Keitut drove us to our next stop (and one of my favorite visit of my Balinese trip): Tirta Empul Temple, meaning Holy Water Spring in Balinese.
It's a typical Hindu temple, famous for its Holy water. Indonesian or even tourists come to visit this temple to benefit from its sacred ritual purification.
In order to enter temples, you need to wear "decent" clothes, meaning not showing too much of your body. If you wears pant shorts, the temple will lend you a sarong, which is a piece of fabric you wear around your legs, tied at the belt.
Some of the hawkers outside the entrance will try to make you buy a sarong, making you think it's mandatory to have one and that there are none inside, trying to fool you. But be careful! It depends on your clothes and they will lend you one.
The water ritual purification includes 30 mini-fountains spots, you need to put your head under each hole where the water flows, and touch it while your head receive the water.
To get a better idea, here are some pictures to get you understand:
We walked within the temple for one hour, the architecture is so beautiful and peaceful:
I noticed that so far, there are everywhere offerings in the streets, in front of homes and in temples, called Canang Sari and Segehan. It's part of the Hindu culture.
They come in a palm tree leaves, full of cigarette, rices, sweet food or flowers. These offerings are sent to Gods (Canang Sari) and bad demons (Segehan).
Canang Sari is full of good offerings, to bring prosperity, good health and to be thankful and grateful.
On the other hand, Segehan can include good ot bad offerings: deamons are not able to make any difference. This will calm these deamons.
I was scared to walk on it, but it doesn't matter, the most important thing is to offer.
I noticed that so far, there are everywhere offerings in the streets, in front of homes and in temples, called Canang Sari and Segehan. It's part of the Hindu culture.
They come in a palm tree leaves, full of cigarette, rices, sweet food or flowers. These offerings are sent to Gods (Canang Sari) and bad demons (Segehan).
Canang Sari is full of good offerings, to bring prosperity, good health and to be thankful and grateful.
On the other hand, Segehan can include good ot bad offerings: deamons are not able to make any difference. This will calm these deamons.
I was scared to walk on it, but it doesn't matter, the most important thing is to offer.
Next stop: Gunung Tawi Temple.
To access the Temple, we had to cross rice fields, and go down more than 300 steps.
Like for Tirtal Tempul, we had to wear a Sarong.
The rice fields were so green, lush and wild, the Temple almost felt lost and abandoned.
When we arrived downstairs, it was a video-game like scenery, we felt inside Tom Raider or Uncharted. Moreover, there were almost no tourists there, I was feeling small and privileged, such a huge archeologic site!
The return climb was a little bit sporty, and we would enjoy lunch after 15 minutes climbing the stairs.
Keitut drove us to the next stop: Goa Gajah temple, to have lunch and then visit the temple.
We asked Keitut to recommend a good typical Indonesian restaurant.
I need to point out a huge disappointment we faced in Indonesia. When I travel and as a French person, the local cuisine is part of the travel, as important as accommodation or activities.
In Philippines, the local food wasn't so good, that's why we spent most of our lunch and diner in fancier restaurants, to be honest it was tourists-kind of restaurant, but it was good food.
In Bali (and it will be worse in Gili Islands-articles to come), if you want to enjoy the best dishes (and the TYPICAL REAL food is really tasty), please go to small places, with one or two tables, with dishes already cooked and in front of you, so that you can chose.
We naively thought that we would find some nice food as well in bigger restaurants, at least some of them. It was a huuuuuuuuge mistake. Please NEVER EVER EVER go to a fancy-like restaurant. Go to street food spots, you will pay less and taste delicious food.
My cousin theory is that Indonesian have troubles to manage cooing food for more than 10 or 20 persons, so the quality is squeezed to welcome more tourists. In fact, it does make sense...
So back to my story, Keitut advised us an awful restaurant. It was Indonesian food, but terrible taste.
It was supposed to be a Gado-Gado, which is a mixed-vegetable salad with a peanut sauce. It looked like plastic vegetables and without any flavor. It was more than 60,000 rupiah, which is almost 4 €, and if you go to a small real restaurant, it would be half-price for a fabulous meal!
Last temple, Goa Gajah (meaning Elephant Cave) was the perfect stop for a nice & fresh walk around nature.
It was initially a sanctuary spot for meditation, built in the 11th Century.
The place was a perfect match between Temple and jungle, lakes and sun. It wasn't crowded, and it was the perfect ending to this day.
Keitut drove back to Ubud, and we jumped directly to our Guest House swimming pool for a refreshing break, as the weather was warm and about 29-30 degrees. Even if it was hot -and I felt the same in the Philippines- it's not awful as a 30 degrees weather in Paris. Even with the same temperature, the feeling is quite different: this asian-warm makes you fell great, as it's not too warm, and you can still enjoy feeling the sun on your skin, the essential vitamin D :-)
After our disappointing lunch, we were seeking nice spot to eat, and we found this tiny place just crossing the street, as typical as I wanted. I enjoyed to much the diner, it was soooooooo good, that I forgot to take any pictures of it...
