Uluwatu and Tanah Lot

2016-07-16

We got our driver Gede to take Rachael and I to see Uluwatu. At the temple we saw our first monkeys and they stole the sunglasses from another girl there. The cliffs that it overlooked were cool and you could see why they would want to have built a temple there. We then went to Panang Panang Beach, was stunning but then it started to pour rain so we left. To get onto the beach you need to walk through a tight cave. There was a local woman carrying large blocks of ice up and down the stairs through the cave.

We drove past Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Park and Gede recommended we stop, and inside they had huge stone statues as well as pillars of limestone that had been carved into. It is still in progress and it was pretty great to see something of that scale being created in modern times. There was also some traditional Balinese dancing shows that we watched a little bit of.

We then picked up Tom and Bec from Seminyak which involved lots of sitting in traffic at a speed slower then walking. Eventually we got on the 'highway' and our driver recommended an awesome place to stop for lunch, Kedai 68, which was probably the best food we had on the trip.

On the way our driver recommended we go to Pura Taman Ayun which was a pretty cool temple that was surrounded by water. It as pretty cool but we had to drive through lots of traffic to get there so might have been better to skip it or leave for another day.

Finally we got to Tanah Lot, which is a temple on a rock at sea. We got there at high tide and so you can't get across without swimming. It was a pretty spectacular place for a temple but packed with tourists and locals selling things, which made it a bit hard to really appreciate the views. Further along there was a another temple on the cliff and even a bit of a beach. It reminded me a little bit of the Great Ocean Road in Australia.

It was a great day and we saw lots of really cool things, but by the end of it we were sick of being in the car and glad to be moving away from the traffic a bit to head inland to Ubud.