Travel By Photo - Temple Of Holy Water

Better known as the Temple of Holy Water, Pura Tirta Empul is one of the Top most popular temple in Bali, Indonesia. Founded in AD 962, the temple has few pools with crystal clear underground water gushing through the bottom of the ponds. It is the local hinduism belief that this holy water from the god could wash away sins, sickness, bad luck of its followers.

The Holy Water temple is located in Tampak Siring, near the famous wood-carving town of UBUD. We went there during our day-trip in Bali, on our way to Kintamani. Nowadays, most tourists are prefered to visit Besakih Temple (The most significant Hindu Temple in Bali) instead so there were not many tourists when we reached there (or maybe we were late after spending too much time bargaining for a wood sculpture in Ubud ).

After paying a nominal entrance fees of about Rp5,000 (should be around that, can’t remember the exact figure.. ), we stepped into the big couryard and there is an open hall in front of us where supposingly a rest place for the followers. There were only 3 guys sitting in there and were the tour guides.

One of them approached us and took us around. He took us to a ‘donation’ counter where we were given a ’sarong’ or body scarf, on loan off course, before we could step into their holy place behind the courtyard. You should donate some monies here to the dedicated box on the counter.

Inside the holy compound, there is one big pond where you could see ‘holy’ water gushing through the base of the pond though it was full of water plants and green alga or kelp.

Beside it, there are also 2 bathing ponds with elevated spouts along the pond showering whoever wants to take a holy bath there with holy water.

We only washed our hands and face briefly with the holy water.

We took some photos of the place and also being took by the tour guide ‘cum’ photographer! Yes, he insisted to take photos for us and kept praising himself for such a great shot he took! What do you think? For me, he looked like a professional photographer at least, by the way he posed and took photos

Then was the serious moment…. He took us into their private compound where is supposingly strictly for the followers only… the praying courtyard…. and he stayed outside.

Once we came out, he took a few photos of us again….

There was another pood outside of the courtyard without the holywater but with a cafe next to it. We took a photo of the exquisite twin shrines and split gate, common in most temples in Bali. Before we leave, we struggled for a while before we decided to tip this ‘professional’ tour guide Rp20,000. (Yes, even more than the entrance fees…)

Strangely at first to me why they led us out through the exit at the other side and I realised shortly it was because there wanted us to pass through those 30+ stalls selling all kinds of souvenirs of Bali. Unfortunately, we bought some…. (even worse to know later that elsewhere were selling 30% cheaper! But at least we learnt the lesson well…)

Temple of Holy Water, Pura Tirta Empul perhaps is one of the smaller Hindu temple in Bali but it is still a popular religious destination for many tourists and is an important place for the local followers to wash off their bad fortune. - Travel Feeder. 

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For those handsome and sexy travelers who visit Travel Feeder for the first time, WELCOME TO TRAVEL FEEDER! Since its debut in June 2008, I have written 20 exciting travel posts (I would prefer to call it travel feeds) to feed worldwide travelers with some informative travel tips, guides and also my personal travel experiences. As time passes by so fast, I think it would be great to recapture few of my personal favorite post or most popular post for the past month, so, whoever newcomers could easily catch our old folks up with these proud original articles of Travel Feeder. We list out only the following Top 5 Travel Post of July, though it should be more than that…

1. Top 5 Things To Do Before Your Vacation Travel -After refreshing my memory in the past posts, let’s have something interesting here. What’s the Top 5 Thing To Do before my summer travel? This simple yet important questions we need to ask ourselve after we have decided to go for a holiday and have already confirmed the location and booked some vacation packages. Continue reading…
2. Top 5 Local Foods To Eat When Travel To Bali -Whenever you go for vacation travel, I think one of the thing you must do is to try out those local foods at your tourist destination. Well, depends on the budget, some might go for hawker stalls and others might go for cruise dinner. For me, local food survey and try out is always inside my travel itenery and top priority. Continue reading…
3. Top 5 Local Foods To Eat In Malaysia -My friends complained to me that I have not written a single post on Malaysian delicious local foods which is quite shameful for a Malaysian. Ok Ok, so this is it.. Continue reading…
4. Top 5 UNESCO Heritage Sites In Malaysia -Among those cultural sites are 2 of our historic city in Malaysia: Melaka and George Town. Reviewing the UNESCO world heritage list, I have compiled and listed down the following Top 5 World Heritage Site in Malaysia which I would recommend to travelers around the world.. Continue reading…
5. Top 5 Cities To Go For Your Europe Tour. -For most of the travelers in the world especially Asian travelers, travelling to countries in Europe perhaps is their dreams come true. The reasons are the cost of Europe tour that is very expensive as their Euro currency has emerged as one of the strongest currency in the world currently. On top of that, there are so many exclusive cities in Europe and so many travel sites that travelers will need easily 3 months if they want to capture briefly most of the countries in Europe. Continue reading…

I hope you like these stories as much as I do. Comments are welcome and open to all worldwide travelers! - Travel Feeder.

Here comes our final day in Bali. After 3 joyful days in exploring this magnificient island of Indonesia, we were going to leave Bali and back to Malaysia on this day. Before our departure time of 2:20pm, what could still be done for these last minutes?

