The Water Temple
So after you beat Volvagia in the Fire Temple you head to Lake Hyrule and enter the Water Temple where you will fight yourself. No, wait that's Ocarina of Time not Ulun Danu.
Ulun Danu Temple also known as the Water Temple
So it's been over a week since my last post. A lot has happened since then for sure. I fell off my motorbike twice and got some nice road rashes. I went to 5 different temples. Went to another waterfall. Hit up the beach in Sanur. Went to Kuta - the party place full of crazy Aussies, which simply reaffirmed how much I hate bars and clubs. Did a lot of yoga and ate a lot of awesome food...so where to start?
A couple days after the 7 waterfalls trek I decided to go on a Temple Run with my friend Dante, whom I had met doing the trek. We planned out the routes we were going to take and made the next day our "temple day." Our first stop was Ulun Danu Temple which is in the middle of Lake Bratan. We temple itself is actually quite underwhelming to be honest. The only cool scene is the part that sticks out into the lake which is pictured above.
However, they did have a huge ceremony going on with a lot of people. It seemed like an endless amount of couch buses were coming and filling up the parking lot. Which led to the temple itself filling up. There was a ceremony procession that went through the whole temple, which led to Dante and I being kicked out because we weren't part of it.
So this is kinda where things got a little interesting...as I was leaving the temple I pull out with my scooter and I felt something hit my back tire. My initial reaction was to stop and pull over. I thought to myself, "WTF just hit me!?" As soon as I pulled over I heard a scream and a crying child. I turn around to see two ladies, one of whom is pregnant, and a 3 year old girl laying on the ground with their groceries sprawled out over the road. I rush over to them and help up one of them. The child is alright thankfully. The pregnant lady is laying on the ground and not getting up. Well that's the end of my trip. I'm going to have to talk to the police and they'll pin this on me as I'm the foreigner and I'm either getting deported or arrested for something.
Luckily that didn't happen though. They took the lady to the hospital. She was alright just a little bruised up. They weren't going too fast when they hit me - maybe 10kph. I kinda felt bad for them so I offered to pay for her medical bills since they looked pretty poor. Thank gawd for this one Balinese guy who I called "Win" who translated everything for Dante and I as we were dealing with police and hospital people. So after all of that mess was sorted out, Dante and I continued on our journey north to the next destination Singaraja.
Although Bali is known as this spiritual place with untold beauty and all that mumbo jumbo, there is another thing that people don't recognize. It's the amount of trash and how dirty it is in certain parts. People simply burn their trash and that includes plastics and other toxic stuff that shouldn't be burned. The beach in Singaraja was simply gross. They have all the booming tourism but they didn't have the infrastructure to back it up. Therefore little things that we take for granted back home like public works is actually quite poor here.
I won't bore you too much about that sad stuff. Let's get back to the happy things and stuff the garbage under the rug like in old cartoons.
Back in Singaraja there was an amazing restaurant that Dante and I ate at called the Warung Bambu Pemaron. Now that was amazing! It is the best Nasi Campur I've had yet on this island. Simply uhhhh-mazing.
Nasi Campur from Warung Bambu Pemaron near Singaraja
Our next stop was to Besakih also known as the mother temple. However, on our way there we got caught in a rain storm and with my inexperience on a motorbike scooter on wet mountain pothole ridden roads, we decided to stop for a awhile. Eventually it got late and we just decided to head back to Ubud. So that day was pretty much cut short due to inclement weather.
About a few days after the trip with Dante, I decided to go on another temple day this time with a local Balinese guy I had met at Cafe Vespa in Ubud. His name is Dwiki a super chill guy who is aspiring to be a singer, but in the mean time is working at a local cafe here in Ubud. So Dwiki had offered to show me around a few temple, which I must say were pretty nice.
Bali is known as the land of a thousand temples. Everywhere you look there is a temple. People will build a temple before they build their own homes here. The temples here are certainly incredible. They are ancient and to think that we were walking around the same place that someone else did hundreds or a thousand years ago is pretty crazy. Everytime we entered an ancient area Dwiki said, "Om Swasiastu." Which is basically the Balinese greeting. He said we must greet the ancient people and spirits who who were and are here. It I know that in Europe and other places this isn't anything special because everything there is old. However, as an American, whose country is a little over 200 years old, that is something to be marveled.
One of the temples "Pura Gunung Kawi" with ancient stone carvings in the background that are 12 meters tall.
I have so many more photos of the temples. The internet here is just so poor that it takes ages to simply upload one photo. So maybe in another post I'll upload more photos. I'll just update my photography page as well...it's looking pretty sad at the moment.
There are so many little nuances that they have here. Everything here has a meaning, an origin, and an interesting story that goes with it. There is almost a ceremony everyday here at one of the many temples on this island. The people put out their offerings to the gods everyday. I mean their religion is no joke and they devote so much time to it. Some westerners look at it like how can someone spend so much time doing that for their religion. However, the same can be said for some Christian people back home. They spend every Sunday at work, pray everyday, go to youth groups during the week, go to evening services at twice a week, give their tithe, do this or that...it's all the same everywhere you go. It's all "Sama Sama" as the Balinese say.
A lot more has happened, but that's all for now. Good Morning, Goodnight, Good Hello...