Day 46: To Ubud

Around noon I left Gandhi Hostel 2 on a motor scooter with a backpack full of stuff for Kememai Hostel in southern Ubud.

   

The roads being almost entirely unmarked, I quickly found myself lost. A local noticed my predicament and offered to show me most of the way there, as he was on his way to his home near Ubud. After following the man through a rather confusing route that made turns contrary to the giant signs that said "Ubud, that way =>" no less than twice, we turned off the main road and parked in the nearby parking lot of a coffee plantation. I was told that Ubud was a mere half kilometer more along the road we last turned off. Another man came up and asked if I was interested in seeing the coffee plantation. Since I was in no hurry, I accepted.

At this point, your traveler scam alarm is probably going off. (I remember reading about a scam in Japan where locals will befriend you, spend the day showing you the city, invite you to tea -- implying that it's free and a gesture of kindness -- then present you with an exorbitant bill at the end as if you knew it was a business transaction the whole time). But, being that I was approached by a local in a non-touristy area and had at no point as of yet felt pressured by etiquette to accept any present or future services, I was only slightly wary.

Despite potentially looking like an elaborate and serendipitous scam, all my interactions that afternoon were entirely legitimate. The coffee plantation was quite nice. The guide explains to you their process of making luwak coffee, coffee made from the part-digested coffee cherries defecated by the Asian Palm Civet. They then make you a sampling tray of a wide selection of coffees and tea (free of charge) and ask if you would like to try either Luwak Coffee or the more traditional Balinese Coffee for 50k rupiah a pop -- a reasonable price ($4) and I elected to try the luwak coffee. 

Luwak coffee not pictured (it looks like normal coffee)

The luwak coffee is much lighter than traditional Balinese coffee (which I would consider somewhere between a medium and dark roast). Looking at it's Wikipedia page, it seems to be more of a gimmick than a delicacy, but I thought it tasted fine (the partly digested cherries are thoroughly cleaned to eliminate any waste byproducts).

Once moved into my new hostel, I rode to central Ubud to do some sightseeing. The center of Ubud is highly commercialized, catering to tourists, but walking here is more pleasant than in Denpasar because of the cooler temperatures. At night, from the hostel, you can hear a gamelan orchestra practicing a few buildings up the road.