Tanah Lot – “Land in the Sea” The myth behind the beautiful temple is that a Hindu Traveler spent the night on this island in the sea. Some fisherman saw him and then built a shrine to worship the Balinese sea gods. It is also rumored to be protected by poisonous, but holy, sea snakes (but we didn’t see any).
We had read about Tanah Lot before coming to Bali and had seen some amazing photographs of the temple. So, we set out to go and see it for ourselves!
Madison and Giddi received a traditional Balinese blessing. They were purified with the holy water, and then had a few grains of rice stuck to their foreheads. This is said to bring good fortune and prosperity. They also had a blossom stuck in their hair for extra beauty.
What we weren’t expecting was how insanely commercialized it was. There were busses of people, hundreds of shops, and overall it was just really, really crowded. At first, I was kind of annoyed. And then, when I thought about it for more than 2 seconds, I realized that I had zero place to be frustrated, because I was PART of the tourist horde! And then that made me even more upset that I was a part of the problem that was making me mad! UGH! I couldn’t win.
We joked that there was absolutely no way to get a decent picture with all of the people in “the shot”. And then it hit me. Instead of struggling to fight for the best photo of the temple, I was going to just enjoy watching all of the other people clamoring to get their photo game on. My mood immediately changed. I had SO MUCH FUN snapping pictures of other people snapping pictures. It was amazing. I captured quite a few moments, so we tried to break them down into categories for you. Enjoy!
