Bali - Part 3

Bali is sometimes called the land of 1,000 temples, and there really is an infinite number of temples and shrines in Bali. You can get a bit overwhelmed and some get some very sore feet trekking around to see them.

Sometimes when you are at a water temple you just have to bust loose and be a stupid tourist. It kinda brings out the Australian in you, ie; behaving badly in Bali.

Bringing the morning offerings to the temple.

Cremation ceremony underway-- and slowing traffic

I didn't get any good pictures of the many cremation ceremonies that were happening while we were in Bali. The cremation ceremony is an expensive gala. While the wealthy might still have a private ceremony, it is much more cost effective to have a community ceremony. The communities temporarily bury their dead, then when there are enough families ready, maybe 40 or so, a large, community wide ceremony is performed.

After the day time ceremony there is an evening procession where the ashes are taken to the temple by a river. They are then given up to the river to flow back to the sea.

After a long walk down the hundreds of steps to the river valley, we came upon this temple carved out of  the stone walls of the canyon. These are probably a hundred feet tall.

Its hard to imagine how long it took the carvers with hand chisels to create this. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a worker doing the finishing touches after 30 or 40 years of work on one image just to screwup and break a nose or an ear off the statue? 

When we are back in Washington the official house dog is a Boston Terrier known as Lily. This statue looks remarkably like her. 

Every morning the women and men march down the steps to bring the offerings to each shrine in the temple complex.

Not everyone is happy about the offerings. This is a live pig being brought down the steps for a festival ceremony.

You see a lot of interesting construction going on around Bali. This is a stick framed roof of what appeared to be a new restaurant.

We stopped at another temple that had holy water up-welling from artesian wells. Neither Chris nor I decided to do the blessing ceremony by immersing ourselves in the waters.

Not sure what the real danger is in this case. Either way we did not want to tempt the gods, so we followed the rules.

Lots of statutes guarding the waters. Mommy here with four young kids. Too many for a scooter if you include dad.

Chris tells me this is grandpa with the young grandchild. Being an experienced grandpa, I'm not so sure.

They were building some platforms for an up coming ceremony. This craftsmen is chiseling a mortise into bamboo for the uprights. 

Not sure what part these snakes play in the temple. They were hanging on the walls of one of the large ponds.

One of the many local varieties of tropical bird-of-paradise flowers

A few more temple shots. You can judge the scale as that's Chris standing in front with her sarong on. 

And not to be outdone, I have my sarong on too. You aren't allowed into the temples without appropriate wear. 

OK, no more temple pictures (for now).

You see these No Uber and No Grab signs all over. Grab is the Uber of SE Asia. 

Walking around Ubud we ran across this WWII era Willy's Jeep in perfect condition. It had a Bali Willy's Club sticker on the windshield.

One last look at the rice fields. They were cool.

Paul