Good things first: The view from the mountain was beautiful and going up there with another company is totally worth it.
So why did we have a bad experience:
We booked a tour for 1.5 million IDR where a jeep takes you from a car park to an area below the mountain top. There you watch the sunrise, afterwards you also do a tour through black lava with the jeep.
We started at the base camp with our jeep driver. After around a 15 minute drive the driver got out of the car at a parking spot where all the hikers started hiking up to the top. A guide came to our car, the two started chatting and then said „we wait here for the sunrise or you pay 1 million IDR for the guide so you can hike up“
This already felt super sketchy!
As we wanted to see the sunrise (and the spot in the car park was super ugly and not what we imagined) we negotiated and were suddenly offered 600k. We paid.
During the hike up we had a bad feeling and started texting with our driver who brought us from Ubud to the base camp. He told us not to pay and that 1 million, even 600k, is way too much.
The guide who took us to the top than told us that he only received 150k, So we asked where the leftover 450k go. The guide said it is for „organisation and tickets“.
We started discussing and wanted our money back, some other guides even offered us taking us up there with their groups for free.
Our guide realized that we won’t fall for this and gave us the money back.
We agreed to discuss and eventually pay after the hike, if we can see an official price list or sth else.
After that the guide THREATENED US AND SAID THAT THE JEEP DRIVER WOULD BRING US SOMEWHERE ELSE WHERE WE GET BEATEN WITH STICKS OR THREATENED WITH GUNS UNTIL WE PAY!!!!
ABSOLUTELY INSANE!
In over 10 years of travelling something like that never happened to us. Especially not in south east Asia.
We stuck with the guide (we had no other option as other guides backed out of taking us to the to) as we realized he is just bluffing. Nevertheless absolutely unacceptable.
We got to the top of the sunrise and went back down.
In the car park we were back with the jeep driver and also told him that we want to speak with his boss.
We hopped in the car and he said „we go back to the camp now“.
The jeep driver simply did not do the lava tour with us.
Arriving at the base camp we were happy to see our nice driver who helped us also with translating etc. thank god he was there and by our side!
There the jeep driver started lying and told that we didn’t want to do the lava tour. Bullshit…
Additionally, they also did not provide the booked breakfast at the top of the mountain.
In the end we agreed to pay the tickets to the mountain and gave 150k for the guide.
This was not enough, when we said that we would call the police the jeep driver finally became silent and went off.
I hope the driver of the jeep and everyone else involved in the scam (also the boss of the jeep driver who was screaming through the telephone that we suddenly have to pay 400k (?!)) gets their fair share of negative karma from this horrible treatment!
Summary: Do the normal trekking trip to the top of Mount Batur (around 500k) and NEVER book with this company. We were not able to enjoy this beautiful spot due to the way we were treated. – via 
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