Today we have a free day until 3pm. I am sitting on the beach in a yellow and white striped cabana overlooking the Indian Ocean listening to gabalon players plunk out a distinctly Balinese meditative tune. Life it tough!
This afternoon we drove to Mengwi to see the temple there. Mengwi Temple was extremely serene. The entire grounds of the temple is encircled by a river and then the temple itself has a moat around it. The area had the most open grounds of anywhere I have seen in Bali. It was beautiful. And because we were up in higher elevation the breeze was even cool (not like a blast furnace as usual).
The sacred temple areas are roofed with black thatching from the inside of the palm tree. It is very regal in colour and keeps for many years longer than the regular straw-coloured thatch. But as you can imagine the black thatch is not as cool. Each of the thatch roofs represents a mountain. To the Balinese people, mountains are very sacred as that is where you will be nearest to God. The structures with the multi-layered roofs are more sacred than the single layer roofs.
From Mengwi we drove southwest to Tanah Lot Temple. The entire temple area is on the ocean. The coastline is very rugged and many of the sacred buildings are built right on the rocks. At high tide the temples are stranded.
Today was full moon so there were many people at the various temples for a purification ritual. On this day they may ask God to be purified of any sins over the past month. The priest will bless them and put a bit of rice on their forehead, neck or behind their ears.
On ceremony days the Balinese Hindu people wear their ceremonial clothes, which are beautiful. Even the children are dressed for the occasion. I enjoyed watching the children play in the water. They were making little channels out of the tide pools and waterways for the water to escape.
Supper was overlooking the ocean at sunset.
The view was superb! We had a traveling band to serenade us. They played Country Roads for the Americans at our table and Neil Young for the Canadians. (They wanted to play Celine Dion when they hear some of us were from Canada.)
Looking up from our supper table we were able to isolate the Southern Cross. I had looked for it the night before, but there was too much ambient lighting at the resort to see the stars well enough. Another item notched off the bucket list!
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