September 22, 2025
Breakfast was served buffet style at the hotel this morning much to the boys’ delight. Len especially loves a buffet or what he calls, “the one where you pick your own .” He dropped and broke a full water glass but acted way less embarrassed than Ollie was over his broken plate in Beijing. Len also made friends with the man at the egg station.
Our guide picked us up at 9am and learned we had a 2 hour ride to our first stop. Unfortunately the van didn’t have a sound system so we weren’t able to play music or listen to an audio book to help pass the time. Ollie and Len took to making paper airplanes from the maps our guide gave us and then threw them around in a “paper plane battle”. At one point they almost hit the driver and we made them move to the back of the van.
We stopped for a bathroom break at a mini mart and Len was eager to look for a giant kinder egg so he would spend his clean shirt game winnings. We found candy that looked close enough to what he saw yesterday so he bought one for himself and one for Ollie and still had ~70k Rupiah left. The eggs had the most annoying candy inside— small plastics tubes that were impossible to open and then challenging for the kids to get the chocolate out once open. These made a huge mess and tested Kyle’s patience.
Our first stop was Tirta Empul Temple. Kyle and I have been in a bad habit of not thoroughly reading through some of the plans ahead of time so many of the activities we do are a surprise to us. Here, we were meant to do a temple tour and spiritual cleansing ceremony. At first, the boys weren’t too keen on the ceremony but it was heating up outside and they were excited to get into the water. We started with renting water sarongs and getting changed. They insisted on wearing their sarong like me to “cover up my body.” Since they always wear their rashguards when swimming, I think it feels foreign to them to go shirtless in public. Then we were given offerings (little baskets, flowers, incense) to offer to the temple gods while we meditated before the ceremony. Some parts of the day, this on in particular, felt culturally appropriative. When I asked the guide about how Balinese people thought about this, he said that as long as visitors approached the temple and ceremony with respect they appreciate sharing their rituals.
What the Melukat Ceremony Involves
Preparation and Offerings:
Participants often bring offerings and participate in prayers to show respect to the divine forces. They then change into ceremonial clothes and wear a sarong over their bathing suits.
Entering the Pools:
Participants enter the holy spring pools, which are continuously fed by flowing water from stone spouts.
Ritual Immersion:
Under each spout, participants bow their heads and allow the water to flow over them, symbolizing the washing away of impurities. The process is guided by a local expert who helps participants focus on cleansing specific aspects, such as their body or mind.
Reflection and Renewal:
The ceremony provides an opportunity to release stress, bad thoughts, and emotional turmoil, leading to spiritual cleansing and renewal.
Why the Melukat Ceremony is Performed
Spiritual Cleansing: To wash away spiritual impurities (leteh) that build up over time from stress, illness, or other life challenges.
Emotional and Physical Release: To release emotional burdens and alleviate physical impurities.
Inner Balance and Renewal: To restore the balance between the spiritual and physical self and to reconnect with the sacred.
Before Major Life Events: Many Balinese Hindus perform Melukat before important life events
There was a long queue to start in the first pool so we instead started in the second pool figuring that even a partial ceremony would be adequate for the boys. The water was fresh and there were a ton of fish swimming around which entertained the boys. Len kept asking if the fish were going to eat his skin— he remember the fish foot spa we walked past back in Angers, France. His memory continues to surprise us! He often forgets the names of cities and countries but has a knack for remembering activities we do and sweets that we eat.
After changing out off our swim sarongs, we continued with a brief tour of the rest of the temple. As we walked around, Ollie found a 500 Rupiah coin on the ground and was super jacked up. We talked that it may have been part of an offering to the gods, he may want to pass it along to the temple. As we continued walking, Ollie was playing with the coin and dropped it down a grate. Our guide said, “sometimes the gods make funny things happen!”
As we walked through the vendor stalls towards the exit, Len was anxious to spend his leftover money. Instead of calling it his change he kept calling it his “payback” and asking, “When can I spend my payback??” I figured he’d be looking for a toy but when he saw a small painting of a gorilla with a baseball cap, his sights were set. The vendor said it was 100k but when she learned he only had 70k she gave in.
Next we went to a botanical garden and coffee tasting room. At this point it was pushing 2pm and the kids were hot and hungry. Saw the luwak (Indonesian raccoon) that eats the coffee berries and poops them out whole– the beans are then carefully collected and roasted for Luwak coffee. If it wasn’t so late in the afternoon on empty stomachs, Kyle and I would have tried it but we stuck with the free tasting flight instead. Ollie was a fan of some of the teas but Len was essentially fully off the rails at this point and we struggled to get through the tasting. We picked up some rosella tea from the gift shop and made our way to lunch.
The lunch restaurant had a great view but not even the beautiful scenery could change the direction of the afternoon. The kids were both tired, still hot and not loving the lunch options. They incessently asked to play Pokemon instead of eating their lunch and were generally super irritable. Our guide said he would take a bunch of pictures of our family with the mountains as the backdrop, but we were happy to snap just one and get back on the road.
The next stop was nothing short of Instagram hell. Our itinerary made it sould like it would be a walk through some rice terraces and maybe a chance to ride a big swing but this place was nothing more than a content farm for influencers and tourists. The surroundings were beautiful but all beauty was erased with the amount of navel gazing, obnoxious posing and queueing to do simple tasks. Women were all wearing a version of the same long, flowy vibrantly colored dress to try and get a picture of themselves emulating a very famous Balinese picture on instagram. The kids saw the huge swings and were desperate to go on one but they were only allowed to go on the “bed swing” due to their size. Thankfully, no influencers were interested in this swing so there wasn’t a wait. We concluded this stop by wading through people to get a picture of the kids in front of the gorilla cave. At one point, Kyle was recruited to join this random guys’ content team and followed him briefly to get some action shots. We got a good chuckle out of this interaction but overall felt like we couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.
We had a brutal 2 hour drive back to the hotel after leaving instagram hell. All we had was chips and cookies as snacks and the boys were clammoring to eat dinner. Len eventually fell asleep and Ollie and I each wore an air pod to listen to more Harry Potter much to Kyle’s displeasure. Once back, we went to the hotel restaurant for a fast dinner where Len tried to fall back asleep in his chair until Kyle broke out PokemonGO to show the kids all the Pokemon he caught during the 2+ hour, very boring drive.
