Trunyan Traditional Village

Trunyan Traditional Village located from Kedisan, on the shores of Lake Batu, a prahu takes you across the lake to Trunyan, hemmed in by the towering crater wall. A path down the rim of the crater also leads there. Cut off and relatively inaccessible, Trunyan is technically and culturally outside the Balinese mainstream. The inhabitants-who call themselves the BaliAga, or the "original Balinese"-to this day retain a social order aligned with prehistoric traditions. Cremation is not practiced here. On the lakeside, not far from the village, lies a simple fenced-off area where the dead are placed and allowed to disintegrate by natural process. Secretive and protective about the customs exclusive to their community, the people keep hidden Bali's largest statue 4 meters high, that of Ratu Gede Pancering Jagat, the patron guardian of the village. From the village of Songan, past Kedisan, there is a long but interesting walk back to Kintamani

This ancient village is inhabited by people who call themselves "Bali Aga" or original Balinese who have maintained many of their old ways.

Of the lake villages, Trunyan is surely the most famous, and becoming notorious as a place not to visit after all. The village is virtually inaccessible except by boat, and on arrival the villagers will wade out to meet you and clamor for money. In Trunyan, it’s okay to beg, yet the properous residents have re-built their houses in modern materials (cement block and zinc). Traditional architecture is rare.

Still, the place is interesting to some. In the Pura Gede Pancering Jagat is a unique, four-meter guardian statue, Da Tonte or Ratu Gede Pancering Jagat, but it is stored out of view in a closed meru. The people of Trunyan do not cremate their dead, but place them exposed under a sacred tree by the lakeshore that has the remarkable property of preventing the decomposing corpses from smelling. Tourists are aggressively solicited to visit the graveyard and see for themselves. This is further down from the village itself and you may ask to skip Trunyan and go directly to the gravesite or kuburan.