Day 159. Kyle & Leanne joint blog. Ubud, Bali, Indonesia.

We are up early.  Not that we have much choice with the 4am rooster alarm clock. Kyle grouses that they’ll be serving rooster burgers for lunch today when he’s done with them. It’s our only day to tour the surrounding area and we are all prepped ahead for our classes today. We leave the center at 7:30 a.m.  

Our guide Dawa was our taxi driver into Ubud on Tues night.  He is a local in our village who also owns the restaurant bar we were at last night. Today he will be our tour guide.  Villagers such as Dawa wear many hats.

Dawa tells us about the significance of the Bali Hindu colors. Balinese use bamboo for decorations on their temples and the outcomes are like nothing we have ever seen.  Beautiful orange and yellow marigolds fit nicely into woven bamboo decorations that brighten the already beautifully intricate Balinese Hindu temples. We pass by the morning market with fresh produce sold from 4 am to 10 am.  There’s dozens of sellers of organic fruits and vegetables.  There’s equally another Night Market later in the day. 

Our first stop is to a coffee plantation with terraced landscaping and extreme swings.  The menu board of options has different levels of swings.  Everyone in the clan goes for the Ultimate Extreme Swing which at 28 meters above ground is the highest and scariest swing.  Well, everyone except Leanne who volunteers to take the pictures instead due to her dislike of heights. 

We all take a turn swinging above the ground over beautiful green manicured rice terraces with varying levels of personal fear of such. After seeing the first four in the clan swing with little fear, Leanne convinced herself this is something she can do. She manages to harness her fear and just a few bumbling moves before getting into the swing - then the swing attendant pushes her out something fierce.  Her screams could be heard t Malaysia and even the attendants pull out their phones to video her epic screaming.  She is surely viral by now in at least 3 countries. 

After the swing, we head over to learn how coffee is grown, harvested and roasted with special attention to how they make the gourmet Kopi Luwak coffee.  This Indonesian species of wild cats search out and eat the perfect coffee beans that they don’t digest.  Their feces contain some enzyme that improves the coffee bean’s quality immensely.  No laughing now, it’s the most expensive coffee in the world at roughly $50 - $85 per cup outside Indonesia.  We are able to indulge ourselves for $3.95 per cup since we are at the plantation.  Can we tell the difference between the most expensive coffee in the world and a Starbucks Moccha?  Nope. So that will like be the first and last cup of Kopi Luwak we ever have.

As we are driving to our next stop, we learn from Dawa the story behind the roosters.  Apparently, cock fighting is a huge sport in the villages of Bali.  Almost every villager has roosters they enter into cock fighting contests which happen on a very frequent basis. Since it is a fight to the death match, the villagers always have to keep a large supply of roosters on hand.  Now we know why there are so many roosters camped outside our room and we conclude that their maniacal crowing at 3:45am is a protest to their unwilling participation in the impending cock fights. 

The next stop is the Holy Temple where locals and brave tourists can be purified through entering into the spring waters and taking in the water from all 15 of the spring spouting showers. It’s a ceremony many Balinese perform on a weekly basis to cleanse themselves.  Only a few of us brave the cool water but to say it was an amazing experience would be an understatement.  We are in full-on sarongs or ceremony clothes essentially taking cold showers with dozens of faithful Balinese. 

We rush back to the center to turn around to head out for our afternoon teaching lesson. We have all decided to make it fun so John performs a mini-concert for all the kids and we play bingo and pass out candy.  It is our final day and several students express visible sadness that we are leaving. When Kyle and Corey tell their class it’s their last day, the girls look crushed and on the verge of crying. The troublemakers look gleeful as they hope to get a new volunteer victim they have terrorize. The kids give us our final “signs of respect” goodbye handshake. Several kids chase our van for a few blocks waving goodbye to us as we drive away.  After a few speedbumps in the road, we end the week on a very high note feeling like we helped a lot of kids and got a lot out of the experience ourselves. It was very hard to say goodbye to these amazing, adorable and bright students. 

That night, Leanne and Kyle head out to meet Sunny and Luke, who moved here in January, for dinner.  We had dinner at their house earlier in the week so we opt for a lovely outdoor meal at a fine, recently opened resort.  We see how happy they are with their Bali adventure year and wish them well.  It is amazing to catch up with them and see them thriving here. 

We go to sleep knowing that we don’t need to set alarm for our morning flight. Our roosters, whom we will miss too (not), will ensure that we are up long before the sun.