Day 262: Bike Ride Through Ubud Countryside — A Reunion with Cambodia Guide Virak
We signed up for a half-day private guided bike ride through the countryside. We’re now used to things being lost in translation so we weren’t entirely surprised when this was actually a group ride with three other people that kicked off with a 30 minute tour at a Luwak coffee “grower.”
The Luwak coffee is made from civet cat turds. Not joking. The beans have been eaten, fermented, then shit out. It supposedly makes great, smooth coffee. The locals get a kick out of calling it “Cat-Poo-Chino.”
These facilities are everywhere in Bali. We had originally avoided the offers of a tour because of all the negative reviews online — people going apeshit (pun intended!) about the treatment of the Luwaks (actually cats, not apes). But today we were learning about cat turd coffee whether we liked it or not.
The facility was actually in a really beautiful setting. After a quick tour and explanation of the process we sat down and were served a coffee and tea tasting. This comes free with the tour and doesn’t include the Luwak coffee which is considered fancy — so we had to order a cup just to try it. The kids loved the lemon tea and hot chocolate.
The bike tour started right from the parking lot of the coffee facility. There we met our fellow bikers: Richard and his wife from the UK (somehow didn’t get her name) and Astrid from Munich, Germany.
James rode on the back of the guide’s bike and Willa rode on mine.
I’m glad we did the ride. It was good exercise and a fun way to see the countryside.
But it wasn’t ideal terrain for about half the ride — sometimes we were on super narrow paths through rice fields and others we were off-roading on really bumpy roads. I’m not the most confident biker and I’m a little more cautious with a wary and oft-complaining Willa on the back. Annnd the seat on my bike had very little padding so I had a sore undercarriage by the end of the day. But still fun overall — we’ve had fun on our all bike / moped rides.
The ride ended at the tour company’s HQ where we had a buffet lunch with our new friends. After lunch there was a group of 8 – 12 year old girls that performed a traditional Balinese dance for us.
Richard, his wife and Astrid were really fun. So glad we met them. We exchanged info and hope to stay in touch.
Back at Villa Origin we took a swim and relaxed for the afternoon.
I play this game in the pool with Willa and James — we call it Swim Coach. I give them an instruction “1 lap freestyle, 1 lap breast stroke” and then they do it. After the basics I’ll say things like, “underwater somersault, then backstroke!” Today they said they wanted to play as I was getting out of the pool so instead I said, “a real swim coach would give you the whole workout at the beginning… so here it is: 10 laps freestyle, 10 laps breaststroke, 10 laps backstroke.”
I didn’t think there was any chance they would actually do this… but I came back a few minutes later and James was well into his breaststroke. He completed the whole workout. Loved watching that.
After the swim I played their new favorite game — Yahtzee.
Later in the afternoon we got back in the car and went to meet Virak, our guide from Siem Reap, for a drink at his hotel. He was visiting Bali with some other guides from his company and he bailed on a temple tour (!) to see us. The kids gave him big hugs hello and goodbye. He’s such a nice guy. I wonder if we’ll ever see Virak again!?!
It was a short visit with Virak because Margaret had signed up for a spin class at Pedal, a new studio in Ubud. The workout turned out to be a 45 min spin, plus 30 min mat work, 10 min yoga! She was one of three participants. The Australian instructor (and founder) took a look at Margaret’s power score and announced in a thick Aussie accent: “Not bad for a SoooooulCyyyy-clah!”
While Margaret was exercising I took the kids to Putu’s Wild Ginger restaurant near our hotel. It was a tiny little place at a family home. It was early and we were the only ones there for most of our meal.
By the end of dinner (ok, before we even got there) I was losing my patience with the kids. They were in an annoying / tricky / silly mood for some reason and after 12-straight hours with them I had had enough.
One possible reason for my bad attitude: I usually start my day with 90 min or so of personal time and exercise. I skipped it today because we were leaving early for the bike ride. I felt a little out of sorts all day.
Second reason: I had been with the kids non-stop for 12 hours!
We walked home, I put them in bed and nearly ran out of the room to have some precious time to myself.
(But not before reading a few chapters of the latest installation of the “13-Story Treehouse” series, which just dropped on Kindle today to lots of excitement!)
