Good Morning from Bali!
Today, we spent a whole day exploring the island. Rainy season is no joke. It really rains every day and it rains for most of the day. I found a taxi service on TripAdvisor a few weeks ago and I confirmed the plans via email ($45 for the entire day including gas). The taxi driver and his friend (side-kick) arrived on time at the hotel and we headed out.
First stop, Pura Besakih, named after the Balinese village of Besakih, is a gorgeous complex of about 23 separate Hindu temples. These temples are situated on the slopes of a volcano named Mount Agung, the holiest and highest mountain on the island, which makes for a beautiful natural backdrop. After climbing (by car) nearly 1000 meters up the side of Gunung Agung, we arrived at Pura Besakih. Our twisting and turning car ride up the volcano with narrow switchbacks and blinding torrential downpour caused a tad bit of anxiety. Buckle up!
Unfortunately, Pura Besakih has attracted a group of less-than-friendly Balinese whose primary objective is to separate tourists from as much of their money as possible. (We did not find this to be the case anywhere else in Bali. Everywhere else in Bali, locals were warm and welcoming to tourists and we never felt like they were trying to rip us off.) At Pura Besakih, after paying the usual temple ticket entry fee of 15,000 IDR ($1.25 USD) per person, we were approached by teams of scammers. The first scam can be avoided with advanced planning–bring your own sarong. A sarong is required at all temples, but there are plenty available to borrow for free at every temple EXCEPT Pura Besakih. The scam is that they tried to get us to RENT sarongs. Save yourself the trouble and bring your own sarong…You can buy one in town with a design you like for less than $1. One by one, scammers armed with imposing uniforms and official-appearing badges approached us to try to get us to pay additional entry fees, to pay to “register” our names in a book, and to make required “donations.” They were very difficult to bypass. We tried to refuse all of this, kept walking, pretended to not understand, and eventually yelled out, “No!” in frustration, which seemed to work. But they ended up extracting the money that we had refused to pay from our taxi driver, and we felt bad and paid him back later.
Once you get past all of that, you will encounter persistent guides, one of whom will assign himself to you and walk beside you the entire time you are at the complex. The guides told us we could not enter the area without a guide, but the only enforcement of this “rule” seemed to be from the guides themselves. We tried to shake our uninvited companion using every trick we could think of, but he would not leave our sides. Our guide was actually quite fluent in English and possessed a surprising depth of knowledge about Pura Besakih and Balinese culture. He also knew exactly where to stop for the best photos and used our cameras to take some very good pictures. After giving us a fully narrated, one-hour tour around the complex, he asked for a $5 “donation.” Unlike the other scammers, we felt that he was more than worth what he was charging, so we gave him the $5.
Unless you are praying or making offerings, you are forbidden to enter temples throughout Bali, but you still get great views from the paths surrounding the temples, and you can peak inside for photos at each of the many gates.
The unique entrance gate to the temple is called Candi Bentar (split gateway). The guide explained that the split gateway is a depiction of “ying and yang” or “good and evil.” The “good” is on the right side and “evil” is on the left side. In front of the gate stands a garden of statues symbolizing “good” and “evil” on its corresponding sides.
According to the guide, the temple dates back to 7th Century. It is adoringly called the “Mother Temple” composed of courtyards, terraces, flights of stairs, and brick gateways. The black roofs of the temples are made out of palm tree. I asked the guide about the upkeep of Pura Besakih because the grounds were beautifully manicured and very clean. Every week, the government provides a crew to maintain the grounds of the temple complex and to keep everything clean and trim. It would be disrespectful to the gods and to the Balinese ancestors to not do so.
While we were there, rain clouds covered the mountain most of the time. On our way out, we got lucky and the volcano came into view. It was really quite spectacular to see the massive volcano in the mist behind the temple complex.
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