More Temples - Oct. 18, 2010

October 18, 2010

Today we had arranged another tour with Ketut to see more temples, rice terraces and a view of the Volcano. Ketut arranged for us to have a private tour again (for the price of the group tour) which was very nice 😀

We started by going to the "Elephant Cave Temple". Ketut suggested we get sarongs this time as we would need them to enter the temples today. We totally paid too much money for them at a little stand outside the temple, but to us it was cheap. I told Steve I think the lady probably closed up shop and went home for the day after we left 😉

Anyway, the first temple was nice. There was a cave and beautiful grounds.

On the way down to the first temple we saw this beautiful view!

After this we drove to the “Mount Temple”, which turns out is not actually on a mount but just out on a regular street. If you hadn't seen a temple yet I would say go see it… but for us it was the least interesting of the temples we had seen.

Next we headed to the “Rocky Temple” (we didn’t see Rocky there 😉). This was a very beautiful place. You had to walk down 300 steps to get to the main area.

As we walked down we noticed it was laundry day. This is their drying technique!

I think this was my favourite of all the temples we went to. It was very peaceful and serene. At the end you also had to walk up 300 steps which (for me) was quite a bit of work in this heat!

Going down the stairs was quite a bit easier than going up them!

Before entering the temple, you need to sprinkle holy water over your head!

At the bottom of the steps was this amazing wall!

There were very clever people selling cold water on the way up (actually you could buy just about anything you wanted going up those steps! There were LOTS of little stalls selling things.)

Our next stop was the “Holy Springs Temple”. This was also very interesting and my second favourite temple to visit.

There are natural springs in the middle of the temple where people from all over Bali come to get Holy Water to use in their ceremonies. There was also an area where the spring water fed into where people were praying in front of the spring, then submerging their head under the running water. They did this all the way down the pool where there were about 10 spouts of water running.

Ketut also told us that today was a special day for Hindus so there were a lot of ceremonies taking place in the temple. This was very interesting to be able to see.

After we left this temple we skipped the next stop which was another coffee plantation.

Next we drove to Penelokan to view the volcano and lake Batur. The view of the volcano was interesting because you could see where the last lava flow (I think 1923) had stopped and the jungle and village began.

There was also a beautiful lake at the base, which Ketut told us people fish in, but “not the swimming”. I’m not sure I would want to eat something out of a lake that people won’t go into… but that’s just me!

This is where little girls were persistently trying to sell me packs of postcards. I couldn’t even look at them for fear I’d just give them all my money 😉

For our final stop we saw another view of a beautiful rice terrace in Tegallalang. It was stunningly beautiful. There were more persistent postcard-selling little girls at this stop. I’ve learned to just keep saying no, and not make eye contact or look at their products.

After this stop we headed back home and had a nice late lunch at the Laka Leke restaurant. The staff recognize us now (not sure if we’re so memorable because Steve looks like a giant here or because he’s such a nice tipper 😀).