Bali Island Topography, rice fields, mountains and beaches Rice terraces,Bali mountain range is from Batukaru in the west and Gunung Agung in the East while in the center there are lakes which divides Bali Island into two plains, the Northern and the Southern plains.

The Northern plain is much narrower, hilly and dry so that there is no much wet rice culture possible and yet the people here like in the rest of Bali Island live from agriculture.

The mountain in some places comes right to the sea, the coast is swampy in the West, alternately sandy and full of pebbles in the center and rocky in the East. There are few beaches here good for swimming as well as snorkeling and diving.

The Gunung Batur is very active volcano. In this century it erupted in 1905, 1926 and 1963 when it kept erupting till 1974. One of its many craters once in a while emits smoke.

The highest Volcano - Mt. Agung was quite for more that 150 years, but it was certainly not dead yet. It erupted suddenly in 18 February 1965 when Bali Island was about to have a big purification ceremony, called Eka Desa Rudra, which is to be held every 100 years. The previous eruption must be 1811, because this was mentioned in the book, the history of Java, written by Raffles, when he was Governor General of Indonesia.

The center part of Bali Island are most fertile and in these regions the tourists can see the most beautiful rice field terraces. This part of Bali is, no wonder, called the rice belt of the Island. The South part lies white sandy beaches where mostly hotels are located such as : Nusa Dua, Jimbaran, Kuta, Legian and Sanur area. To the Southeast of central Bali lies the arid island of Nusa Penida, Nusa Lembongan which used for snorkeling, beaching by most of Cruises company.