Bali Day 2: (Part 1) Batuan Village, Tegalalang Rice Terrace, Tirta Empul at Tampak Siring Presidential Palace & Luwak Coffee

Date of Visit: 12th August 2012

On the second day of our Bali trip, Pak Bagus picked us up at 9am of the local time. For your information, not all cities and places in Indonesia has the same time zone. For Jakarta and Bandung, the time differences would be 1 hour later than Malaysia whereas for Bali, there is no time difference between the two these two cities currently. 

Batuan Village

For our first pitstop, Pak Bagus dropped us a village which known as Batuan Village. This village is noted for its artwork and style of painting and has since emerged into a major Balinese artistic style. It is a major painting center and contains a number of art galleries and cooperative art societies which have played a key role in promoting the art of Batuan.

The most notable landmark is the village temple, known as Pura Puseh. This temple is not really that huge and big in size but it was a perfect place for photoshooting as it was filled with blue sky as the background photo.

#1: The split gate which is the famous type of gate where you can seen in almost all the Balinese temple

#2: Traditional architecture of the temple

#3:

#4: The pillar has a carving of a dancing goddess

Tegalalang Rice Terrace

Next, we stopped at this rice terraces which is designed very beautiful with exquisite hollowing rice field and precisely located on the hill bank. This is a typical scene in Bali and this green terraced rice-field showcases the beauty of the Balinese countryside. In here, we can see that the Balinese farmer do their rice field in oblique area complete with its system irrigation. 

#5: Beautiful panorama of valley with rice terrace and coconut trees ornament it

Tegalalang Village is well known as the village of handicrafts centre especially for wholesale and export. Along the road, there are plenty of of shops where the villagers sell variety of painted woodcarving with colourful designed. The painted woodcarving products were painted on a very light wood so easy for the buyer to bring back home as a gift and souvenir for family and friends or even to decorate their house. Those painted woodcarving were pretty amazing but unfortunately, I'm not an art lover, hence I didn't bother to ask the price. 

#6: Hand-painted woodcarving products being displayed along the road

#7: The souvenirs shops are spread out beside of road

Tegalalang Rice Terrace has become the icon of agriculture tourism for Bali and appointed as a tourist destination visited by both local and foreign tourists every day. It is not free to enter into this by the way and the entrance fee cost is IDR5,000 per person (approx. to RM1.70)

Tirta Empul at Tampak Siring Temple

Tampak Siring Temple, which literally known as Spring Water Temple was built around the springs and it is a special bathing-pools. This place is well-known and popular among the visitors because it was built and structured by the first Indonesian president, Sukarno. 

In the inner courtyard, there is clear slate-blue spring water bubbling up into its own enclosed rectangular pool through a sedimentary layer of black sand. This legendary bathing pools inside the inner courtyard at Tirta Empul temple is said to have magical healing powers.

#8: The local is doing the bath special ritual which known as Balinese melukat

#9: To the local, the waters from this clear pools are believed to have magic curative powers.

 

#10: Fish pond with many colourful kois

#11:

#12: Some rituals were going on when we were there.

There are few rules need to be aware when visit this temple:

• Prohibited to enter without decent wear
• Do no wear short pants. And if you did like we were, you can rent a sarong inside the temple.
• Especially for the ladies, if your period is coming during the visit, it is better to stay away from the temple.

This temple is open daily to the public and the admission fee to enter into this temple is IDR15,000 (approx. to RM5). 

Luwak Coffee

Before move on the next destination, Pak Bagus asked us whether we would like to stop for the famous Luwak Coffee or not and we agreed for him to do so since I ever came across of Luwak Coffee which is well-known for its excellent coffee especially in Bali and I would love to buy a pack for my family. 

If you never heard of Luwak Coffee and wondering what it was, it refers to the bean of coffee berries once they have been eaten and excreted by the local Asian civet cat and then processed to be the highest grade of coffee. It believed to be the most expensive coffee in the world. 

#13: Sleeping Asian civet cats. This is where Luwak coffees from

#14: Free samples were given for testing - like vanilla coffee, coconut coffee, lemongrass tea and etc but not Luwak Coffee. If you want to test Luwak Coffee, you need to pay. 

I split my second day travelogue into two posts cause I don't want cramp everything into one post as it will make it like a very super duper long. So stay tune for the part two of my second day adventures of Bali.

[Credit To: Bali Fun Driver,]