The mountain is an active volcano too, with the last eruption in 1917 which killed more than 1,000 people. Dewa related a fun story of a Indonesian fellow who went up a mountain at an impending eruption to do some offerings and religious rites. Everyone else thought he was crazy, but the volcanic rumblings stopped shortly thereafter. This fellow was hailed a local hero and apparently is now featured in several TV advertisments and the like LOL.:)

The evening on Day 2 was spent taking the Tanah Lot cliff and sunset shots. The carpark where Dewa dropped us at was a 10 minute walk from the temple itself, and the pathway took us through a plaza that comprised hundreds of eateries, artisan and souvenir shops.

The place was pretty crowded too, and any picture of Tanah Lot itself would have seen people crawling all over like ants in it. The tide had receded substantially which made walking to the temple compound itself possible.

We made our way around to the cliffs overlooking the shore and coast line, and setup shop around the cliff edges. Yep, I was again the only weirdo using a tripod and remote trigger. I did see two or three fellows carrying tripods. But no Ann, they weren’t carrying Gitzos. Or even Benros for that matter.:)

Bits of the photo-taking experience was scary though, since I was standing fairly close to the cliff’s edge. All it would have taken was a push in the wrong direction from the crowds moving about and it would had been a 50 meter fall down.

Several of the photos taken at the Tanah Lot cliffs were long exposures using a circular polarizer + neutral density filter stack + graduated neutral density to further darken the sky. Talk about overkill LOL. The shutter curtain opened between 15 to 30 seconds each time. That’s how the “milky” water effect was achieved (similar to the waterfall shots later and below), a popular sort of effect for many photographers shooting moving water. We checked out of the area after nearly 2 hours, and the journey from Tanah Lot back to Tepi Sawah took us just over an hour.

I’d initially planned for the visit to the Jati Luwih rice terraces on Day 3 (Day 2 with Dewa), but the motion sickness caused by the ascent to Tirtagangga on Day 3 required me to postpone the visit to the next day. The drive up north to the rice terraces on Day 4 took about 110 minutes. In a word, Jati Luwih was magnificent. Several of the panoramic shots turned out very well and can only hint of the size of the area. We were the only visitors to the area for most of the hour we were there, so the only persons in the photos are the farmers themselves.

On the down size, there was the ugly gray cloud layer and overcast that reduced the amount of green and yellow contrast that would had been possible in these shots. And would you believe it: there was again a fellow guarding the major road leading to this spot, and he was administering the entrance fee. Talk about commercialization right up the gazook. Heck, the only places which didn’t want our money, ironically, were the toilets at Bali airport. And they had signs at each toilet door proudly stating “No Charge For Toilet Use” even.

We checked out Pura Luhur Uluwatu the same evening, the other very famous and popular coastal temple in Bali. There’s a lovely three tier pagoda perched at the far end of the cliff as one can see from the picture above.

It’s probably impossible to tell from the photos here but I spotted a couple of fellows walking on the shore below us. Ling thought they were locals looking for shells. I initially was wondering how on earth did the fellows get all the way down since the shore in the photo here is pretty much enclosed completely by steep cliffs. Maybe they had an elevator somewhere haha. Dewa later showed us a little path way near the temple’s entrance that leads all the way down to the shore. Ah. That’s how they do it.

Like the Tanah Lot shots, for a couple of the pictures here I situated myself pretty close to the cliff’s edge to get as much of the coast as possible in the frame. There was a bit of a wind blowing, and the drop is an even more precarious 150 meter to the shore if the journey down doesn’t kill you from a heart attack first haha. During the fireworks festival shoot last week, Ann was telling us that joke where Grace, our small group friend, and her camera was about to hit the ground and hubbie Roger instinctively reaching for the camera instead of her. I was remembering that very joke, and wondering if I was lost my balance would Ling reach for me or the camera tripod LOL.:)

The DK book on Bali & Lombok noted that many visitors to Bali go to Bali Hyatt not just to stay, but also to visit the Australian-designed gardens in the hotel. During the several months prior to departure while I was planning the trip and before I actually decided on staying in Ubud, the Bali Hyatt at Sanur Beach was one of the places I tried booking on Asiarooms. The rooms for some reason could not be booked via the web site though. The hotel’s web site was stating much higher rates for booking too so I dropped the idea.

