It’s a good thing that posts on this blog are differentiated by date as well as title, because I think that there are going to be quite a few duplicates of our 2019 trip. On Wednesday, Berwyn and I did a downhill (mostly) cycling tour from Kintamani to Ubud. This is the same tour and same company that Dad, Mum, and I did in 2019.
After being picked up from our hotel just after 8am (we had to wait for Berwyn to finish on the toilet) we were taken to the house of the tour operator to be fitted to bikes and helmets. We were then taken to a “coffee plantation” to have breakfast, taste the various coffees and teas for sale, and see parts of the coffee production process. Having now visited these sorts of places many times, I did not find it particularly novel. The view was nice, however.
Following this, we jumped back into the car and were taken up to Kintamani. It turns out that a visit to Kintamani is no longer a regular part of the tour. The tourist entry fees have increased significantly and so the tour operator generally skips this, however they were happy to visit at my request. The view from Kintamani was unchanged, but the combination of some shiny new restaurants, redeveloped stark concrete viewing area, and extremely pushy sellers of souvenirs and trinkets, and some hazy and smoky weather, meant that I was happy to leave before too long.
The start point for the cycling wasn’t far away, so once there we jumped on our bikes and started the ride back to Ubud. Along the way we stopped at a village temple and some rice fields (sawah). Our guide explained many of the local practices and traditions along the way. The Balinese Hindus believe in a number of gods and also in the presence and activity of good and bad spirits. These spirits influence many parts of their daily life and the frequent ceremonies that are held. Even today we saw most of the Balinese dressed up, and our waitress at breakfast confirmed it was a special day for the Balinese.
After finishing the couple of hours and 28 km bike ride, we arrived back at the tour operator’s house and were provided with a fantastic lunch of corn fritters, gado gado, sate ayam, tempeh (cooked with sugar – delicious!), smoked chicken, and lawar. The guide also explained the traditional Balinese house layout, also guided in many ways by their spiritual beliefs. When we asked to use the toilet and walked through to the back of the compound to do so, we discovered that a cousin was using an upper floor to do cooking classes, while a brother was operating a home stay.
Even though this was the third time I have done a cycling tour on approximately the same route in Bali, I still learned new things, including some more Indonesian words. I believe Berwyn also enjoyed it and found it instructive.
The exact route and a few photos are on Strava.
