Happy Bike Cycling Tour- Ubud

Possibly my favorite day trip I’ve done so far—

I contacted Made (pronounced ma-day) who owns Happy Bike Cycling Tour late Tuesday evening to see if three of us could join his tour for Wednesday. They originally weren’t going to run tours on Wednesday but made an exception for us-which means we ended up having a private tour.

Gusti- a driver from the company- picked us up at 8.15 Wednesday morning and we headed off on our adventure. We picked Made up along the way and made our first stop at Santi Agrowisata for coffee and tea tasting. Made showed us around and pointed out the different trees from coffee to cacao and some native fruits. The coffee plantation also makes Luwak Coffee- which is coffee that is ‘harvested’ from Luwak poop- the animal eats the coffee beans and they are fermented in the animals stomach.

The tables at the back where you sit for tastings has an amazing view overlooking the jungle. The tasting included 5 coffees, 1 cocoa and 6 teas. The Luwak coffee isn’t included in the tasting but I did pay the additional 50,000rp to try it and it was delish-strong but not as acidic as normal coffee. We got a little box with a banana pancake and a banana in it as our breakfast as well.

Perfect follow up to breakfast? Chocolate tasting- the owner of Santi came out to the store front with a tray full of different kinds of chocolate to taste. There’s tea, coffee, chocolate, and essential oils in the shop that you can buy as well.

From the coffee plantation we drove up to the mt Batur viewpoint. The viewpoint is in a great spot to see both Batur & Agung- and you can see the lava areas on Batur from the last eruption.

Time to cycle! Gusti & Made set up the bikes and we hopped on and rode around a field for a minute to get our bearings. Normally one of their groups has 20-25 people- and they split the groups into two for cycling- so we were super lucky that it was only the 3 of us going on the 20km ride.

The first stop we made was at a local school. Made brought us in to show us the classrooms and explained about the kids routines for school. They go to school 6 days a week and they have a 3 uniform rotation through the week. The kids bring in brooms & dustpans to clean their classrooms on Saturday’s as they don’t have anyone else to clean the school. The kids were all more than happy to come over and say hi and give us high 5s. We looked in on a group of boys practicing their comedian routine.

Back on the bikes and we headed for a little village. The village has 8-900 people living it and most of the family’s live in compounds. Made brought us into one of the family’s compounds- this particular one is home to four families. There is a gate leading into every compound and directly behind the gate is a small wall- this is part of their Hindu beliefs to keep bad energy. Some people put idols on their walls- this family had a statue of Ganesha on theirs- their offerings are also left their. The family’s temple is always on the east side of their property- this happened to be the side closest to the street. The women we met were weaving bamboo baskets of different sizes that they sell in the village to be used for offerings. There are multiple buildings on the property- each family has their own kitchen house (which we were told is lucky for them because it reduces fighting!), and then their bedrooms. In Balinesse culture the son stays on his family’s property when he gets married- they build on a new house- the daughters go to their husband’s family. The family also had pigs (and piglets), chickens, and ducks- some will be sold at the market and down the family will keep for their own food. Made told us that the women cook once a day- in the morning- and make a big portion of rice and maybe chicken, or fish, or vegetables that their families can eat throughout the day. If there’s only rice left by the time dinner comes around they might add in eggs to make it more filling.

Going into this family’s home really made an impression on me about Balinesse culture and the family structure compared to what we would be familiar with.

We kept cycling and Made brought us to a rice paddy. He explained the process of growing and harvesting the rice and how much work goes into it. The most surprising part to me was that all of the paddies we have been seeing around are only for one family- even though the fields look big it’s rice for one family. So most people have a full time job- teacher, construction, etc- and work in the field before work or on the weekend to tend to it. Most families have rice with every meal so they really rely on the fields as a staple for their food. Neighbors will help out each other with the harvesting and drying- we saw tarps on the street in front of houses that people were drying their rice on.

The cycle route was mostly downhill without a lot of traffic- except for towards the end where there was a few major hills and a lot more cars. We stopped a few times for a break and Gusti brought out cold water bottles or bananas to snack on. Every village we rode through the kids outside playing were yelling hello at us and wanted to give us high 5s- I think we were all riding with big smiles on our faces from how cute it was!

Our last stop was for lunch at Meade’s house that his wife prepares. And wow- we were hungry, but I don’t think anything will top the food she made. There was a buffet of rice, gado gado (steamed veg with peanut sauce), chicken satay, fried noodles, smoked chicken, tofu and tempeh. Everything was delish and it was a really nice setting to be able to eat a home cooked meal in a Balinesse home- and they do this for every tour!

The whole day was such an amazing experience and I could not recommend Made’s tour enough. From the coffee plantation to getting to see firsthand the Balinese culture and customs to meeting the kids at the school it’s a day trip I would do again in the morning.