Tirta Empul
A Temple Built Around A Spring In 962; Balinese Come To Perform Melukat, A Purification In Which The Bather Passes Under A Line Of Carved Water Spouts In A Fixed Order · Tampaksiring, Bali
Tirta Empul was built around a SPRING IN THE YEAR 962 and the spring is still the point. Water rises in a walled pool at the back of the compound, runs out through a line of CARVED STONE SPOUTS into two long bathing tanks, and Balinese come here to perform MELUKAT - a purification in which you enter the cold water and pass beneath each spout in turn, in a fixed order, praying at each one. IT IS NOT A SWIMMING POOL AND IT IS NOT A PERFORMANCE. Two of the spouts are reserved for funerary cleansing and are skipped by the living; if you do not know which, you should not be in the water without someone who does. Visitors are genuinely welcome to take part, properly dressed and properly instructed. ABOVE THE TEMPLE, ON THE RIDGE, SITS A PRESIDENTIAL PALACE BUILT BY SUKARNO IN 1957, looking down on all of it - a thousand-year-old spring, a queue of bathers and a modern head of state's retreat on the ridge above, a juxtaposition that nobody here ever quite explains to you.
Manukaya, Tampaksiring, Gianyar Regency, Bali, Tampaksiring, Bali, Indonesia
OPEN DAILY THROUGH THE DAY with an entry fee; A SARONG AND SASH ARE REQUIRED and are provided. IF YOU INTEND TO BATHE you need a SEPARATE WET SARONG, hired at the temple, and there are changing rooms and lockers - do not enter the tanks in swimwear. THE BATHING TANKS GET VERY BUSY from mid-morning and the queue under the spouts moves slowly; GO AT OPENING. WOMEN WHO ARE MENSTRUATING MAY NOT ENTER the temple, which is standard across Balinese temples and is asked of visitors too. MAJOR CEREMONIES, and particularly full-moon and Galungan periods, bring very large numbers of Balinese and take absolute precedence over visitors. The spring pool itself at the rear is not entered by anyone. Gunung Kawi is ten minutes away.