Travelling on from our morning visit to the Jimbaran fish market we made our way to one of Bali’s most visited temples, Uluwatu temple (‘Ulu’ meaning the ‘top’ or the ‘tip’ and ‘watu’ meaning ‘stone’ or ‘rock’ in Balinese.
Having first grabbed a sarong we made the short 5 minute walk down the hill before viewing the temple which, in line with its name, sits at the top of a 70 metre cliff that juts out into the sea.
Looping round the walkway took us to another view point where the bamboo safety barrier kept up from the crashing surf below.
Having completed our 15 minute loop, we arrived back at the foot of the short walk up to the temple itself but unfortunately due to one of the many ceremonies that was occurring we weren’t able to go up to the temple itself. It was, however, great to see that the temple is still being used and there were a couple of pretty cool statues that providing an insight to some of the temple environs residents that we were to see shortly.
Approaching midday, the girls had done really well and I was able to sprint away off the path “where the monkeys” were to try and get some better photos of the temple.
Continuing down the path it wasn’t much longer before I ran across some rather intimidating monkeys. Whilst they didn’t approach me as I passed, I was very much aware that I was on their turf and made sure I didn’t make eye contact and hid my camera to ensure that they didn’t think I had anything that might pique their interest.
Of course arriving back and telling Emily and Annabelle about the monkeys that I’d seen only meant I had to repeat the trip with them, although for some reason by the time we got back to the troupe they seemed to have disappeared.
Without doubt this temple would be breathtaking at sunset. Unfortunately for us, we were done for the day and with hot and hungry kids it was time for the 45 minute drive back to the beckoning swimming pool.
Tribe Travelling 