Bali- bike tour

we scheduled a bike tour for our last day in the ubud area. i'd been told by clients that it's a great way to see "the real bali" for a reasonable price. we got picked up at our hotel at 8am. it felt far to early, mostly because we needed to set an alarm (in reality, we'd been waking around 7:30 anyhow...) we were the first ones in the van and we sat back to enjoy the ride while we drove around ubud area to pick up the rest of the party.

and what a party it was! the rest of the group on our tour were australian, all somehow related and most definitely bogan (please refer back to "lessons in australianese"). a flurry of styled "footy" hair, designer sunnies and white wife beaters jumped into the van, speaking loudly over the two of us. it took a good hour to pick everyone up, but it took us most of the day to work out the family relations in the van.

first on the itinerary: traditional indonesian breakfast at a restaurant overlooking gunung batur (active volcanoe) and lake batur. the view from the restaurant was spectacular. the volcano is a popular day hike (which we'd hoped to do), usually requiring a 12-3AM departure so as to reach the top by sunrise- before it gets too cloudy to see and too hot to function (hence why we didn't end up doing the hike...). breakfast was great. traditional indonesian breakfasts typically comprise of fresh fruit and fruit juice, nasi goreng or mie goreng (yes, for breakfast), eggs, some sort of chicken type dish, and fried bananas (which are sooooo good!). i opted to make my breakfast slightly more "american" and forgo the chicken and gorengs.

from there, we drove to a coffee plantation. our guide, wayan, was full of useful information about coffee growing, fruit trees and cacao. i particularly like the snake fruit tree, which has such sharp spikes you can't touch the tree. the fruit itself is unique, and you can't eat too much because it dries your mouth. tasty.

we were shown the process of picking, preparing, cleaning and roasting the beans to make balinese coffee. interstingly, there is a special coffee called "kopi luwak", which is coffee essentially shat out by a mongoose. seriously. i'd heard of this coffee before (some in-flight magazine); it's expensive and apparently delicious. the mongoose's intestinal tract cleans the beans like no human can. i've posted pics from the mongoose "cleaned" coffee on the left, and human cleaned (that's by human hands, not intestines!) on the right. note how white the beans are on the left. none of our tour group chose to try the luwak coffee so i can't report on it's flavour. we did all try other beverages on offer, as well as the pure tobacco they had on the table. well, john and i opted not to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette, what with neither of us being smokers. but the aussie's on our tour thought it was a good idea and got their smoke on. it was all very novel to them, even though it was just a plain cigarette... odd. very odd.

finally, we were getting on the bikes! wayan told us it would be approximately 2 hours of downhill bike riding. the bikes were reasonably comfortable, but a bit small even for me. we rode (i use this loosely) through the backroads of bali, stopping periodically for wayan to talk about an area, educate us on balinese culture, or to allow the rest of the group to catch their breath. i'll point out that few of them lit up whilst riding the bikes as well- right after complaining about how hard the ride was. so healthy. so, so healthy.

we saw stunning vistas of lush green rice paddies, papaya and coconut trees galore, rice being dried by the side of the road and intricately built temples all over the villages. we learned about culture, gods, caste systems, rice farming, village chiefs and typical marriage celebrations. we discussed death and the cremation ceremonies (which many balinese save for their entire lives. it's incredibly expensive to cremate but absolutely necessary in the hindu faith). we also saw the poverty of the area, the garbage on the side of the roads, the dirty rivers and the people toiling away in the heat. but even with some of the dire circumstances we saw, the people were always friendly, smiling and welcoming. it's a really nice thing to see and makes us westerners realize how much we complain considering what we have.

our tour finished at the bike tour operator's house. we were ushered in to their compound for a balinese feast. though we'd all said "we're not really that hungry", i can assure you that we all went back for seconds and some for thirds. the owner delighted us with stories of how the balinese live in the family compounds whilst we stuffed our faces with amazing indonesian food- the best meal we had in bali.

we were then rolled back into the van and taken back to the hotel, full enough not to need dinner but early enough to enjoy the pool one last time.
xo