The most splendid remainder from Mengwi's former glory is indisputably the Pura Taman Ayun. This is probably the largest existing Balinese house temple, built in the middle of the 18th century by Mengwi's greatest king. The temple is surrounded by a wide moat that gives impression of a sanctuary in the middle of a pond. The waters are a symbolic place of contact with the divine through celestial nymphs who bath in the pond. It is a state temple to worship the ancestors of the royal dynasty of Mengwi kingdom. tamed monkeys in Alas Kedaton, Rahwana, the villainous giant of the Ramayana epic, could die neither on earth nor air. To kill him, the monkey general Hanuman devised a plan to suffocate the giant by pressing him between two halves of the holy mountain Mahameru, a destruction between the earth and air. When Hanuman took Mahameru, part of the mountain fell to the earth in alas kedaton along with a group of his monkey armies, so they stayed to this very day. Such is the legendary origin of Bukit Sari or The Monkey Forest, a cluster of towering trees and home of hundreds of monkeys.

 

The forest is sacred and for many years no one has been permitted to chop wood there. A moss-covered temple lies in the heart of the woods and is familiar hideout for the nimble inhabitants. Bedugul, Lake Bratan, high in the central ranges of west Bali, a cool mountain retreat nestles in the crater of an extinct volcano. Here placid Lake Bratan, source of life-giving water for the springs, rivers and rice fields below. Verdant tropical rainforest blanket the hills, which at 1400 m above the sea level provide temperatures several degrees lower than the plains (11° to 30° C). On the western shore of the lake, dramatic PURA ULUN DANU BRATAN projects into the water. It is the temple of the lake goddess who is revered as a source of fertility, built by the king of Mengwi in 1633. It consists of four compounds.