Monkey business

For this final installment of the Bali vacation series postings, I must cover the details of our final full day in Indonesia, which was probably the most eventful of them all.

We signed up for a semi-guided tour through select places of interest in the local area. The tour involved a local driver who was “ours” for the day. This gracious gentleman navigated his way through the twelve-ring circus of Bali traffic in a minivan for us so we could sit back and enjoy the sights and the chilled on-board Bintangs. It generally worked out, given that we disregarded the roadways as much as possible.

The first stop on our excursion was to an ancient temple. We were required to cover our legs with a sarong there. In some parts of the temple we were even asked to remove our shoes. Seemed strange, as the entire place was outdoors and we really could have done without the extra layer on our legs and wanted to keep something as minimal as flip flops on our feet. But regardless, seeing the structures that had been carved out of solid stone was pretty incredible.

After a little bartering with the local vendors, we were on our way to the next destination: the coffee farm.

Mark and I are coffee lovers. We had always thought, wouldn’t it be great if we fed coffee beans to a cat, waited for that cat to crap out the beans, then we could clean the beans and brew coffee from them? Okay, just kidding. We didn’t think of that. But someone did.  And it’s called “Luwak Coffee.” And it’s considered a delicacy in Indonesia.

We’d heard of this coffee before coming to Asia, and even though we were completely disgusted by it, we were also intrigued. So when we knew we were going to finally get the chance to try some, we jumped on board.

The coffee farm we visited had a wide variety of other coffees as well, but of course, the tourists like ourselves come anticipating the cat crap coffee. Or as the coffee farm tour guides affectionately called it, “Cat-poo-ccino.”

The whole process of luwak coffee making was explained to us in a way that made us want to try the stuff even more. First, wild civet cats eat and digest coffee beans. These cats are not normally kept in captivity. Here, we saw two of them in cages only because they were injured. These feeble creatures are likely to get in fights with stray dogs, and they are likely to lose. After the cats pass the coffee beans, the bean parts are separated from the poo parts, cleaned, shelled, cleaned again, roasted, and finally ground into a fine powder that looks like any other ground coffee and can be brewed likewise.

We ordered a cup to share and had it freshly brewed in front of us. That is, freshly brewed by a human after the cat had already done its part. So how did it taste, you ask? Like really strong coffee. It was tasty, but if I’d had some French vanilla creamer on hand I would have added a splash in there.

All hopped up on cat poo caffeine, we headed up the hills of Mount Batur. From our vantage point we could see nearly the entire landscape surrounding this active volcano, including a vast blackened area that still has not recovered from an eruption decades ago.

We got back into the minivan for the short drive to see some rice terraces. There are rice terraces all over Bali. Rice is kind of a big deal there. Maybe not to the locals, but for the tourist-types it’s really neat to see rice growing on a hillside in the shape of a staircase.

And our final destination on the Bali journey was one the most fun things we’ve ever done. We went to a monkey forest in Ubud. That’s right – it’s a forest where little Balinese monkeys live. It’s not a zoo – it’s their home. And these animals are not trained. They follow their bionic noses towards anything that smells edible, and then they devour whatever provisions they may discover.

We came prepared with a bunch of miniature bananas. But we could not have prepared for how scrappy these scavengers were going to be.

After we had emptied our first small bag of bananas, I placed the plastic bag that had carried them into my larger tote bag on my shoulder. Even though I was tightly squeezing that tote as far into my armpit as it would go, I was still discovered by a miniature monkey who scaled the side of my body, pried his way into my tote, and discovered the emptied plastic bag. So you would think the little guy would just leave and go seek out some other banana-holding victim, right? Wrong. Little primate decided to rifle though my tote bag even more and then proceeded to remove any and all items it contained until finally I was rescued by a human employee of the monkey forest. And that was the day I was almost robbed by a monkey.

Regardless of (or perhaps, because of?) the near-robbery and other incidents such as monkeys sitting on our shoulders with their balls far too close to our faces for comfort, the monkey forest was one of the most unforgettable activities we did in Bali. Not to mention, it will always be on the must-do list for this destination. If you ever go to Bali, do not leave without visiting the monkey forest. Just be prepared to protect your bananas. Or any of your other goodies.