Ubud Bike Tours | Exploring the Countryside by Cycling

Posted on by 0 comment

We sat in the common area of our hostel watching the minutes pass. Then the hours. We were told to be ready for 7:30 a.m., and it was now getting close to 9. The thick, Bali heat was hitting us.

“We are definitely getting so ripped off with this tour,” we all said, echoing one another’s thoughts.

A couple of my friends and I had signed up to do a bike tour of Ubud, which is something that so many backpackers and travelers raved about.

Bali Eco Cycling Tours was the most popular company, but (with our budgets on our minds) we decided to book a bit of a no-name tour through our hostel.

Our tour cost around $40 dollars for the day, which was supposed to start with a pick up at 7:30, and included our pick up and drop off; buffet breakfast with views of Mt Batur, an active volcano on Bali; bikes for the tour; and lunch.

When the van finally picked us up just after 9 a.m. to bring us to breakfast, our doubts of whether this was actually a good tour were already on high alert.

We first stopped at a coffee farm, where a young Balinese women (who we later found out is only 21, married and has a child) led us around and explained the process and types of coffee. We sampled a variety of coffees, and as we sat there all together we asked our host every question under the sun about her culture and what she thinks of Western culture – from divorce to traveling to priorities to religion.

IMG_9828

IMG_9829

IMG_9831

IMG_9836

We overstayed our time at the coffee farm by an hour, getting lost in conversation and having probably one of the most honest and open dialogues I had that entire time.

We were running majorly behind schedule, and to make matters worse, when we arrived with hungry stomachs to our bottomless buffet breakfast, we were each given a plate of nasi goreng and some fruit. Nasi goreng is a traditional Indonesian dish that we all ate pretty much every single day. We had all been so excited about the food – literally every backpacker was not only in love with the bike tours but would go nuts when talking about how good the food at breakfast was.

IMG_9846

We basically tried to rob the breakfast buffet like the stereotypical foreigners by making second rounds on the nasi goreng (this really wasn’t allowed), and stuffing our pockets with as many bananas as possible. A small drive later, and we met our bike tour leaders – and our quite decrepit bikes. They were pretty shoddy and proved to be ridiculously uncomfortable to spend a couple of hours on.

IMG_9851

Our tour started off by visiting a massive web of spiders that were just as big as some of the spiders in Australia, and we somehow meandered our way into a local family’s home. They didn’t speak much English, and it wasn’t part of our tour, but we wound up staying there for quite a while playing with some of their puppies and exploring their backyard. They had a mound of red chillies piled high like temple tops, and when we left they threw some in a bag for us along with a handful of bananas.

IMG_9853

IMG_9856

IMG_9861   IMG_9859

IMG_9871

IMG_9869

We continued on, cycling through the beautiful back villages surrounding Ubud and through the rice fields. I didn’t particularly like cycling through the fields; I once broke my arm (really badly I might add) when I was young on a bike, so I don’t feel all comfortable on a bike – and that isn’t to mention the fact that the ground wasn’t exactly flat or smooth. It most definitely had drop off points (mountain biking will probably be wear I draw the line in life activities), and I was pretty terrified of flying face first over the handle bars and getting myself hurt.

IMG_9938

But what started off on such a sour note ended up being one of the best days in Ubud. We stopped here and there along the tour to catch glimpses of life in the countryside – and part of that included catching roosters training for a cock fight. As terrible as it is, cock fights aren’t something that can be seen in the States, so the cultural intrigue factor was high, and my friend and I stopped to watch for a moment.

IMG_9880

IMG_9882

IMG_9947

IMG_9951

We rode past families and young kids out and about, and we eventually parked our bikes and idled at some kind of community center that made the afternoon feel like a major holiday. There were a heap of locals about – none of which spoke English but were nonetheless interested in us.

It can definitely be awkward sometimes when you can’t use words to communicate, and you are sort of just standing around and feeling like the locals are on a stage for you to observe -or you sort of feel like the color black trying to blend seamlessly into a rainbow.

But I always find that my camera is a good way to break the ice. They get a kick out of seeing their own photos – it sends them into child-like fits of giggles that make them seem younger than their years for just a moment in time.

IMG_9886

IMG_9887

IMG_9904

IMG_9895

IMG_9897

IMG_9913

IMG_9933

We stayed around for an hour or so, before heading out once again and ending our day with an incredibly homemade meal for lunch. Of the seven or so dishes, I probably knew what two or three of them were, but that didn’t stop me from licking my plate clean.

Though the tour got off to a shaky start, we were all returned back to our hostel as happy as clams. Not only were the views beautiful and the conversations pure and meaningful, but the fresh, cool mountain air felt like we had escaped an escape.

Our tour guides were great, and our tour itself was small; there were just the five of us total, which gave us more personalized attention that allowed us to – in a way – tailor the tour throughout the day.

We didn’t have to worry about what other people wanted to do and when they wanted to be somewhere. We just did what we wanted, soaked in the scene where we wanted and were left smiling about how quickly surprises can come our way in life.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>