My Trips: Pura Taman Ayun (Temple) at Mengwi, Bali

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Pura Taman Ayun (Temple) at Mengwi, Bali - Indonesia

After a simple breakfast, we heading to our first destination - Pura Taman Ayun at Mengwi, Bali (S8 32.628 E115 10.322). Where the word 'Pura' means temple. The journey took about an hour from Kuta to Mengwi.

History of the Taman Ayun Temple :-

"The Hindu temple of Taman Ayun is one of the six royal temples of Bali; this group of temples are second in importance only to the Mother temple at Besakih. It is situated near the town of Mengwi, which lies some 16 kilometres, or 10 miles, north-west of Denpasar, the island's capital city.

The full name of the temple, in the Balinese language, is "Pura Taman Ayun", which translates as "Garden Temple in the Water". It is surrounded by a narrow and artificial moat, which is planted with the lotus flowers significant in several Eastern religions. It is also surrounded more distantly by a river, on an island within which it was built.

The temple is entered through a traditional Balinese split gate. Gates of this design are common in temples in Bali; it is traditionally believed that if an evil spirit attempts to enter the temple by passing between the two halves of the gate, they will come together and crush the invading spirit." Source from here.

"This very pleasing temple was built in 1634 by the King of Mengwi as his family temple. The terraced courtyards of the temple are set in very well maintained grounds, surrounded by man-made waterways and entered over a bridge."

The Temple open daily 8AM-6PM and the entrance fee is rp.3,000 per person.
The temple is surrounded by beautiful streams (you can view from the Google Earth picture below) and the area made me felt peaceful! Every entrance design of the Bali's temple are almost the same...as you can see it from the photo below.

The Entrance of the Taman Ayun Temple

After the main entrance, there was a big green field. On the right end of the field, there was a tower, according to our driver cum tour guide - Mr Agoes...the purpose of the tower is to call everybody to gather together whenever there's a ceremony by the temple.

Before we can climb up the tower, we gotta wait for this 3 pretty ladies...

The staircase to the top was steep!

On top of the tower, there were 2 wooden bar that act like a giant bell!

The wooden bar on top of the tower

The view was really nice! I was busy snapping around...

The passageway that we walked into the temple

And it's continue to another smaller field...

We meet a small hut beside the temple, it was some kind of Art Center of the Temple. Many painting were displayed and all for sale.

The painting on the wall

I was attracted by this Barong. The peoples there explain...Barong is the Good Spirit in Balinese Hinduism, and the Bad Spirit is the one with White Hair. But too bad, I forgot the name of it...

The Barong of Bali

After the so called 'Art Center', we were continue our walk in a narrow path surrounded the Temple. The weather that day was nice and the sky was Blue!

There were many Pagoda (above) within the temple

It is surrounded by the Lotus

The temple tour was having one round of walking of the temple...and suddenly there was a surprised! 2 couples from Malaysia or Singapore (I guess it from their conversation) were having their wedding photo album shooting within the temple! Good choice, I think...:)