One of the problems with taking a family holiday to Bali these days is that it’s very hard to see the real Bali.
Walking down the street in any of the major towns: Kuta, Seminyak, Benoa or Sanur it is non-stop souvenir shops, day spas, mini marts and restaurants aimed at the tourist. The only locals you see are those working, locals do not live or socialise in these areas.
But for me one of the great things about travel is seeing how other people live.
So I was quite excited to learn about Green Bike Cycle Tours from a fellow guest at the Sanur Paradise Plaza Suites – who promised I would get the chance to see the real Bali.
Our Bali Bike Tour
Booking the Tour
It is really simple booking a Bali bike tour with Green Bike Cycle Tours through their website, I email the company a few days before we want to take the tour.
Later that day they confirm our booking, quote the price for the tour to be paid in Indonesian Rupiah cash, advise of the pickup time 7am, suggest we bring hats and sunscreen, and emphasis eat breakfast before departing for the tour as brunch will not be until 10:30am.
Pickup
On the morning of the tour we head to our hotel buffet for a quick breakfast before waiting at the front desk for our pickup. Sure enough at the allotted time a driver collects us from the Sanur Paradise Plaza Suites in the 6 seater car.
We are joined by a single USA expat lady who resides in Singapore. A feel a little sorry for her stuck with a family of 3 for the day – I suppose the only down side to the fact that these small tours only have a maximum of 6 people per tour vehicle.
We drive up into the mountains and as we reach Ubud we collect our tour guide who lives locally on a family farm with his wife and children.
Agriculture/Luwak Coffee Plantation
Our first stop is a coffee plantation. We start with walking through the gardens of spice trees for vanilla, chilli, cacao, coffee and more. It is interesting to see some of these trees up close especially after visiting the Penang Spice Garden last year.
However the highlight of this stop is about the Luak or Asian Palm Civet – a cat like animal that eats the coffee beans and then poops them before they dried and roasted. We have a go at grinding the coffee beans and watching them being roasted.
Then we round the corner to a cliff top coffee shop overlooking a deep ravine filled with lush tropical jungle. We each order a 100 000IR Luwak coffee, though in hindsight wish we had ordered one to share, as we are also given a tray of 12 different coffees to taste (Lewis is given a hot chocolate). The actual Luwak coffee is very strong – I am a coffee drinker but it is a bit too much for me. The other coffees are sweet with various additional flavours.
We feet it a bit of shame that they push the Luwak coffee as we didn’t taste many of the other coffees that we then could have bought at the shop along with fragrant oils and soaps.
We get back into the car and continue winding up into the mountains passing orange tree plantations – something I am surprised to see as I would have thought Bali too hot for citrus trees, but it is cooler in the mountains.
The Volcano
Finally at the top of the mountain we see Batur Volcano and its crater lake. Whilst the mountain is covered in a bit of haze we can still see the smoke rising from the volcano.
From a restaurant across the road we get to enjoy this vista whilst having a brunch of fried rice, noodles, pancakes and toast with tea and coffee.
With our tummy’s full we get back into the car and make our way to the push bikes.
The Bike Ride
The bikes are ready for each of us as the guide has pre-arranged them during the drive. A tandem bike is out for Steve and Lewis, whilst the expat lady, 2 tour guides and I each have a single bike.
We are told to put on sunscreen, leave our hats on under our provided helmets and we each are given a water bottle for our bikes. We are able to leave our day bags in the car, as it will follow us along the ride.
The bike ride in not arduous at all, we actually spend most of the time with our hands on the breaks as we roll downhill on the back roads of Bali. Fortunately the local traffic is quite use to these cycle tours, they toot and make their way easily around us as we manoeuvre around pot holes and watch the passing scenery.
At one point I call ahead to Lewis as we see the kids coming home for lunch on the “school bus” an old Ute (pickup) has the kids piled on the back, stopping periodically to drop of the kids. The kids all wave to us and get quite excited when they see Lewis is also on the tour. “Boy, boy,” they shout excitedly.
