Bali - Day 5 - Gunung Kawi, Kopi Luwak & Rice Terraces

Monument, temple and rainforest

Not a great start to the day as we both woke up with a touch of the dreaded Bali Belly. Also – ants had gotten into our cereal, so we went out for a late breakfast with our big plans looking shaky for the day.

Offerings at the waterfall

We finally felt ok around 1ish so decided to head towards Gunung Kawi – an ancient temple/monument that we’d passed on our way to the water temple the other day and hadn’t realized (like many things round here!).  We battled the traffic back up towards Takpaksiring and managed to find the turnoff – it lead to a paid car park with a friendly enough chap who informed us in no uncertain terms we had 2 hours. We rapidly followed a tour group heading in what presumably was the right direction through a dozen or so market stalls, mostly selling sarongs (which you need to enter the temple). Being the savvy travellers we are, we had bought a couple yesterday on the way home so skipped past trying to avoid eye contact and headed for the entrance.

Bridge to the temple at Gunung Kawi

Just before we got there, we encountered a group of about 20 teenagers attempting to erect a giant bamboo based decoration for a festival starting this week. It was quite entertaining seeing them go for it, with the older guys of the community shouting at them for messing it up and getting part stuck in a tree (it was about 20 feet high). Now the festival is getting closer, these are EVERYWHERE – seeing them get transported about the towns by various modes of transport is amazing – especially when it’s two guys on a scooter looking like they are on their way to a jousting contest.

We made our way through the gate (after I accidentally attempted to gain entry with our parking ticket – much to their amusement) and down a lot of steep steps which we noted would be a bitch to come back up the other way – especially as we had now thrown our sarongs on. The monuments are way down at the bottom of the valley – carved into the rock face. On the way down were some spectacular views of rice terraces and waterfalls – they certainly knew how to pick good locations for things back then!

It rained, a lot!

The monuments themselves are about 8 metres high and each inside their own cave carved out of the mountain, supposedly to commemorate some 11^th century Royalty but the LP said no one really knew for sure it was that old. Similarly to the water temple there was a large blessing pool in front of them and it all looked amazing.

After an hour or so of pretending to be David Bailey we set off back up the steps, by this point it had gotten so humid it was raining so it wasn’t that much fun – especially as there were again, many many market stalls lining the steps waiting for you to pause for breath and sell you some kind of trinket that’d never make it back though customs.

Once we’d battled back to Lucille – we headed north again, in search of a Kopi Luwak plantation. Kopi Luwak (in case you hadn’t seen it before) is coffee made it a fairly unusual way. There is a little rainforest critter called the Asian Palm Civet – kind of a cross between a possum and a lemur I guess – that eats coffee berries. It digests the fleshy fruit part, and the rest it – well, poops out leaving a uniquely processed coffee bean. This is then collected, roasted and ground by farmers in the mountains and sold – for A LOT (it can go for as much as $350 a kilo – a place sells it by the cup in Brisbane for $25!!).

Lisa roasts the most expensive beans in the world!

After getting lost (again) a friendly chap on a scooter heading home helped us out and we found it. Arriving in the car park we were greeted by a couple of VERY friendly Balinese teens who were keen to show us the way. Wary of them being nothing to do with the place we tried to reject their attention – until they handed over a couple of parasol umbrellas and started to lead us inside and we didn’t really have a choice as it had started chucking it down!

Our pint-sized guide led into their compound, it started with a tour of various spices, exotic fruit trees etc that they also grew on site  - but given his surprising professional spiel about them all we felt a bit better. Then he showed us the Civets themselves – the first little enclosure had three of them snoozing (nocturnal little fellas apparently) so we felt a bit more like it was legit. Then we were led to his grandma – who literally looked 150 years old – who was slaving away over a hot wok over a fire, slowly roasting the luwak beans. If she drinks the stuff they should use her as an advertisement for its life giving properties!

Lisa, James and Tiki

It was then that we were shown a couple more civets and offered the chance to hold one! Not being ones to shun the opportunity to hold something small and furry, we both had a turn. It was a little girl – Tiki I think he called her, and she was a bit cranky as it was still light out but we managed to get a couple of pics before she got bitey.

After that we were lead by a girl – no more than 15, to a tasting area to try their array of teas and coffees. At this point we were wondering if we’d have to pay for any of this as there had been no indication to that point and it’d been pretty entertaining. The tasting area was a hut overlooking their property – 2 hectares of serene rainforest leading down the mountain to the river valley below, again it was amazing (something we were getting a lot of in Bali!) – and the teas and coffees were also REALLY tasty, possibly because they all had the sugar equivalent of crack in them.  (raw palm sugar) We then had the option of tasting the Kopi Luwak – for 50,000 Rp a cup ($5). After all that, we were happy to give it a go and it was actually really good – if not a little strange!

Parasol rainforest chique

We headed into the shop to take a look at their stuff (as they have to make some money somewhere!) and tried some rice wine (the white stuff almost took our faces off). She showed us a small bag of the Kopi Luwak and asked if we wanted to take some home – it looked about 300g and was 1.1MRp - $110! I was tempted by the smaller 10 cup pack for $25 but resisted as I probably wouldn’t end up drinking it all, and was happy to have tried it. By the time we got out of there it was getting late, had started hammering it down and was COLD. I made a makeshift windbreak from my sarong (DIY poncho) and we set off back down the mountain.

On the way we got a bit lost (notice a theme emerging?) and had stopped at an intersection confused when a Balinese guy stopped to chat to us – as many of them do. He immediately pointed to me, my poncho and my beard and was amazed and invited us back to his house to meet his family and see his garden! Ordinarily, I’d have thought why not but as it was getting dark and we wanted to get back to catch something starting at 6 we declined – but he did point us in the right direction.

Rice terraces at Tallangang

On that road – we happened upon one of the major attractions of the area in a pretty spectacular rice terrace. Of all the ones we’d seen thus far it was probably the greenest and largest single paddy so we were glad we’d gotten lost! 

Roosting Herons at Petulu

Finally – once back in Ubud, we headed to Petulu to check out the Herons which come into roost in a couple of trees there. That in itself doesn’t sound too impressive – but apparently they come from miles and miles away to nest in these very specific trees, so the locals considered it a sign of good fortune and started caring for them which in turn attracts us tourists to check out the spectacle. It was impressive – hundreds and hundreds flocking to one small tree in the street, the road underneath was COVERED white!