On our way to Munduk, a mountain village : Rice fields of Belimbing and the Reclining Buddha
This morning’s pick-up was at 9 am, so a relatively early start for our holiday. The next 3 days we were going to have a driver available, which turned out to be no superfluous luxury in the western part of Bali. It was extremely busy on the road and the many road works did not really help. All works had to be done during the dry season because after that it was almost impossible. The many scooters often created dangerous situations, but the Balinese were used to it. I was sitting in the front of the car and I can say that at times it was a shortening of my life !!!
Our destination today was Munduk, a mountain village in the highlands, where we were staying at a coffee plantation, the Munduk Moding Plantation. It was an environmental friendly hotel in a beautiful setting, especially known for its infinity pool.
During the transfer, we passed by the rice fields of Belimbing where we did a little photo stop and then we continued towards the temple of the reclining Buddha. Here we spent a bit of time visiting the temple grounds before continuing to our destination via many winding roads.
Munduk Waterfall & Oka Made
To stretch our legs, we stopped to see the Munduk waterfall. As usual, we first had to descend and then climb up again. But the waterfall was well worth it. It seemed that many Belgians passed here already today. The Balinese apparently supported for the Belgian devils because we saw many Belgian flags during our trip. It was clear that they knew Belgium & football.
Via TripAdvisor we had found a small warung (including Homestay) with a nice view of the valley and a volcano that was sleeping. “Oka Made”, the specialties were grilled fish and chicken, we decided to go for the chicken. The food was delicious so we were very happy that we had chosen this place for lunch.
Munduk Moding Plantation at Munduk, a mountain village
Our accommodation, The Munduk Moding Plantation, was just great and it seemed to be very popular with the Belgians. Unfortunately we did not have a fantastic sunset the first evening, way too many clouds, but we were still able to take beautiful pictures by the pool!
The next morning after a Balinese breakfast, we did the tour of the coffee plantation. During the walk, we went up and down the many stairs while it was already quite warm. According to our guide, the owner of the plantation lived in Belgium.
Here they grew two types of beans, Robusta and Arabica (the latter were the very red beans). They produced several types of coffee. One of them was a very expensive one. The production was connected to a feline animal (luwak) that would eat the beans and then its excrements, containing the fermented beans, were collected. The beans were cleaned and then used for the so called Luwak Coffee. We were told that on an annual basis more or less 30 kilos of Luwak Beans were collected per farmer. The only thing that they did not do on the plantation was the drying of the beans because the place was too humid. The roasting at the other hand was done on the spot.
Visit of the Pura Ulun Danu Bratan Temple & the Twin Lakes
In the afternoon, we visited the Pura Ulun Danu Bratan temple on Lake Bratan. The temple was very picturesque, a dream for photographers. We were very lucky, the national holiday period was over so there were not too many visitors. The site was a bit special because in the garden close to the entrance we found strange images of animals (it looked like they want to create a zoo).
Then we drove to the twin lakes to take in the view. We also went to see the place where we could rent a canoe. We decided not to try this activity, but it was a perfect photo stop!
This was the end of our time in Munduk. Tomorrow we were going to the North of Bali where we would visit Lovina.
