My Trips: Pura Tirta Empul (The Temple of Holy Water) at Tampaksiring, Bali

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Pura Tirta Empul (The Temple of Holy Water) at Tampaksiring, Bali

The Pura Tirta Empul (S8.41586 E115.31516) at Tampaksiring is situated about 18KM from the BAS Coffee Farm. It was our next destination after the Luwak Coffee session. The place was calm and peaceful during our visit, and not crowded at all...

The Legend of the Temple :-
"The sacred spring was created by the god Indra. His forces had been poisoned by Mayadanawa, so he pierced the earth to create a fountain of immortality to revive them.

An inscription dates the founding of a temple at the site to 926 AD. Ever since - for more than a thousand years - the Balinese have come to bathe in the sacred waters for healing and spiritual merit." Source from here.

There are many statues around the garden and temple area from the entrance.

Different statues at Pura Tirta Empul.

Beside the statues, there are also many signages...and we have to read carefully and follow the procedures...

Caution : You are entering the Holy Temple, please do not littering...

One of the entrance to the temple.

The signage above is located before the Purifying pool...in Indonesian Language.

The Purifiying pool of Pura Tirta Empul, Bali

It is the rectangular pool carved of stone. The water in the pool was Crystal clear! Where we can easily see the rocks at the bottom of the pool...

Crystal clear water in the pool

Just for that clean and crystal clear water, we (me, my friend & his elder son) decided to do the purifying like others...:) So we asked Mr Agus to help us on the ceremony and tell us the procedures...

All of us must wear with the 'Sarong' from the temple before get into the pool. There are many lockers around the area for you to keep your valueble items...each locker cost IDR 3,000.00 (about MYR1 / USD 0.33).

Once everything ready, we slowly soaked into the first pool (There are 2 pools at the temple). BEWARE! It was slippery! I slipped from the step and falled directly into the Ice Cold pool! Haha! We had to finished from the first fountain until the last fountain in the purifying pool, total of 22 fountains (if I'm not mistaken). I was shivering after the fifth fountains...it was extremely cold! WOW!
It tooks about 30 minutes to finished the purifying and we quickly changed and warm up our body! Yes, too cold for me! :)

Then we started our tour at the other side of the temple...

Beautiful stone sculptures from the temple

There were some Balinese Hinduism praying ceremony during our visit...

The ceremony in the temple...

We passed through the pool of the sacred spring water, the spring water is continue from the pool non-stop more than thousand years ago...

The pool where the sacred water came from...

Peaceful while walking in the temple...
Before we reach the exit of the temple, we came to another pool which full of koi...and there were some souvenirs shops beside the pool...

It was a life experience for us in the purifying process of the temple, the skin was smooth and clean after bathing from the spring water! I will do it again if I re-visit the temple.

If you don't mind, you might want to try the purifying in the Ice Cold spring water pool! :)