That was as well a specific part of this journey/travel: as I am a phone-addicted person, my idea was to detox myself from my smartphone. That's why sometimes, I just wanted to enjoy the moment, without having my phone in my hand all of the time.
I have this friend, who is travelling a lot, who told me once that in a middle of her trip, she lost her camera (she didn't have any camera on her phone either). She never enjoyed holidays that much.
As you know that you won't be able to take any picture to remember, you need to fully enjoy every minute, and take a mental picture of the moment.
And sometimes, forgetting about everything (what time is it, where is my phone, I need the perfect picture, I need to check my messages..) is just being THERE, RIGHT NOW, f***k the rest for a second.
We went to sleep early this night, because our next adventure would start at 1.30am: our shuttle van would come and pickup us at 2.00am, driving us to Mount Batur, for a sunrise session at 2,000 meters of altitude.
To access the Temple, we had to cross rice fields, and go down more than 300 steps.
Like for Tirtal Tempul, we had to wear a Sarong.
The rice fields were so green, lush and wild, the Temple almost felt lost and abandoned.
When we arrived downstairs, it was a video-game like scenery, we felt inside Tom Raider or Uncharted. Moreover, there were almost no tourists there, I was feeling small and privileged, such a huge archeologic site!
The return climb was a little bit sporty, and we would enjoy lunch after 15 minutes climbing the stairs.
Keitut drove us to the next stop: Goa Gajah temple, to have lunch and then visit the temple.
We asked Keitut to recommend a good typical Indonesian restaurant.
I need to point out a huge disappointment we faced in Indonesia. When I travel and as a French person, the local cuisine is part of the travel, as important as accommodation or activities.
In Philippines, the local food wasn't so good, that's why we spent most of our lunch and diner in fancier restaurants, to be honest it was tourists-kind of restaurant, but it was good food.
In Bali (and it will be worse in Gili Islands-articles to come), if you want to enjoy the best dishes (and the TYPICAL REAL food is really tasty), please go to small places, with one or two tables, with dishes already cooked and in front of you, so that you can chose.
We naively thought that we would find some nice food as well in bigger restaurants, at least some of them. It was a huuuuuuuuge mistake. Please NEVER EVER EVER go to a fancy-like restaurant. Go to street food spots, you will pay less and taste delicious food.
My cousin theory is that Indonesian have troubles to manage cooing food for more than 10 or 20 persons, so the quality is squeezed to welcome more tourists. In fact, it does make sense...
So back to my story, Keitut advised us an awful restaurant. It was Indonesian food, but terrible taste.
It was supposed to be a Gado-Gado, which is a mixed-vegetable salad with a peanut sauce. It looked like plastic vegetables and without any flavor. It was more than 60,000 rupiah, which is almost 4 €, and if you go to a small real restaurant, it would be half-price for a fabulous meal!
Last temple, Goa Gajah (meaning Elephant Cave) was the perfect stop for a nice & fresh walk around nature.
It was initially a sanctuary spot for meditation, built in the 11th Century.
(sorry for the blurry picture)
The place was a perfect match between Temple and jungle, lakes and sun. It wasn't crowded, and it was the perfect ending to this day.
Keitut drove back to Ubud, and we jumped directly to our Guest House swimming pool for a refreshing break, as the weather was warm and about 29-30 degrees. Even if it was hot -and I felt the same in the Philippines- it's not awful as a 30 degrees weather in Paris. Even with the same temperature, the feeling is quite different: this asian-warm makes you fell great, as it's not too warm, and you can still enjoy feeling the sun on your skin, the essential vitamin D :-)
After our disappointing lunch, we were seeking nice spot to eat, and we found this tiny place just crossing the street, as typical as I wanted. I enjoyed to much the diner, it was soooooooo good, that I forgot to take any pictures of it...
That was as well a specific part of this journey/travel: as I am a phone-addicted person, my idea was to detox myself from my smartphone. That's why sometimes, I just wanted to enjoy the moment, without having my phone in my hand all of the time.
I have this friend, who is travelling a lot, who told me once that in a middle of her trip, she lost her camera (she didn't have any camera on her phone either). She never enjoyed holidays that much.
As you know that you won't be able to take any picture to remember, you need to fully enjoy every minute, and take a mental picture of the moment.
And sometimes, forgetting about everything (what time is it, where is my phone, I need the perfect picture, I need to check my messages..) is just being THERE, RIGHT NOW, f***k the rest for a second.
We went to sleep early this night, because our next adventure would start at 1.30am: our shuttle van would come and pickup us at 2.00am, driving us to Mount Batur, for a sunrise session at 2,000 meters of altitude.
