Culture · before you go in
Bali temple etiquette: sarong, sash, and what your driver will tell you
The SAS Bali Tour team
Published Sep 2026
4 min read
Short answer
Sarong, sash and covered shoulders at every temple — borrowed at the gate or from the spare in our car. Don't climb on anything, walk around the offerings, stay at the back during a ceremony. Menstruating women are asked to wait outside the inner courtyard.
What to wear
Every Balinese temple asks the same three things: a sarong (a cloth wrapped from the waist to the ankles), a sash tied at the waist, and covered shoulders. Shorts under the sarong are fine. Most big temples — Uluwatu, Tanah Lot, Tirta Empul, Besakih, Lempuyang — lend or rent sarongs at the gate, sometimes included in the ticket. Our cars carry spares so you never have to buy one from the stall outside.
The rules that matter
- Don't climb on shrines or walls for a photo, even the small ones. It is the single thing that upsets locals most.
- Menstruating women are asked not to enter the inner courtyard. It's a rule about ritual purity, not about you; nobody checks, and nobody will be offended if you wait outside — your driver can suggest what to do with the time.
- Don't walk in front of people praying or step on offerings (the little palm-leaf baskets on the ground). Walk around them.
- Keep your head lower than the priest's during a ceremony — in practice, stay seated or at the back.
- Drones need permission almost everywhere and are banned at most temples.
When a temple is closed for a ceremony
It happens, especially around Galungan, Kuningan and the full moon, and it is not something to be disappointed about: an odalan (temple anniversary) is the most beautiful thing you can see in Bali. Stand at the back in your sarong, watch, don't use flash. Your driver will know if a temple on the route has a ceremony that day and will tell you whether you can go in or should visit another.
Tirta Empul: bathing or watching?
At the holy springs you can take part in the melukat purification — change into the green bathing sarong at the lockers, move along the spouts from left to right, skip the two reserved for the dead — or simply watch from the courtyard. Both are fine. Go early: by ten there is a queue at every spout.
Uluwatu: the monkeys are the etiquette problem
The cliff temple has a troop of long-tailed macaques that steal sunglasses, phones and flip-flops and then trade them back for fruit. Put glasses away before the gate, keep food out of sight, and don't try to pet them. The kecak dance at sunset is a performance, not a ceremony — normal clothes are fine there.
Photographs
Photographing the temple is fine. Photographing people praying, from a respectful distance and without flash, is generally accepted. Posing in the doorway of the inner shrine, or sitting on a wall for the shot, is not. At Lempuyang the famous "gates of heaven" photo is taken by a local with your phone and a mirror — expect a long queue and a small fee.
What your driver will tell you
Where the sarongs are, which courtyard is open to visitors, when to take shoes off (rarely, outside Bali; sometimes at a Buddhist site like Brahmavihara), and when to just watch. If you are unsure, copy the Balinese around you.
Questions people ask us
Do I need to buy a sarong?
No. Most temples lend or rent one, and our cars carry spares. Buy one only if you like it as a souvenir.
Can non-Hindus enter Balinese temples?
Yes, the outer and middle courtyards of the big temples are open to visitors in the right clothes. The innermost courtyard is usually for worshippers only.
What about children?
Children wear a sarong too — a small one is usually available. They are welcome; nobody minds a little noise in the outer courtyards.
Where to go from here
These are the pages we'd send someone who asked this question.