My siblings and I knew beforehand that the drive to Lempuyang
Temple in East Bali would take three hours and that the queue for a
photo at the gate would take another three hours. We went anyway. Instead of whining
about it, we considered the long queue in the oppressive heat of the midday sun
as something to enjoy, not endure. Instead of whining about it, we thought of waiting
in line for three hours not as a waste of time but a singular feat that
required tremendous patience.
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Tourists line up for a photo at the gate of Lempuyang Temple, with mighty Mt. Agung in the background. |
I wonder why some tourists feel so cheated when they find
out that the lake is merely an illusion created by holding a mirror under the
lens of a camera. Of course it’s fake. Have they not read anything about the temple
at all? If you went there just to have your photo taken at the gate with the fake
lake, you’d undoubtedly feel deceived. Lempuyang Temple is one of Bali’s six
temples of the heavens. It is sacred to the Balinese because it is located at
the top of Mount Lempuyang, the island’s easternmost mountain. That gate where tourists
pose for photos only marks the entrance to the outermost sanctum of the temple.
The uppermost inner sanctum of the temple actually sits at the top of 1,700
steps, another two-hour climb from that infamous gate.
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