Which temples in Bali are worth visiting?

There are said to be tens of thousands of temples in Bali. A visitor needs about six, and the difference between a good temple visit and a bad one is almost entirely timing.

Uluwatu

On a cliff 70 metres above the sea at the southwestern tip of the Bukit. One of the island's six great directional temples, and the most dramatic setting of any of them.

Go for sunset, and stay for the kecak performance in the clifftop amphitheatre, which is touristic and genuinely good. Buy tickets early in high season.

Watch the monkeys. They take sunglasses, phones and hats with professional efficiency and trade them back for fruit.

Tanah Lot

A temple on a rock offshore in Tabanan, accessible at low tide and surrounded by water at high tide. The most photographed sunset in Bali.

The reality: a large commercial complex of stalls and car parks leading to a viewing area that is very crowded at sunset. The temple itself cannot be entered by visitors.

Go at sunrise or mid-morning if you want to see it rather than photograph it through a crowd, or accept the crowd and go at sunset for the image.

Tirta Empul

A water temple near Tampaksiring with purification pools fed by a sacred spring, where Balinese come to bathe in sequence under a row of spouts.

If you bathe: you need a sarong for the water, you follow the sequence left to right, and you skip the two spouts used for funerary purification. A guide is worth paying for here, both to do it properly and to understand what you are doing.

Go at opening time. By ten the pools are full.

Besakih

The mother temple, on the slopes of Mount Agung, the largest and holiest complex on the island, made up of more than twenty temples on ascending terraces.

It has a new visitor complex with parking and shuttle access, which has changed the experience and removed most of the guide-pressure the site was notorious for.

Dress properly and go early. At altitude, clear mornings cloud over by midday.

Lempuyang

Famous worldwide for the "gates of heaven" photograph with Agung framed between two split gates. The reflection in the photograph is produced by holding a mirror under a phone lens, which surprises a lot of people.

The queue for the photograph can run to hours in high season. The temple complex itself climbs the mountain over a long series of staircases, and the upper temples are quiet, serious places that almost nobody visiting for the photo ever sees.

Ulun Danu Beratan

The lake temple at Bedugul, with the eleven-tiered meru appearing to float on the water. Cool, green, and set in gardens worth walking.

Go early for mist on the lake and fewer people, and combine it with the twin lakes and Munduk.

The dress code, which is enforced

A sarong to the ankles and a sash at the waist, shoulders covered. Sarongs are provided or rented at the entrance of every temple that admits visitors, usually included in the ticket.

Women are asked not to enter temples while menstruating. It is posted and observed on trust. Do not climb on shrines, do not stand above people praying, and do not use a drone over a ceremony. See temple etiquette in full.

The better version of a temple day

Two temples, not five. A village temple anniversary, odalan, if your driver knows of one happening, which is worth more than any of the famous sites. And early starts, because every temple in Bali is a different place at 7am than at 11.