Uluwatu Temple and the Kecak Fire Dance: Timing, Seats, and the Monkeys on the Cliff

Pura Luhur Uluwatu is one of Bali's six directional temples, set on the very tip of the Bukit peninsula on a cliff seventy metres above the Indian Ocean. The temple itself is small and closed to non-worshippers; what you come for is the clifftop walk, the view down the coast, and the Kecak performance in the open-air amphitheatre next to it as the sun goes into the sea.

It is one of the most reliably good evenings on the island, and it is also one where a little planning makes a large difference.

The Kecak is a chorus of fifty or more men sitting in concentric rings, chanting a rhythmic 'cak' in interlocking patterns with no instruments, while dancers act out an episode from the Ramayana: Rama, Sita, the golden deer, the demon king Ravana, and Hanuman's monkey army setting fire to Lanka. The fire at the end is real, and Hanuman kicks it around the arena.

The form is Balinese but the staging as a tourist performance dates from the 1930s. That does not make it less worth seeing; the chant with the sun going down behind it is a genuinely strange and stirring hour.

The performance runs about an hour and starts around six, timed to the sunset. Tickets are sold at the amphitheatre entrance and are separate from temple entry; on busy evenings they sell out, which is one reason the tours here include them.

The amphitheatre is a semicircle of stone tiers with the sea and the sunset behind the stage. The seats on the left as you enter, on the north side, face the sun and the cliff; the right side faces the performers with the sunset out of frame. Left side, high up, is where you want to be, and those seats go first.

Be through the temple gate by half past four, walk the cliff path while the light is good, and be in the amphitheatre by five. In July and August, earlier.

The temple's macaques have learned that sunglasses, hats and phones can be traded back for food, and they take them off people's heads with real skill. Glasses go in a zipped bag before you pass the gate; hats come off; phones are held with two hands or not at all. Do not feed them, do not tease them, and if one takes something, a temple attendant with a banana is the way to get it back, not a chase.

A sarong and sash are required and provided with the entry ticket. Shoulders covered. The inner temple is for Hindu worshippers, and the walkway along the cliff, the outer courtyards and the amphitheatre are open to everyone.

The tours listed on this site for Uluwatu pair the temple and dance with an afternoon at one of the cliff beaches and a driver who knows the parking, which at sunset is the other thing worth having sorted.