Hello all,
Last night's dinner was a bit of a walk, involving walking past the Monkey Forest again. Our group joked to Claire and I that we were having dinner in there!! I had a Greek salad and a watermelon juice.
This morning Reyann and I got up early and it was raining, we were quite worried this would spoil our visit to the rice terraces. Initially we were meant to be visiting a local school today which I had been really looking forward to, but like me the kids are on school holidays at the moment. Just one of those things - can't be helped! I think I'm visiting one in Africa later this year so all good.
We had breakfast and then met the group. Our driver made a wrong turn at first and we had to do about an 83 point turn, all the while banking the traffic back about 50m!
After a half an hour drive, we arrived at the UNESCO World Heritage Ubud Rice Terraces. One word - stunning! Definitely my favourite part of the trip so far. It was so lush and green, and the weather was kind to us. It was bright and didn't rain! We walked around for about 30-40 minutes, winding our way up, down and around the terraces. Six families have small huts here that they live in while they work the land, and we were greeted by them. Like everyone we've come across here they were super friendly and greeted us with a smile, a handshake and one man even a sweaty hug!
The terrace paths were quite slippery and muddy, I was very glad of my trekking sandals. Ryan told us that each stork produces 70-90 grains of rice which is hand picked, and that the process is about a three month one. The terraces work as a filtration system as the lake at the top provides water to the top layer which then flows down to the next and so on and so on.
But while rice is grown and sold from here, most of their money is made from tourists. I honestly can't describe how beautiful it was and I hope you all love the photos. I tried to take some good perspective ones to show how vast it was.
The climb back up to the road was a very hot and sweaty one, but we made it! Then it was back on the bus for 20 minutes before arriving at a coffee plantation. We had a quick tour of the crop growing area. They produce loads of different types of coffee as well as tea, chocolate, pepper and a few other things. The guide brought us two trays of coffees to try and we had everything from mangosteen tea to coconut coffee. I'm not usually a coffee drinker but lots of them were quite tasty! Just because I could, I paid 50,000 rupiah ($5) to try a cup of Luwak Coffee. As I mentioned the other day, this is the most expensive coffee in the world. Luwak cats love eating the red ripened coffee cherry fruit. They ingest these beans and they are fermented in their gut then pooed out. Once the bean has passed through their digestive system, it is collected from the forest floor and cleaned and toasted. Coffee is then made. It was quite nice but had lots of sediment down the bottom, a bit like Turkish coffee. Due to me not being a coffee drinker I felt extremely alert after the huge cup!! We went to the shop and I bought some different coffees and some chocolate.
The weather had changed whilst we were here and if anything we started to feel rather cold (a nice change!). Rain and clouds set in as we ascended in the bus towards Batua Volcano. I didn't hold high hopes for a nice view at lunch, but we were pleasantly surprised!! Ryan told us that 9/10 groups he brings here in wet season don't get to see the volcano. We had a clear and beautiful view! We had the buffet lunch and soaked in the views. Mount Batua is a caldera, meaning a volcano within a crater. It is an active volcano that has erupted 20 times in 200 years, the last time being in 2000. In 1917 the eruption was so bad that it wiped out most of the town down the bottom of the volcano and to this day you can still see burnt areas where the greenery hasn't grown back.
No comments:
Post a Comment