Two temples and an active volcano!

After the rice and coffee, I continued to drive north from Ubud to the Holy Spring Temple.  This temple contains a bathing structure with sort of shower parts and people can go in and cleanse themselves spiritually (as well as physically).  Needless to say I didn't go in!

After that we headed north and stopped for lunch by Mount Batur.  This is an active volcano, yet many tourists hike up it.  Considering it's a 2 hour hike up, and anther 2 hour hike down,  I decided to pass on this and enjoyed a lovely buffet lunch instead.

We then headed on to the Besakih temple which is on the slopes of another volcano, Mount Agung - the highest point in Bali.  The volcano last erupted in 1963 and was one of the largest and most devastating in Indonesia's history.  My driver told me that his grandparents remember it but that his parents were not alive at the time - this definitely made me feel old!

The Besakih temple (known as the Mother Temple) is the most important, the largest and the holiest temple of the Hindu religion in Bali.  It's about 1000 metres up on the slope of the volcano and on the day I visited people were being evacuated from the area because it was thought the volcano was going to erupt.  In fact on the evening of that same day there was an earthquake measuring 5.7 which led to 75,000 people being moved off the slopes.

During the 1963 eruption which killed around 1700 people, the lava flowed just metres away from the temple complex.  The saving of the temple is regarded as miraculous by the Balinese people and they see it as a signal from their gods that they wished to demonstrate their power but not to destroy the monument that the people had erected to them.

The temple complex is made up of 23 temples built on 6 levels terraced up the slope.  The entrance is a very typical split gateway.  You can walk up the stairs to a number of courtyards and brick gateways that lead up to the mountain which is considered sacred.