Well a 1.30am wake up call was absolutely awful! What on earth made us think this was a good idea? We only had three hours sleep each! Our driver was waiting out on the road for us at 1.45am, he was early!
We had to pick another two couples up before we drove an hour to the start if the village where we sat in this coffee plantation garden and had banana and chocolate pancake and a cup of tea for breakfast. It was surprisingly cold, I had shorts on and was feeling the chill!
After breakfast we made our way to the base of the volcano where we would meet our tour guides. We weren't expecting it to be that busy but the driver said that it's low season and everyday they get at least 200-300 people climb the volcano every morning. What!!?
We were one of the first couple of cars that arrived luckily! It was 3.30am and people don't usually set off until 4am.
We got paired with a thai/German couple, the guy seemed to think he didn't need a torch... I felt like saying 'yeah because there are street lights lining the trail up the side of a volcano' dumb dumb. And they were really slow! So we kept up a good pace with our guide to get going before the crowds and they were miles behind on the flat part. Thankfully they did have a flash light off the guide but can you imagine if they didn't, oh jeez! It was a really hard climb because the volcanic ash was thick and hard to walk on, you kept sinking and sliding back down the hill. The rocks are different, they're igneous rocks so the more hollow and weird to walk on, they crunch under your feet.
After about an hour and half walk we finally reached point one, we were above the clouds but that didn't stop us from seeing a huge trail of torches coming up the hill. Only lucky us had to wait for the slow coaches and they put us behind because we wanted to climb to the highest point and get a good seat for sunrise! They eventually reached the top and the thai girl was practically on her death bed she couldn't walk any further so we left her behind and went on up to the next peak, this was harder. A lot more volcanic ash and it was steeper. Constantly sliding back down. Baring in mind we did this in the pitch black with little head torches on. We got our good seat, it was absolutely freezing now we had stopped still, we bought a cup of tea and led down on the bench. Watched loads of shooting stars flying into our atmosphere! It was really cool.
We got a free breakfast, boiled eggs and banana sandwich... Scott didn't like any of that so I ate the banana and left the bread and had two boiled eggs. It warmed me up for a little bit but sunrise wasn't until 6.20am and I was freezing! Jumping jacks weren't even working. So glad we got here early though because tonnes of people were piling up the peak. The sunrise was gorgeous and you could see the lake below us and the two other volcanoes in the distance from us. The rice terraces below had dew on them which made them sparkle which was really nice!
We were really above the clouds! It was such a gorgeous sunrise, the trek was definetly worth it!!

The crater of the Batur volcano was huge and there was steam coming out from all over the mountain, the gaps between the rocks. Let's just hope it doesn't decide to erupt! We were a little surprised to see that down the one side of the mountain there was a huge black price of land that will hadn't recovered from the 2002 eruption. Usually volcanic larva fertilises the land and makes crops grow quicker and bigger but not in this strange case.
After admiring the sunrise and the views, a few too many selfies and a look around the crater where the steam was coming from we headed back down the mountain. Going down was just as hard. You had to sort of slide down, you couldn't really stop yourself. We took a side path to get passed the traffic of people. At one point I just had to jump because I would have fell flat on my face because there was no stopping yourself from sliding. It was really fun! We were back down by 8.30am, we walked passed all the chilli trees and tomato tree plantations.
Absolutely shattered once we stopped and sat back in the car. We had a good stretch but we were still aching! Not a good sign.

Back to the hotel, we went through all of the gorgeous rice and coffee plantations on the way. It was on a really small scale to Sapa and they had banana trees and palm trees surrounding them.

We went back to bed once we got back, we were shattered! We are going back out on another tour this afternoon at 2pm so we need the rest. I managed to have half an hour... Scott had two hours!

