Candi Dasa - Heaven on Earth

July 12

We started our trek to Candi Dasa by visiting Goa Lawar temple.  This temple is considered a sacred spot and is home to thousands of bats.  The cave is quite deep but the temple built around the cave allows us to just see the bats toward the front.  Every so often the bats will scurry about for position, that is because pythons will crawl out from the small crevices in the rocks and feast on one of the bats causing quite an uproar. (Some of these pythons are three meters long) Besides the awesome sight of the bats huddled together and the not so awesome smell of bat guano, the sound was amazing.  The constant hum and chirping was pretty cool. 

Bats, bats, and more bats. 

Yosiell rockin' the sarong.

Guardian of the temple. 

Vishnu riding Garuda.  

Yosiell lovin' the creepy vibe of this bat temple. 

Intrepid explorers...

A gate sporting a cool bat at its apex.  

Just one small portion of the bat cave.  

The temple built in front of the cave.  

Close up (although blurry) of these flying mammals.  

More bat cae realness.  

Many Hindus come to pray and the temple priest spends much of the day presenting offerings to the cave.  Our guide explained a little more about the Hindu concept of God.  He said that in Hindu it may seem that there are many Gods but that is not true, there is only one God and many functions of God.  They believe that Vishnu is the preserver or protector, Brahma is the creator, Sewa (or Shiva) is the destroyer, really the Hindu God is about the circle of life.  Most villages have three public temples, one dedicated to each of these faces of God.  

We are finally in Candi Dasa!  If there is a place that should be considered heaven on Earth it is here!  Our Villa is perfect.  The pool looks over the ocean.  A few short steps and we are sitting in warm tropical ocean waves.  It is really hard not to relax in this spot.  

Our humble abode for the next week.

A view of the beach from the patio.

Panoramic of our view.  

Lovely nightly sunsets.

More views from our patio.

Ahhhh...paradise.  

The evening has been perfect with millions of stars blanketing the night sky over the ocean. I sat for a very long time just counting stars before going to my room and falling into a deep sleep.