Ubud Bali

The Top 7 Sights to See Around Ubud Bali

Ubud Bali is an idyllic village in the heart of Bali. Once you stay here a couple of days you wish you could stay for weeks and then for months. There are so many things to do ranging from attending the gracious legong dance at Ubud palace or by following a course in Balinese painting or to go on a bird watching tour with an eccentric Englishman in the rice paddies.

But that's not all. When you're in Ubud you have to travel around a bit to really appreciate the surroundings which make Ubud without a doubt the cultural capital of Bali. Here are our top 7 sights to see around Ubud Bali.

1. Just northwest of Ubud you find on the outskirts of Bedulu an amazing temple sight called 'Goa Gajah', which means Elephant Cave. It was discovered by Dutch archeologists in 1923 after they heard locals describe a cave with a monstrous elephant head. The head turned out to represent a demon and not an elephant.

Two decades later in 1954 a bathing pool and fountains were discovered just in front of the cave. Today the bathing pool has been renovated into a section for men and one for woman where nymph statues are holding jugs which spew water into the pool.

2. Just around the corner of Goa Gajah, a 300m long walk through ricefields you find another ancient sight called 'Yeh Puluh', where yeh means 'holy spring' and pulu means 'stone vessel'. Here you find 25-metre long series of rock-cut panels said to originate from the fourteenth of fifteenth century.

Historians believe that the rock-cut panels tell a five-part story and while a lot of it has been lost you can still see some terrific statues of the Hindu god Khrishna and scenes depicting daily Balinese life such as a man carrying river water on a shoulder pole following a higher caste woman wearing jewelry.

3. The tiny village of Pejeng lies on the Bedulu-Tampaksiring road and has been inhabited since the Bronze Age and is considered a sacred site to the Balinese. At their Penataran Sasih temple you can find the Moon of Pejeng which is the biggest and oldest kettle drum ever cast believed to date from the third century BC. This bronze gong is almost two meter long and situated high in the tower at the back of the temple compound.

4. Continuing on the road to Tampaksiring you find the amazing setting of 'Gunung Kawi', ten royal tombs carved out in rocks set amidst its rice paddies, palm trees and the river Pakrisan. The ten tombs were built in the 11th century and are surprisingly well maintained considering the tropical weather conditions.

The story goes that the five tombs across the river are dedicated to King Udayana, his queen Mahendradatta, their oldest son Airlangga (who ruled Eastern Java) and their youngest son Anak Wungsu who ruled Bali from 1050 to 1077 AC and brother Marakata.

5. Just north of Gunung Kawi you find the impressive temple sight of Tirta Empul. 'Tirta' is derived from the Sanskrit word 'amrita' meaning 'nectar of life' and this is Bali's most sacred bathing place. The Balinese believe that the source provides holy water with magical powers.

Brahman priests from all over Bali come here to collect the holy water they use for offerings and purification ceremonies.

There is a bathing area for women and men but as a foreigner it is not allowed to take a dip here since the place is too sacred for the Balinese. Nonetheless you can stroll around the temple complex and see the Balinese taking a bath.

6. On the road from Ubud to Tabenan you find the impressive 'Margarana memorial' in Marga, built in honor to those fallen against the Dutch in 1949. Here several Balinese warriors under leadership of Gusti Ngurah Rai fought a bloody battle ending in a puputan, which means a fight to deaths even with suicide instead of the prospect of ending up as a prisoner of the colonial Dutch.

The 17 m high Margaran Memorial was built in 1954 and has eight roofs in Javanese style, symbolising the unity of those fallen warriors.

7. On the road from Ubud to Lovina you run into the stunning temple complex of 'Taman Ayun' in Mengwi village and is one of Bali's most beautiful temples because it looks like it is set on an island. Taman Ayun means 'beautiful flower garden' so you can imagine that it must be beautiful.

The temple was built in 1634 during the powerful Mengwi Kingdom and here the rajas (kings) and high priests conducted offerings in order to maintain the balance between the 'creator' and the 'destroyer'.

The temple consists of several courtyards but as a visitor you are only allowed to enter the first two courtyards and peek over the wall to see the other courtyard.

As you can see the area of Ubud Bali has some amazing travel sights to visit and is definitely something which should not be missed while staying at this idyllic village.