Ulu Watu Temple

Kir here again, your foreign correspondent in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia.

You heard a bit about our last day trip from Jon a few days ago, in his blog about the mal-development (we thought) at Dreamland Beach. After we left Dreamland, we headed to Ulu Watu Temple for a change of pace and some culture. Ulu Watu is a temple to the Hindu gods of the sea. The real attraction here is the temple's stunning location on a cliff overlooking the sea. Here's a close-up of the temple building that you can see on the edge of the cliff in photo above (in the first photo it kind of looks like a tree).


We couldn't go inside the temple, because only worshippers are allowed there. There are a few other rules for visiting the temple too, and both men and women have to wear a sarong (like a long wrap skirt). They hand out rental sarongs and waist wraps at the entrance. Both our guide and the people at the temple entrance warned us about a pest species that is overrunning the grounds: monkeys! There are signs up all over to watch your cameras, earrings, glasses, and hats, because the monkeys will steal them! Here's a close-up of some of the many monkeys we saw:


We saw a few little monkey skirmishes, and even people patting them - disease alert!! The monkeys made some little kids cry, and we kept our distance from the little creatures. One big guy came running up to me, and I thought he was going to jump up on me, so I screamed and threw my entire bag of cut-up bananas at him to keep him at bay!

The monkey pesks were nothing though, compared to the beauty we witnessed from the temple grounds. Isn't it magnificent?