Lewis is having a ball on the back of the bike re-calling instructions from the lead cycle tour guide (though Steve did comment at the end it was hard-work keeping the bike up as Lewis wriggled about).
Our first major stop on the ride is at a local village.
A ceremony to open the new village temple is taking place and the locals are all dressed in their best clothes. Most of the ladies are wearing bright yellow or white lace jackets that match the flags lining the main street.
At the next village we get to see inside a local villager’s compound. Each room is a separate building – the sleeping building is separate from the kitchen which houses an open fire stove, a large water tank is located just outside, a bit further away if the ablutions room and a pig is settled undercover at the far end of the lot, there is also an area set aside for the family’s temples. We now understand how all those stone carving shops along the major roads stay in business – every family compound has shrines and temples.
It is here that we also learn how to make a Hindu offering and we leave a tip for the local villager for showing us around her home. Just a note here – remember to take some small notes for the tipping and coffees along the way.
We keep rolling downhill and make our way to a town in the centre of Bali.
We stop under the shade of a tree in the main square, catch our breath, have a drink of water and watch the local kids showing off doing tricks on their bikes.
Lewis comments that his hands are sore, so the guide suggests he sit in the support car until we reach the entrance to the rice fields.
Riding through the tracks of the rice fields was probably the hardest part of the whole journey, I was actually really impressed Steve stayed upright as I nearly fell off at one point due to the corrugations in the sandy tracks.
But it was well worth it to see the rice fields and the irrigation system – water trickles down stone trenches and branches off into each rice field. Our guide explains that the rice fields are handed down from generation to generation.
Lunch
As we exit the rice fields it is 2:30pm and our tour is almost over. We are taken to swanky new villas overlooking the rice fields for lunch.
We enjoy a nice chicken satay with fried rice (a fairly traditional Bali dish), fortunately I had the forethought for my non adventurous eating child to pack some sandwiches I had made up at the breakfast buffet early this morning.
At the end of the tour we pay our guide in cash for the tour and a tip, as we were so impressed with the quality of the tour educating us into the real Balinese culture.
Do you like to see the real culture of a place when you travel?
Tell me whether you think this tour would do it for you.
If you would like to read more travel stories from our family holiday to Bali please click HERE.
Linking up With:
- Essentially Jess #IBOT
- Bumble Bee Mum #TravelTuesday
- Alkeks Abroad #TravelTuesday
- My Brown Paper Packages #WednesdayWanderlust
- With Some Grace #FYBF
- Families Go #WkendTravelInspiration
- My Travel Monkey #MondayEscapes
Well that looks like a pretty cool way to travel! I’ve never been to Bali but I hear it’s pretty nice 🙂 #TeamIBOT
It was such a relaxing and fun way to travel about the countryside Haidee.
I don’t like Luwak but the rest of the tour looks great!
I now know I don’t like Luwak coffee either Malinda. Wish I could have enjoyed trying all the other coffees, rather than being over loaded with the Luwak.
At least we both know for next time. Thanks for linking up to #wednesdaywanderlust – please enjoy the break but feel free to join in each week on social media.
Will do Malinda, I am trying to get more into Instagram.
What a cool way to explore Bali! Thanks for sharing, will definitely keep in this mind and shall we visiting Bali, I would too, skip the tourist spots;).
I just like to experience it all.
I hate how hard it it can be now to find authenticity in the places we travel to! Of course I know it’s partly our own fault (since we are tourists anyway), but I always try to find a way to experience the “real” culture of a place when visiting! I’ve found that a lot of the time this works with food tours, since the cuisine is so deeply rooted in a culture! This bike tour seems great though and I think it would definitely satisfy my search for authenticity! Looks like you had a great time! I’ve heard of animals digesting and excreting coffee beans before (the real gourmet stuff), but I had no idea that this actually happened! So funny and interesting!
So true Lauren how we tourists have almost ruined the authenticity of some places with our tourism.
