Started the day early with a quick cereal and fruit breakfast, Rama picked us up at 7:00 while we were still trying to decide the itinerary for the day. We headed North, through the villas and rice paddies of Canggu and eventually through more rural and lush surroundings. We started climbing higher and higher, and the weather became a little cooler and cloudier. We stopped for a photo opportunity and then needed to find a bathroom... The place we stopped at randomly ended up exceeding expectations. It was a coffee and spice plantation with beautiful green terraces. They showed us the famous Luwak civets, which produce the most expensive coffee in the world - Kopi Luwak. The civets eat the raw coffee beans and digest only the fruit, leaving the beans, which are then collected and made into coffee...
The lady at the coffee plantation let us try all of their varieties of coffee and spiced tea: Luwak, Bali coffee, ginseng coffee and ginger coffee, as well as ginger, lemon and mangosteen tea. We picked one each and took a takeaway to continue our journey. The Luwak coffee was 50,000Rp, seemed a standard price everywhere we had been. It is a very mild and smooth coffee, very enjoyable. The ginseng coffee was really delicious as well.
The waterfall was quite cool - very high and quite thin. We got some photos and checked out the bridge, then walked back to the rest of the gang. Next we headed to Lovina beach, in the far North of the island, where I had pre-planned for us to go to Spice beach club. The club was great - really beautifully decorated in whites, and we got a nice table on the deck right next to the beach. They had pools, sun loungers and a bar, it was a good choice for us to spend the afternoon. We had Bintangs and some interesting dishes, my triple fish stack (club sandwich with tuna, crab and salmon) wasn't that great but Vans fish was good.
We reached a town and Rama decided to stop so we could show my mom a beautiful orchid stall, and walk around a small market area. It was a bit after 9:00AM and many of the stalls weren't even open yet, those that were open were a mix of food and souvenirs. We spotted a family on a beautiful but old army style motorbike, complete with sidecar and just had to take a photo.
We continued our journey into the hills and the clouds and eventually reached lake Beratan after around 2 hours of driving. We paid and went in, Rama acting as our guide. The entrance had beautiful gardens, immaculately manicured and decorated with some rather random fake animals! We continued walking and reached the temple, set on an island just off the edge of the massive lake. It was the most beautiful one we had seen, with its many tiered roofs. Across from the photogenic temple there was a real active temple, with a Hindu "service" in progress and we enjoyed watching as they went about their rituals. A really old man with a long white beard rang a bell and chanted while ladies made offerings and children sat cross legged behind them.
We continued our journey into the hills and the clouds and eventually reached lake Beratan after around 2 hours of driving. We paid and went in, Rama acting as our guide. The entrance had beautiful gardens, immaculately manicured and decorated with some rather random fake animals! We continued walking and reached the temple, set on an island just off the edge of the massive lake. It was the most beautiful one we had seen, with its many tiered roofs. Across from the photogenic temple there was a real active temple, with a Hindu "service" in progress and we enjoyed watching as they went about their rituals. A really old man with a long white beard rang a bell and chanted while ladies made offerings and children sat cross legged behind them.
We walked around a bit more, doing some shopping at the ubiquitous market stalls and then moved on. We drove past another huge lake and then reached the Git Git waterfall. John, Dad, Van and I decided to walk to it, leaving the ladies to relax by the car. The whole path the the waterfall was lined with sellers, crying "Only twenty dollars, twenty dollars". A tiny little girl even tried to sell Van some bangles so we gave her some coins, she was too adorable... When I showed the slightest interest in one stall, the ladies grabbed my hand and wouldn't let me go. But she still wouldn't take my offer for her vanilla so I had to extract myself.
Lovina beach was pretty disappointing, the black sand wasn't the problem but the sea was murky and scummy and there was a lot of rubbish on the beach. The beach club was very quiet and the whole place had a very different vibe to other areas in Bali. We relaxed for quite a while, swimming in the sea and pools and suntanning. I paid for the meal as a thank you to my Dad who had arranged the whole holiday and paid for the first villa.
We headed back for the almost three hour journey, just stopping once to photograph the lake and tried to avoid the monkeys. Since it was our last night all together, we decided to go to a nice restaurant in Canggu. We picked "Eternal" and even though it was only a few streets away, it took nearly half an hour to drive there, because of the layout of the streets. The restaurant was quiet but beautifully decorated. Dad and I decided to share a 'rijstafel' - an Indo feast of different dishes, sometimes up to 20. Ours wasnt quite that many, but we still enjoyed the gado gado and rice and rendang and other tasty things.
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