We had arranged a sunset tour over Tanah Lot, which also takes us to Lake Bratan, some temples including a royal family temple, the rice paddy fields and holy monkey forest. When we got picked up this morning, our driver asked if we could stop at Tanah Lot first as they have a Hindu festival going on today. I was slightly annoyed as we really wanted to see the sunset over Tanah Lot and that's the tour we signed up for. We didn't want to make the driver miss his ceremony so we agreed to go to Tanah Lot first. It's suppose to be groups of people, but it ended up being just us and the driver. It took an hour or so to get to Tanah Lot.

Tanah Lot

Once we got there our driver said meet him back at the car in an hour. So we paid our entrance fees and went off to Tanah Lot. It's some type of religious place, set right overlooking the sea. We walked towards it and there was a market selling lots of Balinese stuff. We didn't have time to look here, so just went to Tanah. When we went in, there were loads of people there all dressed in their best clothes for this Hindu festival. There were also lots of people praying and worshiping their Hindu gods. It was high tide when we arrived, so you couldn't easily walk across to Tanah. It would have been good if we had come for sunset, as the sun sets right over the sea here. We hurriedly walked around as we've only got an hour. It would have been good to spend more than an hour here. We got some pictures, admired it for a while, then it was time to leave. We went back to meet our driver and set off for the royal family palace.

Royal family palace

It took about half an hour to get to the royal family palace. We had to pay our entrance fees then we went inside. The palace was not the type I was expecting, it was small temple buildings in an outdoor area, with a few taller temple like buildings. You couldn't enter those grounds, but could walk around the surrounding areas. It wasn't really that impressive so we walked back to our car. On route, we saw chickens cooped up in tiny cages, they use them for cock fighting, a bit cruel if you ask me. When we asked the driver where the royal family lives, he said just in the village, so they don't even reside here! We carried on driving to our next stop, a coffee plantation. Although we've been to one in Colombia, this one is also included on our tour.

Coffee plantation

We got taken on a tour around the gardens, the guide showed us the coffee trees we'd seen before; arabica and robusta, and we saw the coffee cherries. What was different about this one was that they also showed us spices like tamarin, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg etc. We also got shown ginger, jack fruit, during fruit, vanilla pods and cocoa pods. Then we saw a mongoose, the poop from mongoose is used to make the finest coffee. They eat only the best coffee cherries, so they go and collect the poo from the forest to roast up for coffee. The process of making the coffee is the same as that I described in my Salento blog. After we'd been shown all the coffes, it was tasting time! We went through to a different room and they had a black and yellow bird in a cage. It was a talking bird and it was really impressive. It only speaks Balinese though, all the same it still spoke words! The guide poured loads of coffees for us to try, John tried the coffee from the mongoose, I had a sip, it was too strong for me! Other teas and coffees I tried and liked included vanilla, mocha, coconut, mangosteen fruit, rose, some antioxidant one and some type of wood that turned the tea pink! Ones I didn't like were ginger, cocoa; turmeric as they were too strong for me, although John liked them. My favourite was mangosteen, John really liked ginseng, so we bought some to take with us. It was an interesting and different tour to what we'd experienced in Colombia.

Rice paddy fields

After the coffee plantation, we drove towards some rice paddy fields. We were suppose to have lunch in a lovely restaurant overlooking the fields, but as we've had so much coffee, we're full up, so we just went there for a drink and to admire the rice paddies. We are high up, and there are awesome views of the rice paddy fields from the restaurant. There were loads of rice terraces, and many layers of them. There was an amazing view of the mountains behind the rice fields too. We stopped there for a short while, then had to get going as we're driving up to Lake Bratan.

Ulundanu Beretan temple and Lake Bratan

We snaked up through winding roads, and as they drive so crazily here, I was starting to feel a little nauseous. It took about 45 minutes to arrive. We had to pay yet more entrance fees, so it's turning into quite an expensive day. Although, it's probably the only way we'll get to see the sights of Bali. Lake Bratan is one of the biggest lakes in Bali and it has an amazing temple right on the lake. It's very picturesque. We had to dash around as we only had half an hour there. It's the typical temple of South East Asia and it's so pretty to look at over the lake. We stood admiring it for a while and got our pictures, then had to leave. I wish we didn't have to rush round everywhere, but at least we're getting to see it. Our driver waited in the car park and we got going to our last destination, the holy monkey forest.

Holy monkey forest

We expected to be taken to the same monkey forest that was near us on monkey forest road. When we arrived it looked nothing like the entrance to the one we saw yesterday. That's because it was actually a different forest. We were greeted by a photographer to proceeded to lead us around the forest. He kept feeding the macquakes nuts, so they were following us around the forest. He even got them to sit on our knees, and one even climbed right on my head! Our camera battery died so he took all the photos of us and the monkeys. At the end, he tried to sell us a picture, which I didn't want. There were some really nice pictures, I would have like them from his memory card, but there was no way to extract the pictures from the card. I was annoyed as we didn't get any pictures of us and the monkeys. I'm sure we'll see more throughout our time in Asia anyhow. After that, we got driven back to Ubud. The sun was going down, so we wouldn't have time to eat dinner in the rice paddy fields. We just found another local restaurant and ate in there.