Klungkung Court of Justice - Trek in Sidemen - Besakih Temple

Remarks

• Costing only covers the return fare by car.
• This does not include the services of a guide, meals, and site entrance fees
• For each excursion, a sarong remains indispensable.
• Please consult us in advance if a French or English guide is required.

Klungkung Court of Justice

In a park of this ancient royal capital subsists the Taman Gili, two buildings which remain the last vestiges of a vast palace destroyed by the Dutch in 1908 after the collective suicide of the whole royal family and its Court. The best known among pavilions of the group is not the largest floating in water, but the smallest on the corner, called Kerta Gosa. This bale or palace presents cycles of traditional Balinese paintings over the whole interior surface of its roof structure. Despite the continual patching up and restoration, they constitute a unique island monument. This pavilion was apparently the council chamber where the king and the priests gathered to debate the interests of the kingdom. It later assumed the function of court of justice. The paintings spread over 267 panels are inspired by Mahabharata and moral tales of Indian origin. This iconography would have served to clarify understanding on punishments risked for poor conduct.

The great bale placed in the middle of the pool is the Bale Kambang or floating pavilion. The wooden structure of the building was rebuilt during the 1940’s. The ceiling paintings show scenes of Balinese mythology, particularly scenes from the life of a Buddhist saint, Sutasoma, who showed his force without ever slipping into aggression.
 
The museum closing one side of the site is barely worth the visit. Apart from a single model of the palace which permits understanding the considerable patrimonial losses caused by the Dutch during the wars against the kingdoms of Bali scarcely a century ago.

Trek in Sidemen

The route continues in the Sidemen valley, the most beautiful of Bali, on the slopes of the Mount Agung. On arrival at Sidemen a very leisurely trek in the rice-paddies reiterates and confirms the enchantment of the Bali rural world. However, the beauty emanating from these rice-paddies and gardens should not have us forget that the life of the peasant is frightfully difficult and thankless. No government policy aids the farming world suffering from the devalued price of rice, and unhealthy tendencies with regard to chemical fertiliser.

Halt in a weaving workshop

At the end of the trek, you will visit a small weaving workshop. Here are woven magnificent fabrics, known as songket. Used over a sarong, the songket is characterised by the addition of coloured and gold designs woven into complex pattern suggesting embroideries. This masterpiece in technique provides rare and expensive fabrics. It sometimes takes over a month to create a single item.
 
The sarongs woven at the celebrated village of Sidemen, are made according to the ikat technique which refers to the manner of tinting the thread prior to weaving. They are known as endek. In fact it is a question of tinting the weft threads with zones of varied colour the length of the threads. During weaving the succession of these coloured zones and the imbrications with the warp threads creates the motif.
 
It is an extremely complex activity simply to create coloured zones on threads. However fine sarongs still remain reasonably priced. We sell in town to the profit of the villages around Sideman, in order to maintain this activity. These woven goods are in fact threatened by printed sarongs from China sold at the price of a soda can! But a Balinese would recognise that in a temple you wear either a sarong of quality or what he considered with disdain as worth no more than a floor-washing rag.

Besakih temple

The temple of Besakih is the most important sanctuary on the island. It is a group of numberless temples, destined for the great families of Bali, as well as a collection of main temples dedicated to the Hindu trinity: Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu.
 
We vigorously advise taking a guide for Besakih. Firstly, you will no longer be aggressed by the offer of a guide, once you have already chosen one. Next, a minimum of explanation avoids being handicapped in understanding the complexity of this site which is, for the Balinese the ‘Navel of the World’. It should be noted that contrary to their insistence, the guide is NOT obligatory. There are guides in French and English. It must be admitted that the approach to the temple is somewhat disagreeable. It is also advisable to have brought a sarong in anticipation to avoid the aggressions of the temple merchants. It should be admitted that many of these guides are also students who are struggling to pay their studies. However, when all said and done, this atmosphere of the ‘temple fair’ is hardly worthy of the site’s sacred nature.

Having finally entered into the sanctuary, it is difficult to avoid noticing an impressive flight of stairs climbing to the principal temple. After prayer, in vast groups the Balinese descend the steps they have mounted by side aisles. These Balinese often arrive by truck, there might be as many as 50 piled into the truck skip and it is a moving spectacle during ceremonies to see the rails of the tip-lorry open on all these Balinese splendidly dressed in white and sarong, not to mention the women laden with offerings, advancing towards the main temple. This temple, the Pura Penataran Agung is dedicated to the Hindu trinity indicated by the three thrones on the sanctuary altar. They represent Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. It is not possible to enter the temple, but the ceremony may be viewed by taking the path leading to the left of the immense staircase and peering through the wall (which is not as shocking as might appear). If you have taken a guide, he will lead you a few metres into the sanctuary bordering the places of prayer.
 
This temple alone constitutes one of the elements of a Hindu trinity realised by this temple (Pura Penataran Agung) for Shiva, by the temple Pura Kiduling Kreteg for Brahma (on the right) and finally Pura Batu Madeg for Vishnu (on the left). These three temples reproduce at the most sacred level of the island the structure of the temple of villages with the Pura Puseh temple of origins, the Pura Desa temple of the village, and the Pura Dalem, temple of the dead. The three temples of Besakih are therefore like village temples, but at the scale of the whole island. It is the inhabitants of the entire island that gather there when the major ceremonies take place once every hundred years. These three temples are also cardinal temples, the great Trinity temple representing the Centre, the Kiduling Kreteg, the South, the Batu Madeg the North, then the Gelap for the East and the Ulun Kulkul for the West. Each district of the island is associated with one of these temples.

Around these general temples are added temples for the great family lineages of the island, particularly when one climbs on the right hand-side of the main sanctuary. If your guide has a family temple, ask him to take you there to pray. Learn the very beautiful gestural of prayer, with the flower between the fingers. Even if one is agnostic or atheist, it is very touching. The highest temple, the Pura Gelap, is very strange. Carved out of black lava it possesses a disturbing nature. A staircase framed by a spectacular double rank in the form of a snake-dragon climbs towards the sanctuary. It is often in the clouds, which reinforces all the more its mystic power.