Bali: Attractions and Road Trip Around the Island (Part 2)

Bali is worldly known as a paradise island and it has many things to offer. Northerns part of the island is less busy and non touristic. You pass by many locals and see their villages life when you plan your own road trip. You won’t really find there sandy beaches either. As the sand there soil black and that might be the reason why many tourist choose other parts of the island.

As you discovered in Part 1 of this article driving around Bali island can show you very different perspectives of it. The road on the Northern part of the island goes along the coast and you will occasionally see black-sand beaches on your journey. Other great attractions are temples. While the number of them is counted to be as big as 10 000, you won’t be able to visit all of them. But few of them are absolutely necessary to see. And as one guy said to us: ‘ Temples are better than women, they don’t get offended if you go to another one’.

Rice Fields

As you drive you will pass by locals daily life. Mostly what you will see is rice fields. But don’t get tricked by the simplicity of it. Locals grow here rice and it is mostly what they do and live from. You simply need to imagine an entire mountain slope filled with rice terraces to understand the greatness of it.

 

You will be amazed by paddle fields in Bali I can guarantee. And you will hear about it for all your stay on the island. Many tourist want to see it, but if you won’t go on the road trip you might miss those that are not listed as tourist attractions. While driving through the Northerns part of the island we found the biggest and the most beautiful rice field terraces on the island.

Black-sand Shores

We found it fascinating that along the Northern part of Bali all shores are black. You will find many resting places with small arbors on your road trip. Black-sand beaches are a reminder of once active volcanoes on the island. If you interested in it nowadays you can go on tours to the top of one of volcanoes!

Tirta Gangga

Tirta Gangga or widely known as the Water Palace is an amazing place that fascinates many visitors. The grounds of the water garden consists of three separate complexes each with ponds and many sculptures.

The complex on the lowest level has two large ponds and a water tower. At the second complex (middle level) of the Bali water palace are the swimming pools.

The third level houses the main complex with the country home of the former Raja. Nowadays you can find a restaurant and four bungalow units for rent there.

There is also an underground pipe system which leads to the upper swimming pool. Here the water flows into a lower level pool. From this lower level pool it flows into some small fish ponds and from there into the rice fields that border the gardens.

Pura Lempuyang

This temple is one of the oldest in Bali. It lies at 1,175m above sea level up on the peak of the Mount Lempuyang in East on the island. The heights are reachable via a steep staircase in 4 hours trek through the jungle with  several other temples along the way and long-tailed macaques that inhabit the surrounding of cool mountain forests.

Many visitors don’t want to take a trek and enjoy the views at Pura Penataran Agung temple at the foot of the mountain. This temple offers an impressive sight thought the main gates and dragon staircases to the upper level of the temple. Most of the temples in Bali have the split stone entrance gates. These split stone gates seems like two little temples had been pulled apart to give access to visitors. Pura Penataran Agung entrance gates are very photographic and appears in many tourists pictures.

Fuel up

At some point of your road trip through Bali you will need gasoline to fill the car tank. If you don’t drive a car you will need to fuel up your motorcycle for sure. It is impossible to explore Bali without your own transportation! Locals have invented a funny way for gasoline storage. You will see many ‘shops’, actually it’s just a wooden stalls, with many glass bottles. Ironically they usually they ‘Absolute’ vodka bottles for that. And it creates a colorful gasoline bottles pile.

Kanto Lanto Waterfall

It is no surprise how Kanto Lanto waterfall is so idyllic while it was newly formed. The water runs down for about 10 meter through the black rocks. The waterfall is surounded by natural forest and let’s you wonder a bit further up the river stream.

We chose to walk into the different direction than the waterfall. The river was peacefull, we played with the water and we almost forgot to visit the waterfall.

Air Terjun Tegungan Waterfall

This huge waterfall is very famous among tourists. They come here for a short swim, because the water is really cold. It is the one of the waterfalls that continues to flow massively even in a dry season in Bali.

Read the Part 1 of this article and about first days of our road trip here.

All words by Eisve Treciakauskaite and all images by Justinas Lekavicius, unless otherwise noted.
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