It was probably fortunate that we didn’t stay at Bali Hyatt after all. We visited the Gardens on Day 5 (our last day with Dewa), and well… maybe we were looking at the wrong gardens, but they didn’t look all that special. Oh, they were as usual lovingly landscaped in the Balinese style, but possibly because we were so jaded already by the other incredible sights by this time, neither of us were all that impressed.

We next checked out Sanur beach just further down the area, and boy did we see loads and loads of Caucasians in their bikinis and skimy swim wear, all chilling out in the sun. Surprisingly, we didn’t see many Asian tourists. Maybe we as Asians get way too much sun already and we’d sooner rather go to places with winter. Like Japan or South Korea in December.

The sky at Sanur beach was a glorious blue and further exaggerated by the circular polarizer doing its work in some of the pictures I took. There were a few persons doing water spots, paragliding in the distance, and a couple of local boys were flying a kite on the shore too. But Sanur beach itself was a little underwhelming. Specifically, there was a lot of debris about, and nothing like the spotless beach and crystal clear water at Rawa. We’d usually do our writing on the sand photo like what we did at Rawa island and Phuket, but this time at Bali we didn’t.

The last photo in this entry here comes from Tegenungan waterfall, which was our last stop for Day 5. The place was a 40 minute drive from Sanur beach. Again, there was an entrance fee to see the waterfall itself.

The waterfall itself is at least several hundred meters from the viewing platform, though surprisingly the separation distance worked to my advantage: the shot on the right was taken with the 55-200mm VR lens zoomed to 145mm which flattened the view perspective of the picture.

The zoomed shot also led to a pretty different composing look between the Tegenungan and Gitgit waterfalls shots from 2 days earlier. Ling I think likes the Tegenungan shots better too as the shot here is framed with flora, whereas the Gitgit waterfall shots were done using the Sigma 10-20mm ultra wide-angle which led to a less tight perspective.

It also wasn’t necessary to deploy the neutral density filter for this shot too. The waters was moving fast enough, so with a slightly less than 1 second exposure time the shot achieved the same milky effect as the Gitgit waterfall shots too.

A quick word on the filters too. I found the GND filters more useful compared to the circular polarizers even though the resulting effect on each picture itself is very roughly in the same bracket— i.e. bluer and contrasy skies. The GND was capable of giving the blue tint every time but the colorization occasionally seems unnatural at times. The effect one gets from the polarizer depends on the sun positioning relative to the camera, so can be iffy especially if you want a specific composition. But the effect one gets is typically also a lot more natural looking.

So in all again, a quick summary of the places we visited and a suggested visitation time with links to our Flickr photo collection for each place.

Mt. and Lake Batur. Worth visiting, with suggested visitation length of about 20 minutes. The place is expansive though, so there’s going to be a bit of a driving time to get to and fro. The view from Lakeview Restaurant is pretty good.

Tanah Lot. Worth visiting. If you’re doing late afternoon to sunset shots though you could be spending between 1.5 to 2 hours there.

Uluwatu. Worth visiting. Same length of time recommendation to Tanah Lot.

Jati Luwih rice terraces. Very worth visiting. About an hour suggested visitation length.

Bali Hyatt Gardens & Sanur Beach. So-so but you’re not missing anything too much if you skip it. About an hour suggested visitation time.

Gitgit waterfall. Worth visiting. It’s an about 600 metre walk from the carpark to the waterfall itself. There’s a well-built stairway too, and lined with dozens of small artisan and souvenier shops along the way.

Tegenungan waterfall. Worth visiting with two caveats. Don’t bother visiting if you like your waterfalls up close and personal, and forget about taking photographs unless you’ve got a zoom lens of at least 120mm. The carpark is a short 10 meter from the viewing platform.

So there we go. The next entry I’ll be posting up is either going to be on the flora & fauna i.e. monkeys (!) of Bali or on food and dining, which I’m sure Matt would be looking especially forward to.:)