Penglipuran - Mount Batur - Tirtha Empul - Gunung Kawi

Remarks

• Costing only covers the return fare by car.
• This does not include the services of a guide, meals, and site entrance fees
• For each excursion, a sarong remains indispensable.
• Please consult us in advance if a French or English guide is required.

The village of Penglipuran

Acclaimed among the major tourist sites, this charming village has benefited from a highly successful restoration program. Its charm runs a risk of the overwhelmingly excessive, as if popped into a conservation jar where nothing might intervene to contaminate it. Too clean, too swept up, indeed perhaps over-polished, but magnificent all the same! The grandiloquent avenue flanked with houses either side, advances towards the magnificent temple, facades coated with moss, and roofs secured with bamboo lagging.

The village has indeed always been noted for its specialization in bamboo which the villagers handle with remarkable dexterity and originality. Penglipuran remains the centre for the finest woven baskets, the celebrated offering baskets.  It is also renowned for its curious roofs, unmatched in all Bali even if this very specificity runs the risk of monotony. The inhabitants will invite you to visit their homes in the hope of selling you a basket. All the young people have departed, without future even as guides since most groups arrive with their own guide.
The climb to the temple is spectacular. On the left, just in front of the temple, you will discover the Bale Agung, the great village meeting house. The principal trading resource for the villagers lies beyond in the 75 hectare bamboo forest.

Mount Batur

This excursion should not begin too late, in order to be sure of maximum visibility on reaching Mount Batur, which rapidly disappears amid clouds. To avoid increasingly misty conditions with the heat of the day, we take you to this sacred island mountain directly. In volcanic terms this site is indeed impressive.
 
The Batur is a volcano formed from an immense ‘caldera’, a giant crater caused by an explosion or collapse of the magmatic chamber. The crater is 13 km in diameter! It is edged by a lip, part of which may be viewed by car. At a specific point, the lip of the crater culminates at 2151 metres, it is higher than the actual Mount Batur situated in the caldera. A solid day’s walk is entailed for completing the route on foot. A picturesque if sinuous path descends into the caldera, for the most part occupied by the Lake Batur.  Slightly displaced to the West, a new volcano has invaded this giant crater, the present Mt. Batur, rising to 1412 metres, a volcano within the volcano.
 
Climbing Mt. Batur might rather be avoided in view of the mafia of somewhat less than pleasant guides. We propose rather a climb over the lip of the caldera, the immense crater at the end of Lake Batur. In this case the view is gripping. The climb depends on meteorological conditions. It is an easy walk. The driver will indicate the appropriate point of departure. On the peak, a picturesque fruit market supplies farmers living on the lip of the caldera. Its advantage lies in the fact that one dominates the volcano’s interior and it is evidently easier to see than when one is climbing! The populations of the northern lip of the caldera are extremely poor and must benefit from exemplary humanitarian programmes developing schools. Our villa manager Adi can tell you about this since he participates in these operations.

Returning from the excursion, you may enjoy delicious fruit juice mixes at the hot pool hotel. If so inclined, you may also like to bathe in the hot springs gushing at this spot directly into a magnificent swimming pool. However, the entrance charge of around 15 euros is rather discouraging.

Take a break in the hot springs, then enjoy a lunch in a warung before walking along the Ulun Danu Batur temple. There exist two temples, one in the caldera, and the other on its lip. These temples are fundamental. Here the second most important divinity on the island is worshipped, the goddess of the crater waters, distributing the wealth of water over the island by a complex organisation of water temples extending as far as the sea-coast. The Batur temples lie at the origin of this wealth. Here sacrifices are made regularly, including the immersion of livestock and offerings covered in gold. Lake Batur is one of the sources of sacred or lustral water required for private ceremonies in both the temples of houses and the temples of the island. The goddess of the crater waters is the feminine component of a religious duality, the masculine component of which lies with mount Agung discernible in the distance.
 
Descend the Batur Volcan, in the direction of Ubud, for the temples of Tirtha Empul and Gunung Kawi. A pause at a coffee plantation is possible.

Gunung Kawi

The temple of Gunung Kawi is splendidly lodged in the depths of a gorge penetrated by the Pakrisan river descending the length of a peaceful village specialising in bone sculpture and engraving. The village shops on the main route (before reaching the parking lot) exhibit fine designs, with 'ethnic' jewellery, reasonably priced although of considerable quality. 

In order to reach the sacred zone, the descent must be completed by rope ladder and steps. A succession of royal monuments, tombs dug out of the cliff-side, may be examined at a first site on the left. They are qualified as tombs but are, in fact, rather altars carved into the shape of 'candi' Buddhists. These altars commemorate the legendary king, Anak Wungsu and his wife queen Betari Mandul, who reigned over the whole island. This reign at the beginning of the year 1000 was marked by a very strong link with Java. It was in this period that a part of the Island’s religious system was established, organised around three temples: the temple of origins (Pura Puseh), the temple of the village (Pura Desa) and the temple of the dead (Pura Dalem).
 
The visit continues on the other side of the bridge, with the enclosure of a classical Balinese temple, housing pavilions and pagodas. To the right at the end of the temple, a passage in the rock gives access to a curious collection of niches carved into the mountain face. To this day they continue to be identified as having been the cells of monks attached to some monastic institution.
 
Beyond the temple, lies a spectacular cliff from which sacred water pours through overflows into an ablution pool. Other 'candi' have been sculpted on the wall. The visit may be pursued beyond this ensemble, as far as the shanty huts of a farmer who will serve you delicious coconuts that he gathers from local trees. Even further on, a promenade in the rice-paddies will lead you to a small but most refreshing waterfall.

Tirtha Empul

The temple of Tirtha Empul is located at a few kilometres distance from Gunung Kawi. Although occupation of the site may again be traced back a thousand years, the present temple is relatively recent. All Bali regularly converges on Tirtha Empul to bathe fully dressed in the temple’s sacred waters provided by two ablution pools. Remain prudent in photographic ambitions and you will be permitted to bathe with the appropriate measure of sincerity manifested towards the Hindu religion. Bathe rather in long shorts or sarong than in bathing suit.
 
These rituals are to a certain extent the Bali version of the Ganges purification rites practised by Indian Hindus. The reflection of the sacred river emulated here scarcely exceeds a few metres in depth. If you should in fact venture to the end of the brick quadrilateral enclosure found just upstream of the baths, you will see the spectacular gushing of the sacred spring, its bubbling stirs up the black sand around an expanse of aquatic grass and algae. Visitors leave with vessels of sacred water, for their own devotions in household temples, and in order to bless the daily offerings made by the Balinese.
 
The temple is very active even further upstream. Do not hesitate to pass the gate and observe the highly choreographed and codified gestures of prayer: with the flower, without the flower, with blessed water, then with rice. Pray yourself if you feel like it, you will not shock a soul, and the priest in white will spray you with holy water. You will have no difficulty finding a Balinese to teach you the gestures.
 
On top of the hill still resides the luxury villa where Suharto would open his windows on the host of beautiful young girls bathing below. Since the dictator’s death, the villa has become a residence for Heads of State.