A day of bicycling

On Monday I took a half day bicycle tour. There were five in our group plus our guide. On the drive up we stopped at Amertha Yoga gardens where we were taken on a small tour and shown some of the things they grow.

Avocado tree









Rambutan tree or maybe it's mangosteen... hmmm...









Nutmeg tree












Rambutan, Mangosteen and Snake Skin fruit - all delicious!












Coffee bean tree (think I got the picture right...)














A woman roasting the coffee beans









Three stages: ground, roasted, green (pealed)









Coffee is manually ground








And then there's special coffee, Kopi Lewak...











Kopi Lewak... yes that's monkey poop!













We drove on to a cafe at the rim of the crater overlooking Batur volcano and Batur lake for a "brunch" of coffee/tea and fried bananas. Then our group was outfitted with helmets and bikes for the ride down.
Batur volcano - view from our starting point









Our group









Yours truly... the helmet was seriously for decoration only. It was so big I eventually ditched it as I figured I'd get injured worse wearing it!









Children along the road would hold out their hands for us to slap as we rode by yelling "Halo!"
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We rode about 40 km - all of which was downhill (with the exception of two small STEEP hills). We stopped in a village and visited the home of a family. Communal style living with two or three generations living in one housing "complex." Each family home has its own temple, kitchen, storage area, garden, one or two cooking areas and various buildings/houses for each of the families. (Ie grandparents and parents would probably have their own houses).


Rice field along the way












Part of a temple














Towards the end we had torrential downpour - AWESOME and then had lunch in Pejeng not far from Ubud.
A view from our table








A nice ride and our guide Marcel was great!