09 May 2016
Day 7, Day Trip
It was 8:30am and our driver for the day had arrived to pick us up for our day trip which includes a visit to the coffee plantation, waterfall, temple, butterfly park and rice field.
First up we stopped off at Lotte Mart (it's kinda like a Costco/supermarket) and had a wander around the massive place picking up a few bits and pieces here and there before loading back into the big orange bus.
First stop on our day trip was the coffee plantation ... This is where the animal called Luwak picks the fruit from the tree eats it then poops it out, of course it it is then left as a coffee pod which is cleaned, dried, roasted and ground into the coffee. We got a brief tour around and saw the animals and then offered a tea and coffee tasting for free and a charge of 50,000rp(5.00aud) for the luwak coffee. I had the coffee and my wife had some ginger tea whilst my son had some magosteen tea which he enjoyed.
Next stop on the list was the Batuan Temple...a short drive from the coffee plantation and we were there. Adorned with sarongs ( a must do before entering the temple) we made our donation and entered the temple... It's was quite busy with a whole lot of other tourists , wandering around we took some photos and headed back out to our bus.
Hmm where did we go next... That's right the beautiful butterfly park ( my daughter was excited for this one ). Entry cost us 400,000(about $40aud) had a cold orange juice on arrival and then into the butterfly area , so many gorgeous flowers and plants and the butterflies were beautiful too , some quite big with a wing span of an average adults head span ! We had some photos with the butterfly's actually on our bodies ( that was fun) and took many pictures of them too.
The day already felt long but we still had more adventures to be had and with that we went onto the waterfall. As you walk on down through the many stalls and gelato sellers the sun was out in full force...it was getting hot! Now as we approached the area where u could see the waterfall in sight we looked at the stairs we had to get down first... Not for the faint hearted. It was 170 steps down so slowly but surely we made our way down to the bottom and across to the waterfall.. It was so nice to feel the spray on our heated bodies to cool us off for even just a minute. We snapped our pictures and headed back to the little shop at the bottom of the stairs for a nice cold Bintang and cool drinks for the wife and kids .. Took a few moments before we had to make the gruelling track back up the 170 steps in the blazing heat !! Upon our assent up we had a few breaks along the way to catch our breathe and let the little ones sit for a minute before continuing to the top. Dripping with sweat we finally make back up woohoo.. Kids did exceptionally I must say , well worth the effort tho as the waterfall was beautiful. My wife bought some hand fans from one of the little girls walking around selling and we were grateful for that and the cool comfort of our bus!!
Feeling pretty hungry now so we went off to find lunch. Our drive Awenk took us to a lovely restaurant which had a great range of Indonesian and western food choices ( great for the kids ) . My wife and I had a delicious Gado Gado , kids had chicken snitz, a pizza and nuggets n chips.. Yummy all round !
Rain started to come down and we still hadn't been to the rice fields yet but it has been a really long day for everyone and we thought we would head home instead ..we can always do it another day but for now home was the place to be so off we headed for the hour or so drive back to the hotel.
What a super jam packed awesome day full of all touristy things and we packed a lot into the one day but least we can tick them off the list ...feeling exhausted but happy.
Tomorrow is going to be a day of doing not much really , time by the pool is in order!
Goodnight all see u tomorrow .