Travel Day 661 – Driving on Bali by Scooter, INDONESIA
06/09 Toya Bungkah via Mother Temple Pura Besakih to Amed
The day started perfectly again, this time on the sunny guesthouse terrace, overlooking the blue-green lake and the outer rim of the big crater…
Sunset behind Volcano Gunung Agung in Amed on Bali, Indonesia
This setting was so quiet and peaceful that it was hard not to spend the entire day just reading and writing in the warmth of the sun. But eventually I felt ready to jump back on the little scooter and continue driving towards the coast, to reach a place called Amed. Some fellow travellers had suggested that the entire coastline around Amed was not only a string of little local fishing villages, but also off the usual tourist radar. And since it was possible to stay there in small local family run guesthouses right at the beach, Amed seemed to be the perfect destination for the day…
But first it was necessary to drive once more through the rocky, black moon like landscape and along the bright blue-green lake Danau Batur to finally reach the rim of the big crater again. It was really remarkable how strange this landscape looked with its partially overgrown black chunks of hardened lava and from the top of the rim it was even possible to see which area had been affected by the last volcanic outbreak. While driving along the rim, this scenery was staying with me for quite some time until the road dropped down towards Pura Besakih…
Blue-green Lake by Gunung Batur on Bali, Indonesia
Pura Besakih, also called the Mother Temple of Bali, was the most important religious structure on the entire inland and its use as a place of worship could be traced back to 13th century. Nowadays the temple complex of Pura Besakih consisted of 23 individual temples grown into each other. Set on the slopes of 3000 meter high Gunung Agung, this patchwork of temples resembled an interesting mix between Hindu and Balinese structures, but it also came with a dark side of money-making tourist business and it was actually recommended to avoid the hustle of Pura Besakih altogether…
For me personally it almost seemed like a little challenge and since I really wanted to see the temple, I deliberately decided to go and have a look what was really going on there. As it turned out, it wasn’t too bad besides the much too pricey entrance ticket of 15.000 Rupiah. But the 5000 Rp ‘parking ticket’ could be avoided by simply driving by, as could the ‘official parking lot’ by ignoring all the “you park here” screams and instead parking right in front of the temple entrance…
Mother Temple of Pura Besakih on Bali, Indonesia
The next hustle came then from some ‘officials’ and the dubious tourist information who claimed that I could only enter the Pura Besakih complex while wearing a sarong. This conversation obviously happened in the presence of some sarong selling ladies, offering to ‘help me out’ for another 5000 Rp. But luckily in my day-pack I found my beach-towel / sarong / Australia flag and I simply wrapped that one around my waist to the great disappointment of all participants of the pushy conversation…
After that, to fully enjoy Pura Besakih all the self-acclaimed ‘guides’ needed to be ignored, but walking around dressed in one big Australia flag, this was actually quite an easy task. And while some of the shady characters gave me an evil eye, other locals had a big smile for me and I personally really enjoyed my Australian themed temple visit. Later in the afternoon when back on the scooter, the area around Amlapura turned out to be quite challenging due to a lack of normally quite useful street signs, but in the end I still managed to reach lovely Amed. This was just in time to walk down to the beach and end another interesting day on Bali while watching the sunset behind the majestic looking volcano Gunung Agung…
Find all Toya Bungkah – Pura Besakih and Toya Bungkah to Amed photos here.
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