This day last week we were riding elephants and drinking kopi luwak/civet coffee in Bali. Oh how quickly it all comes to an end, but always when I get home I get to reminisce about all the good times while writing my blog posts and editing photos. I ticked off two of the things I've wanted to do in my life - ride an elephant, and taste civet coffee.
We set out to Ubud early on Wednesday morning - just as well we did because this place got busy quickly.
Lennox and I were together on our Sumatran elephant.
After our buffet lunch at the enclosure we told the driver we wanted to do some coffee tasting. He asked if we were referring to the most expensive coffee in the world - kopi luwak - or more commonly known as civet coffee (or poo coffee). "Yes", we said. "That's the one we want to drink." So he drove us to a place where we could do just that.
Civets are nocturnal, so we got to see them sleeping instead of eating (or pooing).
They showed us how coffee was processed and roasted.
We had a free taste test of various teas and mixtures of coffee, but for a cup of luwak coffee we were charged 50,000 Rupiah for the privilege (works out to be around $5NZD).
After that we made our way back home, with a quick stop at a rice paddy field on Jalan Raya Samu next to a temple.
When we got home we all jumped into the pool, and Jef went to the local store (literally right outside the path to our villa) where a guy was selling food from his scooter. Real genuine balinese street food! Of course we had some. There were a variety of meat balls and tofu mixed with a bit of noodles, cabbage, herbs and chilli sauce, all served in a lovely hot broth. It was delicious.
That night Nikki and Andre came over with the kids, and we went down to the beach for some pina coladas.
The kids all ran around on the sand in front of us, and occassionally started little fires from toilet paper and matches they took from the tables around. It was a naughty, and yet so amusing at the same time.
Phew, what an action packed day that was!
