After visiting Ubud and the famous Tegallalang Rice Terraces, Campuhan Ridge Walk and a coffee plantation, I wanted to write a blog post as I used posts to help plan the trip so wanted to share my info with you guys!
Tegallalang Rice Terrace
There will be so many tour companies that offer to take you to these rice terraces but seriously they are like a 20 minute journey from the centre of Ubud and you really don’t need to pay a guide or a tour company to take you there. We hired a moped for 60,000 IDR (about £3!) and took ourselves there instead and this is what I suggest you do too! Pick up your bike as soon as the shop opens (normally 8am) and head straight to the terraces to beat the tourists. The tour companies tend to arrive at about 10am so you want to be long gone before they get there! As soon as you arrive park on the side of the road and head to the terrace, there are men that will try and make you purchase a ticket to enter which is 10,000 IDR per person, but if you’re lucky they won’t catch you so just head straight down the stairs to the terraces and its time to explore.
Explore the terraces as you want and you will be surprised at how big they are and that the paths just lead on forever and you can discover some beautiful fields. Be aware that the people who own the fields will often ask for you to donate to their field or for the repair of their bridge, but do not feel obliged to do so, just warning you in advance!
Campuhan Ridge Walk
This is a gorgeous walk close to the centre of Ubud. Again the tour companies will try and make you pay for a guide but you can walk for 20 minutes to the entrance from the centre of Ubud and do it yourself for free. To get to the entrance either put Campuhan Ridge Walk into google maps and it will take you to the start, or put Warwick Ibah Luxury Villas & Spa into the maps and head here. When you get to the entrance of the hotel head to the left hand side of the entrance, down the hill and past the school. You will see signs for the ridge walk.
The walk is along a path and you head up a steep hill to start with and then you are in the gorgeous rice terraces. Along the way there are plenty of cafes/restaurants to stop off at to get some food or drink. We visited Bamboo Cafe (I think it was called this, it was pretty new and I cannot find on Google anywhere, but its basically right in the middle of the paddy fields behind Raditya Cafe, you wont miss it!). Here we had a oreo milkshake and juice, sat on bean bags and enjoyed the views.
Coffee Plantation – Bali Pulina
If you go to Tegallalang Rice Terraces then we suggest you also visit a coffee plantation. If you go with a tour guide they are most likely to take you to Alas Harum Bali however we suggest you go to Bali Pulina instead as its so much quieter. We drove past Alas Harum Bali and the car park was heaving and it didn’t look pleasant!
The visit to Bali Pulina is totally free, you arrive get a wristband and then assigned a guide who takes you around the coffee plantation talking you through the coffee making process, its super interesting. They also tell you all about the famous Luwak coffee, which is basically coffee that a Luwak (an animal), poops out, this is a delicacy over in Indonesia!!
At the end of the trip you go to the little cafe and get a tray of coffee to sample for free, and then you can pay for a cup of Luwak coffee (obv most people want to try this so will get it, we did!). The sample tray was so much fun to do and we enjoyed chilling afterwards looking at the view.
