Pura Luhur Uluwatu


I spent most of the day lounging in my villa's pool, but near the end of the afternoon, I traveled to the southwestern tip of Bali to visit the Uluwatu Hindu temple dedicated to the guardian spirits of the ocean. There has been some sort of worship on this site since about the 9th Century (and as you see below, worship continues on a daily basis) but most of the remaining structures date from the 16th Century.  As you can see, Uluwatu is situated on an extraordinarily dramatic and beautiful cliff above the sea. Additionally, hundreds of monkeys, who are symbolically important to the religious meaning of Uluwatu, roam the site and, if you aren't careful, they will steal your possessions, including your bottle of hand sanitizer, as one tourist standing not far from me learned the hard way.









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