We were picked up at 2pm for the sunset tour, there were 5 of us altogether in the car. We went through fields of rice terraces, different ones from this morning. We stopped and had some photos amongst them. They're so nice to just look at! This is what we imagine Sapa to be like now the rice has grown, just on a much bigger scale and without palm trees and banana trees. The farmers have even stolen the Vietnamese hats here, now they can't tell me that's original! We seen a few ladies shaking the rice out on a sieve whilst the rest ate steamed rice and watched.
The second stop we went to the dressed monkey forest. I really really really wasn't looking forward to this part, I absolutely hate these little fury things! The marquets are the worst because hey want to jump on you and look through your bag or take your things and you are helpless because there's at least 60 of them and one of you, they have rabies and I'm petrified of catching it so I am obviously going to loose. There were tonnes of them and they weren't scared of you. They were scared of the security guards dressed in skirts with funny hats on, I guess they were there to sort of protect us and the monkeys. Some of the guys were there to try and get you to have a photo with them and pay but that certainly wasn't happening with us! They feed them as well which makes it worse and walk next to you! I was full steam ahead trying to run away from this guy but he was trying his hardest to keep up with us and feed the monkeys! One monkey found a frog and was playing with it and kissing it, blowing bubbles on it, I felt so sorry for the frog be didn't know what was going on! The monkey would have eaten him because they're vegetarians but he wasn't being careful with the little fella, yanking his legs!
It was a lovely temple in the forest but when it was time to leave, I was on the verge of crying because there were so many of them and if one ran over to me then another ten would. I think I make Scott scared of them aswell because we were both walking back and forth trying to find an opening between the monkeys to get out. After our third or fourth time of walking back and forth to the gate of the temple we managed to swiftly make out way out. They do seen a little more calm than the monkeys in the cities, perhaps because they are sort of looked after here by the guys with food, I still don't like them! We did stand and admire them fighting with each other and picking each other's fleas out of one another for a while but from a far distance! Thank goodness the camera is 20x optical zoom I say! Phew!
Next we went to the palace temple, it was really pretty here as well! I just absolutely love the architecture on all of the temples!
After a stroll around the grounds we went to a coffee plantation garden, the host showed us around the garden and showed us the different types of plants they had there. They have the most expensive coffee in the world here, it's called Luwak coffee, it starts off as a berry on a tree and a civet cat ears them. Then they go to poo and the coffee bean has been processed. So they can clean it and cook it and what ever they do to make it into a coffee bean. Here were civet cats there which they use to fertilise the berry trees. I don't know whether they're a little sedated but we were able to hold one, she was lovely!! She grabbed on to my arm though when I was holding her like a baby and tried to play but I didn't want to get bitten so I have back. They're treated fairly well, they get to roam around the huge plantation all night and because they're nocturnal they are put in a cave in the day which we didn't like but I guess that's just the way it is here they're not going to stop it.
We got to try all the different flavours of tea and coffee! Some wee absolutely gorgeous, we couldn't buy any though because it was all a little too expensive for us. We did however try the Luwak coffee, you had to eat a little chunk of dark chocolate before you drank it, not sure why. It was nice though, very strong! I wouldn't say it's worth hundreds of pounds like they sell it for around the world. We preferred the coco spice, it as coffee but with a chilli after taste. Sounds disgusting but it was gorgeous! Definitely something about it!
Scott tried to make friends with the puppy there but he was having none of it, he just kept barking at him and following the guy around! Haha.

The last stop of the evening was the Tanah Lot temples on the edge of the cliff, and on rocks out in the water, you can only walk to the one when the tide is out in the morning and evening. They were really nice and it was very picturesque. Only there were so many people there and there wasn't much of a sunset because of the thick cloud in the distance. We did sit and enjoy the scenery for a while and as we did we saw thousands and thousands of fruit bats flying out from a cave underneath the temple, it was lovely to see in the air. They all follow each other so there was a thick stream or them going over us.
We enjoyed ourselves but we were extremely tired and hungry now because we hadn't eaten since 6am this morning! Couldn't wait to get back and dig into some food, we were easy for bed by 9pm!