In 2009, while checking out a sea turtle rehabilitation center, we met a young guy by the name of Wayan and became his friend on Facebook. When we planned Bali into our 2014 trip, we reached out to him to meet up and had a fantastic day!

He picked us up with his friend, August, and we stopped at a Pura Desa (village temple) for some gamelan lessons. Before entering the temple grounds, men must wear the clothing pictured above.

This instrument is used in temple ceremonies and rituals – here’s a video I took at a performance in Ubud.

Wayan is also a very good photographer so we had some great photos of our day as well.

Next we stopped to view a waterfall and then made our way to a coffee plantation.

On this farm, they grow coffee as well as all kinds of herbs and spices. There was a whole tasting menu of different flavored coffees and we got to see the process for making it.

There is also a very special kind of coffee – sometimes called ‘weasel coffee’. Certain animals (Civets – they are pictured below) supposedly eat only the best coffee beans and then after their digestive juices act on the beans, they pass them out in their feces. Sounds appetizing right! We just had to try some weasel shit coffee.

After this we went and drove to Mount Batur, a volcano and had some lunch with nice views.

Ubud is also known for its rice terraces. The people have shaped the steep cliffs into terraces that are suitable for rice cultivation.

After a busy day, our friends dropped us off at our place in Ubud. The owner came out to tell us he was booked solid and had to put us up in another property for one night.

After a swim in the pool, we decided to walk into town and catch a Kecak performance. This is based on the Ramayana, a Hindu epic, and involves dozens of performers chanting and using fire.

We grabbed some street food for dinner afterwards and crashed in our room after a very long and awesome day!