Sunset in Uluwatu Temple.

The hotel in Seminyak is inside a temple, yes as you read, Arsana explained to us how every home has its own temple which they look after with much care. Then they have the family temples, built by the part of the family with more money, for the use of all the its members & where all their celebrations take place. Every community has also a temple & then the public ones, the ones the nomads visit.

In all of them, every morning there’s a person in charge of making an offering to their gods, burn some incense, do a little ritual & say a prayer for the good to enter & the bad to leave.

In Green Tara farm there was a lady in white who came every day to do the ritual. The businesses have altars in front of them & when you walk the streets they smell of incense, it is such a good vibe. Even the cars carry small offerings.

The temples are decorated with sun umbrellas & checkered pieces of fabric, like a chess board, they mean the balance between good & bad, out of respect we mustn’t touch them.

Like every night we look for a place to have dinner, tonight I am very happy as we find a vegan restaurant called Zula, where we have the typical Nasi Campur, made out of rice (nasi) & different ingredients, as you can see this one is all vegan & delicious.

After a good night rest we get up early & go to exchange some money. Make sure you exchange it in the legitimate ones or you are at risk of being ripped off, as they tend to give loads of small notes to confuse the visitor & keep some. There’s another option that is the ATM machine.

From there we head to Balangan beach to spend a day of sunshine.

There are some restaurants on the actual beach, doggies walking around (be aware of the ticks), also stones & corals on the sand that make stepping in the sea a bit difficult, that is why I recommend you taking water shoes, or bootees, I am using mine more than I ever could’ve thought.

In the evening we share a taxi with another traveller to Uluwatu Temple that is fifteen minutes away. Monkeys live there & guard the temple, that’s why you have to observe some precautions like not having anything too appealing like sunglasses, a camera or food. It’s key not to look them in the eye.

A sarong must be worn by everyone, it can be rented in the entrance, we wear our own. The entrance fee is 50k. The monkeys behave well so we carry on enjoying this beautiful temple located on a cliff on the Indian Ocean.

Uluwatu is one of the six main temples of Bali,ulu” means top, “watu” stone. A great percentage of the Balinese population are Hindu & worship the Hindu Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu & Shiva, the three of them merge here & the best time to visit is during the sunset.

At that hour they celebrate in the amphitheater a Kecack Fire Dance that lasts an hour, the dance recreates a legend.

Beautiful Balinese dancers appear doing a movement with their hands that leaves me speechless.

The Monkey God dressed in white plays around, including amongst the public, which is quite funny.

At one point they light the fire. In this pura (temple) they worship the deity of all the elements & aspects of life in the universe, all represented in this temple.

The entrance ticket to watch the dance costs 100K & can be bought inside the temple at around five in the evening. I suggest you book a taxi to pick you when it finishes if you don’t have a scooter. There is no public transport in Bali,that’s why their streets are full of mopeds which drivers are sometimes not older than seven, where the whole family or their businesses navigate on them.

Today I’d like to share a book by Elisa Mayo, “Cuando la muerte te mira a los ojos” (when death looks at you in the eye) It’s the fourth book by her that I read & the same as the others it’s been very entertaining, addictive & I have enjoyed reading it. The plot implicates loss, romance & a lot of suspense. The novel is not very long, I read it in one day when the heat was unbearable in Bali & I was thankful for the agile & fresh read.

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Mis viajes alrededor del mundo siempre acompañados de un buen libro. My travels around the world always accompanied by a good book.