Exploring the Bali Aga village in Tenganan Bali

Exploring the less touristy parts of Bali always gets me excited and I have been promising to take Barrie out to East Bali for ages.

Sunday morning I quickly rented a Toyota Kijang for 125,000rp from a place on Jl. Dhyana Pura and picked Barrie up outside the Prawita, his hotel on Jl. Legian in Kuta. We were planning an overnight trip and coming along for the ride were Barrie’s wife Candika from Yogyakarta and Barrie’s mum Marj.

Karangasem, the most easterly district of Bali has been a favourite of mine for a while because of its natural beauty and interesting cultural points.

We shot down to Sanur along Bypass Ngurah Rai around 10am and then took the new coastal road out as far as it went which is on the coast parallel to Klungkung. From there you have take surfaces streets out of Klungkung which is slightly inland before swinging back to the coast to carry on further east. Candi Dasa was our first stop for a cup of tea and ‘piddle’ (remember I had 2 ladies along for the ride so that became more of an issue).

Candi Dasa used to have a beach before locals destroyed the reef. Now it has the remnants of a beach and empty guests houses to show for it. Still a beautiful area though.

Backtracking we took the first turnoff to the village of Tenganan, which is a ‘Bali Aga village’ meaning original Balinese village. Barrie was telling me there are a few Bali Aga villages in the highlands including the well known Trunyan by the side of Lake Batur.

The drive out to Tenganan takes about 2 hours from Kuta and the village lies at the top of a road heading straight into the forest. Arriving we found a parking area and a few souvenirs stalls. I had been to Tenganan earlier in the year and my thoughts were ‘interesting long-houses, bit of a tourist trap’. This time I was hoping to learn more about the village’s cultural significance and have Barrie point out some of the unique features.

There was no entrance fee and we strolled into a long compound that stretched quite far back towards the mountain. Cobble streets had long-houses in the center and small dwelling either side with ‘meru’s’, the small thatched structures in between. Barrie said the reason for the tiered design of the village with the cobbled slopes was to let the rain flow in the wet season and provide a flat base for the long-houses.

I saw brickwork of varying ages including walls made of rocks, newer looking but still old red bricks and very old looking mud bricks covered with a mud layer like the Native American ‘ adobe‘ houses in California.

We passed a lady selling engraved bamboo calenders with scenes from the Ramayana.

Tenganan is one of only 3 places in the world that make a ‘double ikat’ (geringsing) cloth. An ikat is a rectangular cloth found throughout Indonesia, the design reflecting the place. Here at Tenganan they use a process whereby the warp and the weft threads are dyed before being woven into the ikat. One sarong can take 5 years to make and is very expensive to buy.

The geringsing is so highly prized that it is thought to ward off evil spirits and certain Balinese ceremonies require it to be worn. Unlike elsewhere in Bali where a cloth has been named after a village where it is produced, Tenganan (full name Tenganan Pergringsingan) was named after the cloth which is made there.

The Bali Aga have probably been around for a couple of thousand years or more and after the Hindu religion spread through Bali from Java in 1343 they sheltered themselves in their villages adhering to traditional ways.

Barrie was expecting people to be doing more traditional things when we visited and was quite upset at the number of tourists shops and motorbikes. “This is exactly what I hate about mass tourism,” he said, “it destroys culture.” Relaying this to one of the locals who was manning a table selling souvenirs Barrie got a very sharp response, the guy telling him that cell phones, motorbikes and electricity are all good and he’s exactly the same as he was before. I think this whole subject is the crux of the problem. Who decides what effect tourism has? Who gets to say how someone should live and whether of not someone else should be given the benefits of the 21st Century? It would be lovely if all the locals were sitting around topless making mud-bricks and playing the gamelan but maybe they don’t wasn’t to after figuring out there’s an easier way of making a buck.

Barrie pointed out that most of the original cobblestone floors are still intact and also the long-houses and dwellings. They seems to be used mostly for shops now with some people living down the little alleys and probably over the next hill in the new house they’ve built with their tourists dollars.

We spent an hour at Tenganan and took off for our next stop Seraya Shores which you will hear about soon. Barrie will explain Tenganan in more detail together with his thoughts on the evolution of the village.

(Photos by Barrie & Nick)