This is one of the temples I’ve been excited to see – simply because the carving is so ornate. It’s call the Elephant Cave, but there haven’t been any elephants here. The name most likely came from the spirit of Ganesh, the Hindu God with an elephant’s head. We arrive through the same gauntlet of shops trying to sell us sarongs, which of course we don’t need. Wayan guides us through the shopping corridor and gets us to the ticket booth unscathed. 15,000 IDR each later, and we’re saronged and ready to go.
The first thing we see are the remains of a temple that fell during an earthquake. The stones have been placed in little cairns across the floor of the temple. It’s still considered a sacred site, and these cairns reflect the respect Balinese still have for the temple area.
The original temple was built for meditation and prayer, and includes sacred bathing pools with statues depicting Hindu angels, separated into female and male sections. Also in front of the cave is a set of stone shrines containing Ganesha and other deities.
The mouth of the cave is what is so fascinating. Above the entrance is a huge carved face that resembles the head of an elephant, but more likely is a depiction of the Hindu Earth God Bhoma. Others think the face is the mouth of Rangda, a child-eating witch. Whatever it is, it is fascinating. I love just looking at it – and looking at all the carving around the face and entrance – many of which depict the forest and animals known to Bali.
How totally cool is that? Also cool is that Wayan has timed this perfectly and there is literally no one here. Everything we read talks about how crazy busy this place gets with tourists and buses and it is hard to really get a feel for the place. Not so today, at this time. We are so lucky!
Inside the mouth opens into a narrow tunnel which spills out into a wider chamber containing 3 shrines. The first, a likeness of Ganesha, is used to pray for intelligence. The second, is used to pray for luck (no picture – there was someone praying there, and we definitely were not taking a picture of that) and the third, a set of 3 stones wrapped in the traditional Hindu colors of red (fire or birth), white (wind or life) and black (earth or death).
We’ve covered a lot of territory in one short morning! Very fun – and now – its time for lunch! We have a choice of crispy duck or pork ribs – well, you know what we chose – the duck. So off we go to a restaurant of Wayan’s choosing, overlooking the rice fields. Bebek Joni is a beautiful place, filled with teak tables overlooking the emerald green rice terraces, as promised, with a heavenly breeze cooling us off. We decide to cool off further with an order of big Bintang beers that comes with a delicious snack of rice crackers with sesame seeds. Very relaxing after our stair climbing endeavors.
Ed of course orders duck, but I decide to try the smoked chicken. Ed also got the traditional Balinese soup, Soto Ayam Bah, thick with vegetables and boiled eggs. I didn’t really look fully at the picture in the menu, so I didn’t expect the sauce it came drenched in, but it was still delicious – if a little spicy. Both meals came with rice and this little satay, that we think might have been fish.
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