4 Temples In Legian Bali That Will Give You A Glimpse Into The Rich Culture Of Bali

Pura Segara Legian is the temple most visitors to Legian have already seen without knowing its name. It sits right on the sand, and it is the village’s sea temple, the place where Legian faces the ocean that its fishermen and, later, its surf economy depended on. The Indonesian Wikipedia entry on Legian lists a Pura Segara Bena among the village’s pemaksan temples, the ones looked after by a group of families rather than the whole village.

On many evenings, women from the banjar bring small woven trays of flowers and rice down to the shrine and the water’s edge. You can watch from a respectful distance on the beach. Keep to the sand side and do not step onto the shrine platform. The big day here is Melasti, when the village carries its temple effigies down to the sea to be cleansed a few days before Nyepi. In 2027 that falls in the first days of March, and Legian Beach fills with white-clad families and gamelan.

Pair it with a walk along Legian Beach at sunset.

Every Balinese village has three core temples, the kahyangan tiga. The Pura Puseh honours the village founders and is linked with Vishnu. The Pura Desa is where the village meets the gods on daily business and is linked with Brahma. In Legian the two sit in the old village core, and together they are the heart of the place. Legian’s fifth parahyangan temple, Pura Agung Desa Adat Legian, is in the same core, so look for it on the same walk.

According to the Indonesian Wikipedia entry on Legian, Nengah Kasim, a Legian surfer known well beyond Bali, now leads ceremonies at Pura Puseh as a temple priest. The same compound houses the Pesraman Santi Wana, the village’s Hindu religious school. Come in the morning, keep to the outer courtyard (the jaba), and if someone in a white headcloth is sweeping or arranging offerings, ask before you take a photo. A smile and “boleh?” (may I?) goes a long way.

The Pura Dalem is the third of Legian’s kahyangan tiga. It stands on Jl. Patih Jelantik, east of Jl. Legian, about 100 m from the Pura Dalem Penataran, and two sword-bearing guardian statues flank its gate. Dalem temples face the world of the dead and the goddess Durga, so across Bali their gates carry heavier, darker carving and fiercer guardian figures than a village temple. Dalem temples usually stand near the village cremation ground (setra), which is normal in Bali and nothing to be uneasy about.

You will get the best look at the carving from the street in morning light. Do not climb the steps of the split gate (candi bentar) for a better angle. If there is a cremation or a ceremony under way, stay well back, keep your camera down and do not walk through the procession.

Pura Penataran is one of the five parahyangan temples that Legian’s customary village maintains, alongside Pura Agung, Pura Puseh, Pura Desa and Pura Dalem Kahyangan. Google Maps and TripAdvisor list it as “Dalem Penataran Desa Adat Temple”, which is the easiest name to search for on your phone. In Bali the word penataran is used for a sanctuary’s main temple, as in Pura Penataran Agung at Besakih.

For a visitor, this is a quiet stop. Most days you will see an outer courtyard, a bale (open pavilion) and a few offerings. On its odalan, the temple birthday that comes round every 210 days, the street fills with penjor (tall curved bamboo poles), gamelan and women carrying fruit towers on their heads. If you are staying nearby, ask your hotel staff whether an odalan is coming up. They will know.

Pura Bagus Teruna is the easiest of Legian’s small temples to find, because the street it stands on, Jl. Pura Bagus Teruna (often signed Bagus Taruna, and known to most visitors as Rum Jungle Road) in Legian Kaja, carries its name. It is one of the pemaksan temples on the Indonesian Wikipedia list, a smaller compound looked after by the families of one part of the village rather than the whole community.

Treat it as a five-minute stop on a walk through north Legian rather than a destination. The appeal is the setting: a functioning temple a few metres from guesthouses, warungs and scooter repair shops, with the day’s canang sari (palm-leaf offerings) on its steps. If you are heading north towards Double Six and Seminyak anyway, it sits naturally on that route.

Vihara Dharmayana is the most visitor-friendly temple on this list and the easiest one to walk straight into on any day. It began life as Leeng Gwan Bio, a temple for Kuta’s Chinese traders. It is usually dated to 1876, and on 23 February 1980 it took its present name, Vihara Dharmayana. The main deity is Tan Hu Cin Jin, a figure honoured in Chinese temples across Bali.

Inside are red lanterns, incense coils hanging from the roof beams and carved dragon pillars, and the smell of incense reaches you from the street. You do not need a sarong here, but cover your shoulders and knees, and do not point your feet at the altars if you sit down. Lunar New Year (Imlek) is the busiest time of the year.

Read more in our full guide to the Dharmayana Temple.

This is not a temple, and we list it separately for that reason. It is, though, the most visited place of remembrance in Kuta, and some travellers searching for temples near Legian are looking for somewhere to pause rather than for a particular shrine. On 12 October 2002, bombs at Paddy’s Pub and the Sari Club on Jl. Legian killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians and 38 Indonesians. The memorial stands on Jl. Legian at the bomb site, facing the empty lot where the Sari Club stood, and was dedicated on the second anniversary in 2004.

The central marble wall carries the names and nationalities of the victims, flanked by the flags of their countries. Visitors still leave flowers here, and the 12 October service draws survivors and relatives from Australia every year. Keep your voice low, do not pose for selfies at the plaque, and look for the small offerings that local people still leave. It is a short walk from the bars and a very different stop.

For the history in full, see our guide to the Bali Bomb Memorial.

Kuta has its own sea temple on the beachfront, the counterpart of Legian’s Pura Segara. Like every sea temple on the west coast, it is where the village sends offerings to the ocean and where Melasti processions end before Nyepi. On Melasti day, three or four days before Nyepi, long processions in white and gold walk down to the water with umbrellas, banners and the temple’s sacred objects, and sunbathers make room for them.

The rest of the year, it is a calm corner of one of Bali’s busiest beaches. Search “Pura Segara Kuta” on Google Maps to find the gate, and come just before sunset when the surf schools pack up.

For the beach itself, swimming flags and tides, our page on Kuta Beach has the details.

Pura Dalem Pakendungan stands on the shore at the south end of Kuta Beach, off Jl. Kartika Plaza, about 400 m north of the Discovery shopping mall. It is a coastal temple rather than Desa Adat Kuta’s main village Dalem, which stands inland. Like other Dalem temples, it is linked with Shiva in his role as dissolver and with Durga.

It is easy to miss behind the traffic, which is the point of including it. Stop on the pavement opposite for the best view of the gate, and come in the morning when the light is on the carving. On the nights of temple ceremonies, travellers sometimes see dance performed in the courtyard for the gods rather than for an audience. If that happens, you may be allowed to watch from the back in a sarong. Never use flash.

Pura Petitenget is the closest famous temple to Legian, and the one to choose if you want a “proper” temple visit without leaving the coast. It is a sea temple on the beach north of Seminyak, linked by tradition to the 16th-century priest Dang Hyang Nirartha, who is also credited with founding Tanah Lot and with shaping Uluwatu. Unlike the Legian village temples, it is set up for visitors, with a ticket desk and sarongs to borrow.

Go for sunset. The temple faces the same stretch of sand as Seminyak’s beach clubs, so book dinner nearby and walk over at 5.30 pm. The ceremony dates, fees and nearby temples are covered in depth in our guide to temples near Seminyak, which is the page to read if Petitenget is your main target.