The mountain area is most dramatically first seen if you arrive at Kintamani. The main road up to this superb vantage point is the one through Bangli, and nothing is seen of the country you are approaching as you ascend until you pass through a ceremonial gateway and everything is suddenly laid out before you. Turn right here, where the road swings left having finally achieved the crater rim, and take a seat in the restaurant and admire the serenely beautiful spectacle.

What you are actually looking at is a vast caldera, 11 km (6 7/8 miles) across, the hollowed-out remains of a gigantic volcano that in prehistoric times exploded, blowing away its entire cone and leaving only the bony, saucer-shaped rim on which you’re sitting. It’s as of you are in the back row of a circus that’s in the process of being dismantled; you are looking down at the ring unaware of the giant big-top tent that once stretch from just behind your seat to a point high above you.

Mount Batur, whose broken crest rise 1,717 m (5,633 ft) above sea level, is central to the view. Its slopes are scarred with lava-flows and all around is a scene of lonely splendor and desolation. Magnificent though the mountain is, it is the product of more recent and smaller eruptions and its summit is actually only 328 m (1,066 ft) higher than the outer crater rim at Penelokan.

The volcano is not to be underestimated, however. Its last major eruption in 1926 completely destroyed the village of Batur, situated at that time on the western shore of the lake. It was never rebuilt, but its important temple was relocated up on the outer-crater rim, and this is now the place meant by Batur Village.

To your right lies Batur Lake, 492 m (160 ft) below you. It is 8 km (5 miles) long and 3 km (1 7/8 miles) wide and fills almost a thrd of the area of the caldera. The cliffs that fall abruptly down to the lake’s eastern edge rise to their maximum height in the summit of Mount Abang, 3,153 m (10,240 ft) and in a direct line between Mt.Batur and Mr.Agung.

The righ-hand (eastern) shore of the lake appears to press right up against these cliffs, but long ago some Bali Aga remnants, retreating in the face of invaders, found a flat piece of land and established the village of Trunyan, where few could be interested in following them. The village is clearly visible, a prominent patch of red in an otherwise pastel landscape played over by the changing shadows of the clouds.

At your feet the road zigzags down, branching right to Kedisan on the lake’s edge immediately below you and continuing across the lava flows to the hot spring of Air Panas, about halfway along the left-hand shore.