Temple Love

Eating breakfast while waiting for our temple guide

There are over 1000 temples in Bali alone.  Seriously, over 1000.  Now I should mention that most of these 1000 are not open to the public as they are family temples, but this is still a whopping amount all the same.   Given the vast amount of them we've only visited about 7.

Family compound kitchen

Family compound bedroom

Before I show you some gorgeous temple love and panoramic volcano views, I wanted to explain how the Balinese live.  The above photos show a typical compound.   Basically this is a group of separate buildings in one area where a family lives.   This family can range from a family of 4 to a family of 55.  All family lives together, takes care of each other and provides for one another.   Since most (about 90% of the Balinese) are hindu, each family also has their own family temple on site.

Standing in front of the family temple

Since most families are hindu, they must also make offerings to the gods twice a day. These offerings are made in front of doorways, pathways and of course by the temple.

Trekking to the waterfall

The amazing waterfall

After the compound we trekked out to the waterfall which we never knew existed.   (Thanks to the best travel guide, Wayan, for taking us there.)  The waterfall was so gorgeous but the hike back up was not.   Think of walking down to wreck beach in a temperature of 35 degrees... Stairs and heat do not mix...

People bathing at the water palace

This was such an amazing sight to see.  Because it was Sunday, the Balinese came to the water palace to bathe themselves in the holy water is classified as holy because the natural spring flows out of the ground underneath the temple.  It's supposedly good luck to bathe and soak in the spring.

So this post was to be much longer but typing on the tablet is really hard plus the wifi shuts off every couple minutes.  I'll post more later..... Xo