Exploring Bali When I arrived to to Bali, I was given a tax..

Exploring Bali
When I arrived to to Bali, I was given a taxi driver by my villa host to take me to my villa. Before he left the 1st day, he offered that if I wanted to explore Bali he would be happy to show me around the best cultural places. I so took him up on that offer. Our 1st stop, he took me to the biggest temple located in the local village I was staying in. “The land of 1,000 temples” is what Madi, the driver told me. Before entering into sacred grounds, you do have to wear a formal sacred outfit gown, which Madi was so helpful tying on for me 💚 There is when it hit me that I was walking grounds of shiva, Buddha’s, and all the gods that I look up to for guidance. I noticed that they were making these offering baskets. When I asked how often they hold ceremonies, Madi said twice a month and that a ceremony was coming up in a day. I was like, that sounds like a moon ceremony. I asked and he said yes thats what their ceremonies are. I felt so honored to be in a cultural that celebrates the moon as I do 😍
Our next stop was visiting the coffee farm, where I learned that coffee is basically made of cat p00p 😭 Komi Luwak is the animal used in Asia for the most expensive coffee made in the world. The luwak is a night animal that wakes up and eats the coffee beans outer red shell, p00p it out which is then considered fermented beans. They peel 2 more layers of the bean before roasting it which gives it the brown color, and coffee smell. Not going to lie… im 100% grossed out by that idea haha.
After, Madi took me to a large Rice cekking farm where I was able to walk around the land seeing how the rice grows. It was such a beautiful view to see everytime I looked up and around 💚
Lastly, Madi took me to Volcano Mount Agung. It’s still a highly active volcano that last erupted in 1963 but according to scientist its on the brink of eruption 👀 its scary to think what that could mean for the Indonesian people. All around you can still very much see all the black ash from 1963 miles out from the volcano. There isn’t much life in the volcano area, but artist do use the ash to create beautiful painting art. Across the volcano you can also see another island that is still apart of the Indonesian tribe but different culture. I was told that every morning at 4am, a small group gathers to “cek” (hiking) up the volcano which takes around 2 hours to watch the sunrise.

Im forever grateful to be able to learn of the Indonesian cultures and I cannot wait to explore more ☺️