Today’s tour (with the brother of our reliable Nobita) was to the forest town of Ubud, considered a Balinese cultural center. Our driver Lionk arrived around 8:00 this morning to make the 1.5 hour trek to our first stop, the Tegalalang Rice Terrace, with a little side trek to the Reina Jungla bakery for a yummy breakfast.

Road sights

As we drove along the crazy streets of Bali with mopeds darting everywhere, there is so much to see and so many things that are amazingly different to us as Americans. Here are a few things that caught our eye today.

So these nifty bamboo-wrapped, curved street poles in Bali are called penjor.  Penjor are decorated with coconut leaves, flowers, and produce to symbolize gratitude, prosperity, and the triumph of good over evil during major Hindu festivals or sometimes year-round, like these above.

We also saw a bunch of rice paddies and farmers planting them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before- a first!

Tegalalang Rice Terrace and Uma Ceking

The Tegalalang Rice Terraces are a series of lush, emerald-green rice paddies carved into stepped terraces along the slopes of a valley just north of Ubud. This traditional irrigation system, called subak, reflects centuries of Balinese agricultural wisdom, where farmers have sculpted the land into curves that follow the contours of the hillside.

The rice terrace was our first big attraction we visited today, and it was hot and crowded! You can walk all around the levels of the paddies climbing up and down stairs, but Uma Ceking also had other tourist activities to do including swings, a high wire zip bike, and zip lining. We opted for the scenic swings (below), which included photos and videos taken with your phone. They also offered rentals of flowy dresses and sarongs for men or women to wear when you ride the swings, and I just couldn’t resist. Formulaic? A bit. Cheesy? You bet! Fun? Heck yeah!

Couples Swing #1

Rob on Single Swing

Betsy on Single Swing

Couples Swing #2

They also had some fun photo spots around the park, which we took pictures in (before and after the red dress rental) until we Insta-models got too hot and tired to continue. Good times!!

Tirta Empul Temple

After all that stomping around on rice terraces and modeling under the hot, hot sun, we needed a chance to cool down. 😂. So, we headed to our next stop: Tirta Empul Water Temple. Tirta Empul is a sacred Hindu Balinese water temple famous for its holy spring water used for spiritual cleansing rituals. Dating back to 962 AD during the Warmadewa dynasty, the temple is dedicated to Vishnu, the god of water, and is celebrated for its sacred spring. You can see in the pictures below the spring water bubbling from its source. Also pictured below is the home of the former president of Bali, overlooking this temple and all the beautiful grounds. You must wear sarongs to enter the temple area (which you can rent), and women who are menstruating are not allowed in.

The last two pictures above show offerings to the gods. Not knowing much about Balinese Hinduism before we arrived, we were surprised to see “offerings” like these everywhere! They are placed on sidewalks in front of businesses and all over the place three times a day for luck and prosperity, and to honor the gods. Most interestingly to us, they tend to contain flowers, bits of food, sometimes money, and often cigarettes!! Whattt?!

We learned from our guide and online, the Balinese call to prayer is the Puja Tri Sandhya, a Hindu chant broadcast three times daily (6 AM, noon, 6 PM) via loudspeakers and TV, so we happened to be at the temple for the noon prayers. The prayers are often accompanied by music, which we also got to hear (video below).

Melukat Purification Ceremony

While we were there today, Rob and I got to participate in the Melukat purification ceremony, which is performed for “spiritual renewal and healing from negative energies.” Seems like a great way to start the new year!

To participate, we first had to pay a fee and get a traditional sarong. As opposed to the colorful skirt-type sarong we were given to wear in to the temple, these sarongs for the water ceremony were all green and of a different materials. Women tied theirs into dresses and men tied theirs around their waists, and we all had to take off our shoes. The next step was to make an offering at the altar and pray, and then join the line for the water ceremony. At the time we joined, the water ceremony wait was about two hours. It was a little daunting to wait that long, but I highly doubt we will ever have an opportunity like this again, so we hung in there and waited in the hot sun, knowing we’d be cooling off soon. While we were in line, it clouded over, and then started raining! That actually made the wait better. The “cleansing ritual” is detailed below. Our guide Lionk took some pictures initially, but they had signs posted saying to leave cameras behind and we wanted to focus on the spiritual part so we had him wait in another area. Of course once we got in the gates, there were people with cameras everywhere, but at least we can say we didn’t contribute to that.

The Cleansing Process at Tirta Empul

    1    Sequence: Participants move from left to right through rows of spouts, cleansing themselves under each one in a specific order, with the exception of spouts 11 and 12.

    2    Skipped Spouts (11 & 12): These are reserved for rituals concerning the deceased and are avoided by those seeking personal purification.

    3    Ritual at Each Spout: Typically involves praying, bowing, cupping hands to rinse the face and head with holy water, and sometimes drinking and spitting out a small amount.

    4    Final Spouts: The ritual culminates at the most powerful spouts, representing the ultimate source of purification, to complete the cleansing journey. 

Spiritual Significance

    •    Purpose: The entire ritual, or Melukat, aims to cleanse the spirit, remove negative energies, overcome stress, and restore inner peace and balance.

So I’m not sure I was able to toss all my negative energies, but it was definitely a cool experience.😂😊

Dinner and a Deluge

The rain continued throughout the afternoon, essentially ruining our last planned stop at the Monkey Forest Sanctuary, so we decided to just grab an early dinner and head back to our hotel. Lionk took us to a pretty place he knew that sits right by several scenic rice paddies, so we had a lovely dinner with a view.

The rain continued as we ate, as well as through the rest of the evening. Unsurprisingly, we passed several flooded out areas as well rode by. 😢 Bali in the rainy season! This did not, however, deter anyone from managing to set off fireworks again tonight. Resilient people!

Thanks for adventuring with us!