Bali: with Luwak coffee through Sacred Spring to Rice Terraces
Few days ago, we came back from our first trip to Indonesia. It took a while to catch up with everything, but now it’s finally time to sort out all memories.
Since we started surfing a couple years ago, Bali has been one of Jakub’s dream surfing destinations. But, even though this trip was mainly planned as a surf camp, we also made a few one-day trips around the island.
The traffic in Bali was absolute madness with no rules. Cars and scooters overtook from both right and left side no matter what, a number of lanes depended on width of the road (a pavement was often included into the calculation as well) and sometimes not even a direction was a big deal as some scooters went suddenly opposite to the traffic flow. Actually, there probably was one rule - use your horn. All the time.
Therefore, during the drive from the airport we decided to hire a driver for our one-day trips. It was reasonably cheap and definitely safer.
Our driver Zainal was recommended to us by our “surf beach boss”. The first nice thing about him was that he could speak English quite well. It made our whole day trip much easier and interesting as we learnt about some local stuff as well.
The first stop we made at Silver and Gold Workshop. About seventy people were working in a small dingy hall and creating jewellery of all kind of shapes and sizes. A contrast between the workshop and a gift shop which we visited afterwards was enormous as a marble hall full of jewellery was shining bright and you could spend a fortune there.
Another quick stop we made at a batik workshop. It wasn’t really anything special and could have been skipped as there was only one woman working and a few other people painting on a fancy cloths. Moreover, we didn’t want to buy anything as Jakub had already bought his “ceremonial” sarong.
After that, it was a time for a coffee tasting. During a short walk in show garden, we saw different types of coffee trees and also little civet cats. Luwak coffee alias civet coffee is a big thing in Bali. You can find it on a menu of many cafes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the real one. It was interesting to see coffee beans’ journey from a civet poo to coffee powder. However, Luwak coffee itself compared to a standard cup of coffee wasn’t much different to me.
On the way to Tirta Empul, we made a stop at Tegalalang. There were beautiful views of rice terraces and we could freely stroll along the paths meandering in the fields.
Tirta Empul is famous for its sacred spring and a lot of people were having a bath in pools as it’s believed that it would bring fortune and health. We missed this opportunity and just walked around the temple and admired its architecture. To get out of the temple, we had to walk through a local market where women were trying to sell us anything possible at each step.
When we finally got to our car we drove to Gunung Kawi which was probably our most favorite place of the day. It’s located in a ravine between rice fields and a lack of tourists made this place quieter and more peaceful than the temple before. A turn-off before getting down to the main temple was really worth it as we walked through rice fields to the hidden parts of the complex.
A that was our last stop for that day.