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Wednesday 17 February 2010 Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
It was just my piece of cake; the promise of 25 km of downhill on a bicycle, with just a bit of uphill thrown in for good measure. We signed up.
After another early morning breakfast we were picked up at our guesthouse and driven about one hour north into the hills. There were six in our minivan; Carlos from Columbia, Liz from England, Ray and I and an Aussie father and daughter, who left us early to make it back to town by 1 PM. The rest of us didn't need to rush. We drove to a restaurant in Penolokan overlooking Danau Batar Lake and Gunung Batar, a still active volcano. There we had a second breakfast to give us energy for our ride while enjoying the view.
Our group of four opted to delay our start by visiting a coffee plantation. This wasn't just any coffee. It was Kopi Luwak. It sounded like our Moroccan experience with Argan Oil, where the seeds of the Argan tree are consumed by goats and the resultant, enhanced product harvested from the poo. This time it is the Luwak, or weasel as it is known in the Philippines, that eats only the ripest coffee beans. Their digestive systems have an enzyme that breaks down the bitter element of the coffee bean. The beans remain intact and end up in the poo. The beans are retrieved from the poo, cleaned and lightly roasted, retaining an enticing brew. So enticing that the cost per pound is $100 to $600 US in Japan, the US, Australia and some other countries. A cup of Kopi Luwak cost $33 US in an Aussie restaurant. There were a few Luwaks in cages at the plantation that will be freed to do there work when the coffee is at its peak. We sampled several types of coffee and teas produced by the plantation but none of our group opted to pay 30,000 Rp ($3 US) for a cup of Kopi Luwak. When I googled Luwak on the internet I found out that the animal is actually an Asian Palm Civet. We had several at the Animal Rescue Center in Thailand but nobody suggested letting them loose in a coffee plantation.
Finally we were ready to start biking. We chose helmets and mountain bikes and were on our way downhill with a guide at the front and another sweeping the rear. The back country roads we followed were generally in poor condition with potholes everywhere. That meant we couldn't just let go and be Speed Queens (or Kings), we had to watch the road and brake frequently. We had several stops to break our trip.
The first stop was a visit to a simple family compound. In Bali the sons are expected to stay in the family compound. The daughters live with their husband's family. Each family has their own small house and kitchen with all chores designated by sex. The men can do kitchen preparation but the women must cook the meal. The men plow their rice field but the women hoe the weeds. It seems to work. Each family compound is walled from the road within which is a walled, shrine area with separate shires dedicated to the Hindu Trio plus others for ancestors or their favourite deities. The shrines were in the north-east corner of the compound, facing the northern mountains and east to the sea. In Lovina the shrines were on the South-east corner because the mountains were to the south. The family we visited make their living weaving bamboo panels used for house walls, floors and ceilings. Three old women sat in the yard stripping bamboo stalks into thin strips suitable for weaving. The men were off elsewhere doing their chores.
Down the road a bit farther was a community shrine decorated with banners and high, tasseled bamboo poles to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the shrine. We stopped at a 500 year old tree, heavy with hanging roots. Further south the rice paddies became more plentiful. We stopped to take photos of the women working in the fields. At another paddy a woman circled her field shouting and waving a stick tied with ribbons to scare away the birds who would love to eat the rice almost ready to harvest. Other women used a bamboo clacker to scare the birds.
Our guide had warned us that we might have trouble with children running into the road to give us "high 5s". Mostly the children just waved hello as we rolled past but in one town a group of small boys decided to try their luck. Liz decided to return their High 5 and fell off her bike, getting a good case of road rash on her knee and hand. She was quickly bandaged and back on the road.
I found out why there was no flight from Bali to Bangkok on March 16. Our flight from Bangkok to Paris leaves March 17 but we had to book a flight on the 15th to make our connection. March 15 is Nyepi, the Hindu New Year in Bali when every community builds an effigy, has parties and burns the effigy that night. On March 16 everything, and I mean everything, is closed. All stores, business, schools close, all transport stops and people are not even allowed to go for walks. Our guide said everyone is advised to get a good book and relax in their home that day. Police would even be out to advise the unwary to go home. We passed two villages on our bike route already starting their effigy. Some are Ramayana figures and some are political figures. I couldn't tell what any of the ones we saw were.
We did have a little uphill on our journey. One short stretch was quite steep and my gears were too high for me to make it up under pedal power. I walked that section. We came to the end of our 25 km of downhill. The minivans were waiting for passengers and small trucks were loading bikes. Our group was brave and decided to keep biking to our lunch spot. I was going to take the van but Ray insisted I could do it. There was to be 10 km of mostly uphill to the end. It was in several short stages so would be manageable. The four of us set off up our first hill. Carlos was the first casualty. His gears were not working well and going uphill was just too much for the bike. Liz kept on but her injured hand got the better of her and she stopped. There was just Ray and me left. She missed the best downhill of the day on good roads. I even got some speed up. The last km was on the busy road. This is where Ray's gears gave up the ghost. He traded bikes with one of our guides but couldn't get the seat high enough for comfort. He had to peddle much slower than usual which suited me very well. The grade was not great and we made it all the way to the restaurant where we were congratulated by our much younger companions.
The good buffet lunch waiting for us was just what we needed to end our trip. It was fun and I would do it again.
