Bali {day2}

Day 1  ::  Day 3  ::  Day 4

Day 2 we scheduled a bicycle tour.  We did a bike tour in Australia {how is that all I wrote about Australia?!?!?  I thought for sure I gave the land down under a proper spot on this blog but apparently not and now all my photos form the trip are gone with my hard drive so I guess that's all it'll ever be} and LOVED it so when I saw this on TA I knew it was something we had to do in Bali.

The tour started out by stopping at a coffee plantation of sorts.  We started with a sampler of basic Balinese coffees and teas.  We had ginseng, coconut, moccacinno, vanilla, and plain coffee, lemon grass {my favorite}, rice, ginger and rosella tea and hot cocoa.  I don't like coffee or tea but I tried each of them and actually loved the lemon grass tea.  It tasted like hot lemonade!

 After the sampler we learned the process of making Luwak coffee

Luwak coffee is made from the beans of coffee berries which have been consumed and excreted by the Asian Palm Civet. {you can see the "log" here in the jar}

 You can read more about it on the internet if you're interested but I won't go into any more details than that.  The beans are washed, dried in the sun, roasted and brewed.  We could pay for a sample but we both passed.  Apparently it's one of the most expensive coffees in the world and we had the chance to sample it for about $5 US but we just couldn't bring ourselves to try it!

We did try some fruits that were new to us, passion fruit and snake skin fruit or salak.  Although the snake skin fruit looked appalling it actually tasted pretty good once you removed skin.

All around the area were these flowers on the passion fruit plants and I sort of became obsessed with them.

they're so purple and large and fun!

From there we headed up to the top of a volcano and had a late breakfast before setting off on the bikes.  I was slightly irritated when the bike portion of the tour stated.  Since we started at the top and were working our way down the mountain we spent most of our time riding the brakes and mine were TERRIBLY LOUD!  I couldn't hear most of what the guide was saying over the screeching coming from my brakes!

 The scenery quickly took over and my irritation melted away in awe of God's beauty

We stopped briefly to see a temple

 and a local village

this was on the outside of someone's house, I want it hanging in my house!  The detail in the design and architecture in Bali were out of this world, unlike anything I've ever seen anywhere!

Then we stopped at  Pura Kehen, one of the largest temples in Bali

more gorgeous stone work

All along our ride, the local people would stop what they were doing, wave and yell, "HELLO!".  It was amazing to see so many happy, friendly people in one place.  Every single person we encountered on our trip was incredibly warm and friendly.  Every where we went people would ask us our names and were we're from and REMEMBER!  I still haven't figured out their trick to memorizing so many names!

{it was really hard to ride a bike and take a decent photo at the same time but if you look closely to the left of the bikers, you can see a mother and her children waving to us}

  

ha ha!  There were stray/wild dogs all over Bali and this one decided to chase after Jason.  I had no idea this was happening, I just randomly decided to fire off some shots while the camera was hanging behind my back and this is what I caught.  When I saw the photo I laughed out loud.  I had no idea this had happened!

Along the route we took, there were many people selling chickens on the side of the road in these cages.  I told Jason we need to invest in some of these for when we retire and have some land and are raising animals.

Our final stop was working rice fields

It was harvest season

And we were permitted to "help"

I look like a complete dork here but someone made a joke about shaking my hips while I shook the rice and who am I to deny the people a good laugh at my expense?

The process is in a slightly different order than it's done here in Japan.  One of my students told me that it used to be done in the order that it's done in Bali but with new technology they are able to do it faster with the use of machines that change the order of the steps.

This is completely random but after dinner that night (a fabulous dinner that consisted of an appetizer, lamb for him and shrimp main dish for me and 6 BOGO cocktails for $40US) we walked along the beach and Jason was chasing crabs like a little kid.  He finally caught one {actually it caught him by grabbing onto the cocktail stirrer he was flicking at it} and was excessively proud of himself.

I love this man and his willingness/encouragement to go on these incredible vacations with me!