Bali - Day 2 - Tirta Empul (Water Temple)

Our Trusty Steed

Both had a much better sleep – the farm workers weren’t as active or loud and we’d hit the hay much sooner so both felt refreshed (especially after the 90% cold 10% hot showers). Our scooter got delivered after breakfast and I was put through my paces (by that I mean showing the guy I knew how to sit on one and turn a key) – I signed something I didn’t read, handed over some cash and it was mine for 5 days, a steal at 250,000Rp ($25).

Unfortunately the serenity of the morning was ruined by en email from Immigration. Lisa got her tourist visa granted – but mine got flagged and required further information to be emailed back. We had been expecting this, but were concerned that their timeframe for dealing with such requests is advised as 2-10 working days and our return flights were booked for 13 days time! So, I frantically struggled to get my head around what they wanted and then had to write a written statement confirming our travel plans, give copies of our flight itineraries, hotel bookings and bank statements etc. Unfortunately Trisha’s wifi packed up halfway through so we hotfooted it to KAFE for lunch, coffee and free wifi to finish it up. Unfortunately it took ages, so we didn’t actually get going with anything fun until about 2pm.

Water Temple pond

We decided to scoot north to the town of Tempat Siring (about 20 km away) which Trisha said had an amazing ancient temple in the mountain – built around water – Tirta Empul (Water Temple). The ride was actually fine, it didn’t take too long to get accustomed to the Bali way of driving and we made it there with only one stop for a map check (road signs are pretty sporadic in this part of the island, usually nothing when you get into a town and junction signs are usually obscured by a tree or don’t relate to the junction when you get to it!).

We got inside and it looked amazing. The architecture of the stone buildings, the water systems running through the whole complex and the statue carvings were so complex it’s difficult to imagine the construction happening in such a remote place, hundreds of years ago. Inside the temple there were a few sacred ponds, and one pool where people were getting in and being blessed by the water – Trisha did recommend this but it was COLD up there so we passed, and explored further. To get into the next part of the temple I had to don a sarong (Cooksey had some fetching harem pants on anyway) to hide the shame of my pasty legs, we saw a prayer ritual and admired the place. It’s set in the side of a mountain, with the river running through and forests either side – so much to admire.

Blessing Pool

Time was getting on – so we headed for the exit. Big mistake. Naively we thought there might be something else worth seeing through there, and even though the carpark was only 40 metres in the other direction we followed the signs and crowds into what turned out to be an almost never ending maze of market stalls and very enthusiastic women peddling their wares. The first couple were interesting enough – but once that cycle had repeated 80-100 times we were lightly jogging to escape! We did feel a little bad to be plainly ignoring them as they talked to you – but the one woman I looked in the eye to say no to, followed me for about 6 stalls! I guess unfortunately you soon become immune to ignoring people.

We made our way back down to Ubud – content our first big trip on the scooter had been a success. In the evening we chilled out a bit, had a massage from the glorious Ketut and went out for some food at the Crispy Duck place – which name escapes me, but the duck was awesome – as was the Bali Moon cocktail. Lisa was once again drunk at the first attempt on a Singapore sling so we headed back to crash before 10pm once again.