Well, we did our final shopping session! We called it last minute souvenir hunting. Considering the check-in luggage weight allowance of 7kg per person, we have some balance of 8kg to fill up with apart from our clothing luggage. TRAVEL TIPS: ALWAYS JUDGE OR ESTIMATE YOUR LUGGAGE WEIGHT CAREFULLY BEFORE BUYING ANYTHING JUST TO MAKE SURE THE CHECK-IN LUGGAGE, IF POSSIBLE, IS STILL WITHIN THE LIMIT OF AIRLINES ALLOWANCE. Then we were off to grab, after our wonderful buffet breakfast at Kuta Seaview (Oh come on, again!?). We went back to Gang Poppies Road where we could find whatever we need to buy. Two hours later, we returned to our resort with all our hands fully occupied, with souvenirs!

We packed our luggage carefully with extra protection wrapping to those fragile items that we bought, just to make sure no damage would be happened during air travel (Unfortunately, my lovely glass mosaic plate still broken during our flight ). At 12 noon, it was time to say Goodbye to Kuta Seaview Cottage. In order not to regret in future, we take some photos of our deluxe cottage and the main entrance of the resort, and then there were those guys hanging outside of the resort trying to sweet-talk and persuade us to join a time sharing vacation programe by giving away digital camcorder for free! (you could see these guys sitting beside me in the photo) Would you believe that? I did not expect such fraud in Bali…

Another Rp50,000 for a taxi to the Ngurah Rai international airport, we reached the airport almost 2 hours ahead of the departure time in order not to repeat our mistake when we came here. But is it ironic or what, ‘Dang Dang! Dang Dang!’, I received a SMS through the local INDOSAT network. It was from Air-Asia and it said: “CORRECTION! AirAsia Flight AK901 from Denpasar(BALI) to KUL(LCCT) on 24MAY08 is now RETIMED to 4.20pm(1620hrs). For info please call 60386604343 or 60387754000.” ‘Gosh!! How could this be happened!’ Our flight to Malaysia has been delayed again for almost 2 hours! And it was last minute change and we were already inside departure hall! The most funniest part of all was, AirAsia was expecting all fliers to have their mobile phone International-Roaming-Service activated!?

Unexpectedly, we needed to wait for almost 3 hours after checking in, and we made a terrible mistake. Some international airports have limited stores and shops beyond the boarding gate, so we expected the same in Ngurah Rai International Airport. But it is not! BALI or NGURAH RAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT has one of the largest duty free shopping plaza at 2nd floor after the boarding checkpoint! TRAVEL TIPS: ALWAYS STUDY THE AIRPORT LAYOUT OF YOUR DESTINATION CITY BEFORE YOUR TRAVEL IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHERE YOU COULD DO WHAT AND GET WHAT IN THE AIRPORT. So we continued our souvenir hunting….

Three hours later at 7:20pm, we saw our LCCT airport, hmm… not actually, because it was too hazy, but at least I could still feel it….. And it wraps up our unforgettable 4-day-Summer Travel Experience to Bali. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I and my wife do. Please feel free to comment should you have any travel tips to share with our readers. - Travel Feeder.com

 I have been talking a lot on shopping in Bali but what have we actually bought from Bali? Apart from those snacks and fritters we bought for our family and friends, we were also hunting for our souvenir collection. It is always exciting to keep some souvenirs from the country so we could recall our memory about the place that we’ve been to everytimes we see that souvenir. TRAVEL TIPS: IT IS GREAT TO HAVE THIS REVIEW OR TRACKBACK THINGY SO WE MIGHT FEEL LIKE VISITING THE COUNTRY OR CITY AGAIN AFTER SOMETIMES. In fact, there are few cities that have already been highlighted in my list of re-visiting. If you are interested to know more, you may subscribe to my feed for further updated list. So, what are the Top 5 Souvenirs that  we have hunted down in Bali?

1. Wood Carving Sculpture - A nice sculpture displaying a couple kissing each other emphasising the alluring body figure of the lady. The display price was some Rp120,000 but we managed to bargain and bought at Rp70,000;
2.  Home made Abstract Painting - This wonderful abstract is painted by a local backyard artist with the most attractive ‘Golden Touch’ at the center of the painting. The painting is measuring some 2 feet by 5 feet and it costs us Rp150,000;
3.  Glass Mosaic Plate - A square 1foot by 1foot curvy plate made from small pieces of coloured glass mosaic on ceramic base displaying different texture under the light. My wife really loved it at first sight. It could be used as plate to fill up with some sweets or just holding it upright for display. Price: Rp80,000;
4.  Fancy Wood Round Mirror Frame - This fantastic mirror and frame is actually made of MDF board carved into round and sun like shape and painted with some striking gold paint and small mirror inserts. Glass size is 15 inch diameter and unbelievable low price at only Rp20,000 !
5.  Slippers??? - Yes. It’s a pair of slippers from Kuta Seaview Cottage, the place we stayed during our holiday in Bali. We took back both pairs of these complimentary slippers for our sweet memories (Off course the permission must be seeked from the management officer). The price? The small wording of the cottage actually worth a million…

 These are the top 5 souvenir we brought back from Bali. You may like some of them. So make sure to get it yourself once you are in Bali. The price can always bargainable and you have to make sure the final price is at least half of the initial offer. See ya. - Travel Feeder