14th July - As ever our attempts to leave the hotel early were thwarted by our inability to organize ourselves. One might think that as we have been able to get ourselves half way around the world with a three year old!! That we do in fact poses these skills… but I am starting to wonder, if it’s not luck as much as any thing else!!!

{w:600;h:300}Air Panas, Banjar, Bali. Indonesia

Map of Banjar Air Panas, Bali. Indonesia.

We got to the hot springs at about 10.30am. We had been advised by our good friends Renato and Suzie that an early visit is much better as the pools have been emptied and cleaned before being refilled. The site was easy to find, we headed back towards Banjar and the Buddhist Temple we visited yesterday. The springs are very close to the temple - instead of taking the last left to the temple you carry straight on and take the left after that. We arrived in the car park to a reassuring lack of other vehicle’s - there were probably only about six other cars there. Then made the walk through the market to find the entrance to the springs.

I had already been warned by Suzie that the market before the entrance is like Kuta on the worst day imaginable and she wasn’t wrong. It is hard to be so blunt and unkind about the people that try to sell their wares. I am sure that they only pressurize the way they do out of a desperate need to make a sale. Basically you get pounced on and harassed in a really aggressive manner to make a purchase. The price for say a sarong which is realistically worth about 20.000Rp will start at 150.000Rp. As you decline and continue on your way the price falls dramatically until they are practically giving it away and can’t be making very much profit. You get threats of bad luck and bringing bad luck by not allowing them to make the sale, or finally that you are stopping their child going to school by not making the purchase. The two things that make it so frustrating are, you feel that if they started at a realistic price and were just friendly and chatted then you would probably by their goods - instead you want to shout at them and tell them to get the hell out of your face. It makes you not want to buy what they have to sell and is deeply off putting in regards to re visiting sites of interest and recommending them to friends and people you meet. So if you are planning on visiting the hot springs in Lovina, please be aware of the market sellers at the entrance…….

On a brighter note the gardens and forest around the springs are really beautiful and it have a very tropical feel. You wander through the entrance and across a bridge - looking to the left through the trees and shrubs you can see the three pools. The pools are all different in size and shape, you could describe them as swimming pools and the water is feed into them through large gargoyle type statues. There is a cafe and changing area, plus a small shop that sells swimming shorts, costumes and towels. The waters are green and there is a very definite sulphate (egg) smell. It was kind of nerve racking as you could not see the bottom of the pools or anything below the surface for that matter. The top pool was the hottest with the heaviest force of water pouring into it. The idea is that you stand below the shower and it massages your back and neck. It was very pleasant and I could have stood under it for hours. The second pool was the largest and at it’s deepest is 15 meters. The third was the smallest and the showers had the furthest to fall - which actually meant they were quite painful and it was very hard to withstand the pressure that it caused. The last felt a little more like torture than massage but I guess that opinion could be based on how you like your massage. In total we stayed for about an hour and things busied up considerably before we left at about 11.30/12.00pm. I would recommend going at about 8.30/9.00am and can imagine that it would be the perfect time. The hot springs were a great experince and something I haven’t ever done before so overall I would say that I enjoyed going.

click here to see some of our photos of Banjar Hot Springs