Eco Cycling Tour

For today we booked a cycle tour with Bali Eco Cycling.

We were picked up at our hotel at 8AM and were brought to a nice restaurant at Mount Batur to have breakfast with nice views. On our way we stopped at a place with a view on beautiful rice terraces. The view at Mount Batur was not as good as usual due to the rainfalls of yesterday.

After breakfast we stopped at a coffee plantation to taste all kinds of coffee and tea. They also produce the famous and most expense coffee of the world: Kopi Luwak. The Luwaks eat the red coffee beans, the beans get fermentated in the stomach of the animal, and come out again via the digestive system. These beans are cleaned, dried and roasted. Tasting luwak coffee is not free, it cost RP 60.000 (5 euro) per cup.

We were lucky to see one of them awake, as they are night animals. The picture is not the best, but soon after I made this picture, the animal left to his sleeping place.

Another short car drive brought us to the place to start our cycling tour. The whole tour, 25 km, is down hill and you continuously use your brakes to slow down. Volunteers could opt at the end to have a 40 min uphill ride, which Frank did. I decided to stick to the down hill part.

It went quite fast in the beginning, the mountain bike is a bike I am not used too, but I managed. All went well!.

Our first stop was at a local house were two families live. They were preparing the celebrations for next week, mainly done by the women.

Our guide for the day, Joe, showed the some decorations, made from banana leaves, coconut and other fruits. All for offering.

The house temple may only be accessed by family members and lays always at North East. So when you drive through a road you will only see temples at street level on one side of the road. This family has the temple behind the house!

This photo is taken from the backside of the house, the kitchen is in the back on the left side.

The blue doors are sleeping rooms for family members.

The tradition says that girls leave the house when they got married. The youngest son inherit the house and the grounds. The eldest son leaves the house and has to buy his own property or, if the land is big enough, will get his own part on the land.

Everywhere we came people, and specially children, were curious.

These three children came outside when they heard us, when we had a short stop.

Also in the rural areas we saw everywhere the penjors! It gave a special touch to our tour. Today we learned that the penjors are made of bamboo, decorated with coconut leaves and a small cage for the offerings. Each house has to have one. They are meant to honor the God of the mountain.

The ogoh-ogoh monsters are used to drive away the bad spirits. This one is from last year when this community won the competition. This ogoh-ogoh monsters cost 12 million rupiahs (1000 euro). This year they decided not to make one....

This tower is used to announce happenings in the village. By this everybody knows that some festivals, like a marriage are coming. Everybody is invited, but has to pay something. In this way they share the costs.

Life is hard in the village, women still carry the fagots on their head.

Due to the rain the rice was too wet. Here they make the ground dryer by weeding the fields.

A bit further down the road a woman was harvesting the rice. We took over her work for a moment so that she could relax and chat a bit with our guide.