Bali Tour 2

Route:
Tampaksiring – Undisan – Besakih - Semarapura – Goa Lawah – Tenganan – Candi Dasa – Semarapura – Klungkung – Ubud

Bali Tour 2

This tour started from Ubud to the north. First stop was in Tampaksiring.

Around this village are several important temples of Bali.
The Pura Tirta Empul was built around several holy springs.

Pura Tirta Empul (Tampaksiring)

Local people bathing in the holy water of the Pura Tirta Empul

Close to this temple is the Pura Mengening , which is also built around a holy spring. This temple is not on the list of the main tourist routes, but for my opinion much nicer than the other one.

Pura Mengening

There are several types of temples on Bali. Each family has a family temple, which is usually located on the ground of the family. Every town has as well a temple. There are temples for special tasks, e.g. temples for cremation ceremonies. And special locations (like the holy springs) have temples … and so on.

An example for a special temple is the Pura Dalem Sidan (Cremation temple in Sidan):

Pura Dalem Sidan

Another example is the Pura Manik Bingin in Undisan, which illustrates, that there are a lot of different styles and architectures. But the inner structure of all temples follows a common, but very complex set of rules.

Pura Manik Bingin in Undisan

The next station was Besakih, the place of the Pura Besakih, the mother temple and the most important temple of Bali. There is not only the Pura Besakih, but a lot of other temples around.

Pura Besakih

This night I stayed in Semarapura, a bigger town in the south/east of Bali. Semarapura has only a few interesting points for tourists, which are normally part of day tours. Therefore normally no foreigners stay at night there and I was an attraction for the local people at the nightly market in the centre of Semarapura.

Semarapura at night

At the next morning I visited the historical places of Semarapura:
The Taman Gili (Park with little island), which contains reconstructed buildings of Bale Kerta Gosa (court hall), Bale Kambang (swimming pavilion) and Pemedal Agung.

Taman Gili

Taman Gili and Bale Kambang

Kerta Gosa

Pemedal Agung

From Semarapura I went to the south cost of Bali and my first station there was Goa Lawah.

Goa Lawah was the first place, where I saw the – for the beaches at the south and east side of Bali typical - black sand beaches. These are not really places for enjoying in comparison to the beautiful beaches of Thailand and Malaysia. But the landscape of Bali is shaped by several eruptions of the volcanoes and it is the characteristic of Bail. (But there are a few places with white sand beaches in the south of Bali).

Black sand beach in Goa Lawah

In this region some Balinese extract salt from the sea water. But this is very time consuming and not lucrative.

Salt extraction in Goa Lawah

The name ‘Goa Lawah’ means ‘Bat Cave’ and refers to the Pura Goa Lawah there. This temple is built around a cave with thousands of bats.

Bat cave at Pura Goa Lawah

Pura Goa Lawah

I made a lunch break near Goa Lawah und learned, that also Geckos like rice.

Gecko Feeding

Next station was the small village Tenganan, which is famous for the handicraft products and the aboriginal way of living there.

Tenganan

After Tenganan I drove along the coast to Candi Dasa and back to Semarapura, where I stayed the night.

At the morning of the next day I met some Balinese, which I got know at the day before. I’ve gained insight the Balinese living. One family produce richly ornamented silver vessels for the temple ceremonies. Another family collects wayang puppets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang) and organizes performances.

Later I went back to Ubud.

Finally some photos with the amazing landscapes I saw during this tour:

Tampaksiring, Indonesia