Today I am publishing two more albums from my photoshoot in Bali. This time they are of ancient meditation caves. All the caves I have seen like this tend to be alongside rivers and these are no different, one being situated close to the sacred Pakerisan river, and the other site being alongside the Yeh Gangga river.
Neither site is on the normal tourist circuit, and there were no tourists at either site when we visited, so we had a very nice quiet and peaceful time there. The first is below the Pura Pengukur Ukuran temple, which was closed when we got there, so I was unable to photograph the temple.
After a short descent into the valley we came upon the caves, which are pictured below. There caves have a shrine, and above one of the caves is an inscription in old Balinese letters. There is also a primitive relief of a head, and another of a stūpa, which suggest this would probably have been a meditation cave for Buddhists or for Siwa-Buddha retreatants.
The second site is even more out of the way, and the first time we went there the temple was closed. We later found out it was closed at the weekends for some reason. Fortunately as we were passing nearby on the way up country to another temple, we tried again and got access this time. They also had a print out describing the temple (but not the caves).
If you are interested in cave sites I will just mention Gunung Kawi which I photographed last year. It appears the whole site, which is a major tourist spot now was built up around a decorated meditation cave which is on site.
