Aside from tropical beaches in Bali, there’s quite a bit to do inland in Ubud. We hired Enrico, a driver/tour guide who spoke super good English and he was around our age so it was super easy chat with him. The first destination he took us to was a coffee plantation (I never knew what a coffee plant looked like before this!), where they had luwak coffee and a slew of different coffees and teas for us to try.
The luwak coffee has no added milk or sugar and is sweet on its own. It tastes like regular black coffee with sugar in it, but then I’m not a coffee drinker, so my taste for it isn’t as nuanced.
The luwak eats the coffee cherry (the fruit that contains the coffee bean), and. The bean itself is partially digested and defecated and then used to make the coffee. Yes, the coffee is actually made from part poop. Plantations send people out into the woods to specifically look for the poop. The guide said 1 kg takes 42 days to produce.
It’s one of the most expensive if not most expensive coffees in the world. Our guide at the plantation called it a “cat-poo-ccino”!! The plantation doesn’t actually charge for any of the tours and samples (except for the cup of luwak coffee), but rather they rely on people buying coffee and tea to make money.
The next stop was the monkey forest. It was really cool to see monkeys running around with humans so close to them.
There was a sign that said to not stare at the monkey for too long, but I clearly forgot…
Monkeys like to play too!
The monkey forest was the coolest place in the whole tour. Mike’s video has even more clips of the monkeys. Check it out below.
The next stop were some rice fields. But a freak rainstorm occurred and cut that way short. At first we thought, it’d be okay with a little, but then it just poured.
The raindrops were HUGE.
15 minutes later, the rain was gone. A bit of a drive later, we reached a waterfall as the conclusion of the tour.
From there we drove back to our accommodations and passed by some more rice fields. Throughout the car ride, we chatted with our guide about sorts of things like the history of Indonesian independence, North American culture, and life in Indonesia. One thing that really stood out to me was that he spoke very fondly about how dad prepared dog meat really and how much he enjoyed eating it. To him, it’s something super normal and part of the culture, but it seems so foreign to us in North America.
This ends our day trip in Ubud. See more of the trip here.