This looks amazing! I’m all about seeing the real place too, rather than a place designed for tourists so these are great tips 🙂
Thanks Marcella
I have done a tour similar to that one and there was not pedaling involved just hanging on for dear life down the hills! Looks like you had a great time
We did see some other tours going down steeper, busy hills. We were pleased that Green Bike Tours stay on the gentler back roads.
I love this! It was so nice to see the ‘school bus’, the ceremony and the boys with their bike tricks! And you all drank the cat poo coffee? Lol… I would definitely opt for this tour if I go to Bali. #TravelTuesday
It those little things that really make a tour Lin.
I like to get a good look at the local culture too. I am glad you were able to participate in this tour with your family. The small number of participants makes it better. In that way, there are greater opportunities to learn and ask questions.
That’s why I love small tours as well Ruth.
Great photos and gorgeous scenery and sights. It certainly looks like a great way to explore the place. Plus some incidental exercise, so yay! 🙂
Though not quite sure how many calories I really burnt Deborah as it was all down hill.
What a wonderful way to explore Bali! I’ve never been and have always had in my mind that it’s very ‘touristy’ but this other side has changed my mind!
Much of it is touristy Eva, but you can find pockets that aren’t.
This is really interesting.I love to experience such a tour viewing around.Once we had a bike tour in Pulau Ubin Singapore.But not recently.
Beautiful photos of Bali….
#wkendtravelinspiration
It’s hard doing bike tours when you have little kids isn’t it Amila, so this tour was great that they provided options like tandem bikes, small kids bikes or bike seats.
So lovely to see Bali away from all the touristy areas. It looks like you really enjoyed the bike ride. Your photos are lovely Sally 🙂
Thank you for the kind words about my photos Lyndall.
Yes I like exploring on bikes. We rode by ourselves in the countryside around Kampot, Cambodia and did an organised bike tour in Barcelona. Both were good experiences. My friend recently did the same tour as you in Bali and said it was the thing she enjoyed most about her trip.
Glad to hear your friend enjyed the tour as much as we did Jan. Bikes are a great way to see a place at a bit more of a leisurely pace.
What a wonderful way to see the ‘real’ Bali. I love getting the opportunity to head away from the touristy parts of a place and seeing where the locals live, and it looks like you got to do just that here.
To me Jess if you don’t get out and away from the tourist parts you could be anywhere in the world.
I would love love love to do this! We’ve never been to Bali, but I’d love to go and this sounds like the perfect activity to mix fun and culture. I keep hearing Bali is amazing with kids: I should definitely start planning a trip there and it’s great to hear is not just all about resorts and beaches (which can be great, but for me not enough, alone, to travel to the other side of the world…)
I hear you on travelling too far for just a resort and beach. We feel the same, that’s why it’s so important to us to get out and try and find the real culture.
I think no matter where you are beach towns are not great sources for local culture. We always make an effort to get away from the resort and see something of the places we visit when travel to the Caribbean and Mexico. In Bali we spent a lot of time in Ubud, which is (touristy in its own right, but an easy jumping off place for walks through rice paddies, visits to Balinese temples, interesting hikes and so forth. the bike trip looks fun, though i wonder about being on a bike on some of those roads!
The tour we took Eileen were very careful with where they went – they stuck to all the back roads, so no big trucks or fast cars. However we did see other bike tours on the drive up that were on far busier and more dangerous roads, so glad we didn’t go on that tour.
This is great to know!! I also love to be more in contact with the local culture when traveling. I really love this idea, and as I’m planning to go to Bali next year it is definitely something I will look at 😀
Thank you for sharing the experience!
Thank you so much for linking up with #MondayEscapes
Bali is a beautiful destination Alaine I am sure you will really enjoy it, however it has become quite touristy, so I would suggest checking out one of these types of tours – there are several different companies about. I liked these guys because they were small tours and catered for kids (though I know you don’t need that option). Please feel free to ask me for any advise about Bali.