‘See that mountain?’ My husband asked while leading me out to the rustic balcony of our room in Kintamani, Bali.
‘It’s beautiful!’ I exclaimed.
‘We’re climbing it in the morning,’ his voice was calm.
Climbing a mountain?! Ghostly clouds crept around its summit as I watched from miles away. At first, I thought he was joking but there was something serious yet serene about his face that said otherwise. We had attempted to climb Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka once and had to turn back from the halfway point. And now, here we were, in the middle of a ‘relaxing’ holiday, attempting to climb another mountain? The past few days prior to that day, we had been eating our way through Bangkok and other parts of Bali. I’d put on weight from all the experimenting and lack of gym workouts. How was I going to climb a mountain; that too at ridiculous-o’clock-in-the-morning?
But it was booked. Too late to moan or back out. Assuming we would simply walk around the base of it, I put my reservations aside and helped Irfan light candles on the balcony. We set up our scrabble match and cameras, ready to play and watch the sunset put on a show…
I’d deal with the mountain in the morning.
Images: Mount Batur, Kintimani, Bali © Rabia Bashir & Irfan Siddiqui June 2013