Being coffee lovers, visiting the Coffee Plantation was a must on our to-do list. Being Singaporeans, hearing that they serve free coffee at the Coffee Plantation meant that we HAD to visit it. Haha!

But truth be told, since my kids are still young, one of my objectives when travelling is to allow them to learn new things and be exposed to stuffs they’d otherwise not have a chance to learn about in textbooks. So, going to a Coffee Plantation was interesting and fun, because Joey especially could see for herself what a coffee plant looks like, and learn about the coffee manufacturing process. It was just as enlightening for me!

The coffee plantation is located on the hills. We got to walk through a plantation with lots of different trees and plants, to get to the coffee tasting place. We saw snakeskin fruits, papayas, jackfruits etc. Really interesting. =)

This is the coffee plant. Pretty red fruits.

Before we went for coffee tasting, the workers explained to us the different stages of coffee production. My kids may not understand everything, but they sure had fun ‘participating’ in it. =P It helped that our Indonesian driver was with us. He was very familiar with the place and told the workers to let the kids try the stir-frying and pounding.

Did you know that coffee beans have genders? This man was separating the coffee beans into the male & female species. According to them, the male beans have a stronger taste compared to the female beans. Haha..

The male’s on the left and the female’s on the right.

This is the infamous ‘cat dung’ coffee – Luwak coffee

Happily, we hopped to the place where we would have coffee tasting. It had a spectacular view of the forests and hills, and of course, very windy and cool. =)

They’re very kind to offer so many different types of beverages for tasting… and all for free!

There was ginseng coffee, female Bali coffee, hot cocoa for the kids, ginger tea etc. I think Balinese is really nice! Way nicer than Vietnamese coffee actually. =P

Papa Isaiah gamely paid for a cup of Luwak coffee, and had a cup in its original taste (no sugar)! Very brave.

We left the coffee plantation with a happy heart and stomach full of yummy coffee. =D Off to the next destination: MONKEY FOREST!

Quite frankly, both my kids and I were a little nervous about going to the Monkey Forest. The thought of having monkeys running everywhere around us and possibly jumping onto us or grabbing our things was scary. But we still went ahead. It’s not everyday you can be surrounded by that many monkeys yeh?? I also kept reminding myself that since I could deal with the two monkeys at home, this should not be too difficult for me. =P

On our way to the Monkey Forest, we passed by paddy fields. Beautiful and vast.

At the entrance of the Monkey Forest, you can purchase bananas to feed the monkeys.

I think this forest is a heaven for the monkeys. They get to swing from tree to tree, eat bananas offered by the tourists and basically laze around all day.

Thankfully, our fears didn’t come to pass. The monkeys were generally happy sitting on the ledge and people-watch. When the tourists offered them bananas, they’ll take it.

The monkeys were pretty smart actually. They even knew how to open the cap of the water bottle and drink from it.

We took a leisure walk in the Monkey Forest and it was nice coming up, close & personal with the little animals. =D