A cliff-top temple, a world-class wave, and the corner of Bali they both call home

Pura Luhur Uluwatu — “Luhur” meaning something of divine, lofty origin — perches on a sheer cliff nearly 70 meters above the sea. Its origins are difficult to date precisely, but an ancient split gateway on the site bears a chronogram pointing to the year 886 AD, and tradition credits the Javanese Hindu priest Mpu Kuturan with establishing the temple in its present tiered form around the 10th century. Kuturan is also credited with the idea of Tri Kahyangan — organizing Bali’s temples into village, mountain, and sea temples — and Uluwatu is one of the great sea temples, built to guard the island against negative forces rising from the ocean.

In the 15th century, the revered priest Dang Hyang Nirartha — the figure credited with shaping the form of Balinese Hindu-Dharma still practiced today — chose Uluwatu as the place where he achieved moksa, spiritual liberation, said to have occurred in a flash of light while he meditated at the cliff’s edge. The temple is counted among Bali’s Sad Kahyangan, the six directional temples that ring and protect the island, watching over the southwest under the deity Rudra. Its twice-yearly anniversary ceremony, odalan, falls on Selasa Kliwon in the Balinese pawukon calendar. At dusk, the temple grounds host Kecak, the hypnotic fire-and-chant dance performed against the sunset — one of the most-watched rituals on the island, and free of charge to witness for anyone staying nearby.

Uluwatu’s surf history begins in August 1971, when filmmaker Alby Falzon arrived with California surfer Rusty Miller and a 15-year-old named Steve Cooney, who became the first person recorded riding the wave. The footage they shot became part of Morning of the Earth, released in 1972 — and the film set off what surfers still call “the Ulu craze,” pulling travelers from Australia, Hawaii, and California toward a break most had never heard of a year earlier.

By the mid-1970s, Balinese surfers including Ketut Menda, Made Kasim, and Gede Narmada were sharing the lineup with visiting names like Gerry Lopez, Peter McCabe, and Jim Banks, and Uluwatu was a fixture in surf magazines worldwide. It became the first entry in what’s now a near-endless chain of Indonesian reef discoveries that traveling surfers are still chasing today.