Bali road trip, Indonesia

Today we hired Congtit to chauffeur us around Bali for the day. For $55 we got a nine hour guided tour of central and eastern Bali. I had originally planned a drive through famous Kuta beach, but Congtit convinced us that we would not enjoy the choking traffic of that area. Instead he showed us some stunning scenery of upcountry Bali. We drove uphill past terraced rice paddies, and through countless villages, each specializing in one particular artwork. On village wood carved the Garuda, the national symbol of Indonesia which is Vishnu riding an eagle. Another village did stone tile work. Another did nothing but roofs for temples. Congtit is a stone and woodcarver himself, having learned it from his father and grandfather.

Soon we reached Gunung Kawi, a Hindu temple built in the 11th century consisting of temples carved into a high rock wall. We had to wear sarongs to enter the temple, so we "rented" them for 30 cents each. The entrance fee was eighty cents. It was quiet and peaceful.

Next we came to the water temple Tirta Empul. Built around a sacred spring, an inscription dates the spring all the way back to 926AD; and there are fine carvings and Garudas on the courtyard buildings. The temple and its two bathing spots have been used by the Balinese for over a thousand years for good health and prosperity. Regular purification ceremonies also take place here. Congtit said that it cleared your mind of bad thoughts. I splashed some on my face, and cleaned out all my bad thoughts, at least for a few minutes. Lots of kids and adults splashed about in the water.


We stopped in at a coffee plantation. You may have heard a rumor of a rare coffee that was collected from the droppings of a wild animal. It exists, and it is sold here as Kopi Luwak Coffee. A small jar of ground beans sells for $30! So what exactly is it? The Indonesian word “kopi” translates directly to coffee. The word Luwak refers to a small wild animal native to Indonesia and Vietnam that is actually a cousin of the mongoose.
The luwak or civet is particularly fond of perfectly ripe coffee cherries. Thanks to coffee farmers, the luwak has no troubles finding plenty of coffee.
Once eaten, the coffee cherries take the normal route through the animal’s digestive path. The amazing thing is while the fruit of the coffee is being digested, the bean is left largely unchanged, eventually passing in the animals droppings.
The droppings and their caffeine-laden content are collected by farmers. The coffee is then cleaned and the green, un-roasted bean shipped to roasters.
Seen below, your coffee is scraped off the bottom of this guy's cage. We bought some regular old Bali Coffee, but not Civet coffee or Kopi Luwak.

Next it was up, up, up to a great view of Ganung Batur while we had lunch in the town of Kintamani. Then back down through more beautiful villages till we reached the "Mother Temple of Bali". Over a thousand years old, Besakih Temple is perched on the slopes of Mount Agung, at a lofty 3,000 feet. Besakih is the biggest and holiest of all the Balinese temples. It is also a horrendous scam and a blight on the beauty of Bali. Really. We had a most unfortunate experience here. Despite paying the official entry fee of $1.37, at the foot of the temple road we were stopped by a semi-official looking mob of boys who told us we had to pay for $11 EACH for a personal guide or we could not go in the temple.

A word now on prices in Indonesia. It is incredibly cheap. An excellent dinner for two in a western style restaurant can be had for under $10. An hour-long massage by a trained therapist costs $6. A ticket for a 90 minute, professional Balinese dance performance is $8. A 24 oz bottle of Bintang is $2. So while $11 may seem like an insignificant amount, in Bali to demand this for a 20 minute tour by a boy who speaks broken English is completely outrageous. As such I declined, and continued walking up the hill to the temple. While people in Bali will try to sell you stuff everywhere you go, if you just smile and say "No thank you", they will leave you alone. This was not the case at the "Mother Temple". These hoodlums followed us via moped and tried to stop us again at each successive gate leading up to the main temple. They would not take no for an answer and were becoming intimidating about it. They would stand in front of us and tell us we could not go any further, despite the fact that we had tickets. I finally lost my cool, and had a verbal confrontation with the most sour faced punk in their little mafia. Of course, this is simply not done in Asia. One does not show anger or speak confrontationally. But I had boiled over. I had dealt just fine with having to pay 50 cents for parking, 20 cents to use a public bathroom, 30 cents to borrow a sarong required to enter a temple, these little fees you are made to pay purely because you are a foreigner and the people see you as a walking ATM. I don't mind paying for the necessary services I receive as a guest in another culture. But I cannot stand being lied to and extorted, even for eleven bucks. The glowering boy followed us every step towards the temple. We met another couple staying at Saren Indah who were also confused as to why they had to pay these kids. Finally we had enough. Before we even got to the temple, we turned back to the car. The normal happiness and tranquility of Bali had been ruined by this greedy little mob. We could not extract any joy from the Mother Temple. We took no pictures. Hopefully the Indonesian government will break up this scam someday soon. Until then, DO NOT GO TO BESAKIH TEMPLE. Tony Wheeler, please update Lonely Planet with this message. Your current edition mentions "aggressive touts", but it's a lot worse than that.

Congtit (above) felt bad about our bad experience, and wanted to end our trip on a good note. He drove us downhill to the beach, where I was able to jump in and swim in the Indian Ocean!

I hadn't even realized that Bali's southern coast was on the Indian Ocean until I checked the map right before we got to the beach. I would have really kicked myself if I had missed out on my first chance to swim in a new ocean.
Just on of many overloaded mopeds.
The family piggy.
The water temple back in Ubud.