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Bali Trekking Tours
Po.Box.1006.Kintamani.Bali
Telp/fax : +62(366)51378
24 hrs : +62 (81)338459739
Email : booking@pinehbalitours.com
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| TRUNYAN - OVERVIEW |
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Bali's best-known Bali Aga village (pop. 600) nestles under
a precipitous crater wall on the eastern shore of Lake Batur.
You can walk to Trunyan from Buahan or travel by boat across
the lake from Toya Bungkah, taking a motorized boat or canoe
from Kedisan. Boats seating seven people leave when full from
Kedisan's pier and cost Rp5100 per person; charter boats cost
Rp36,000-43,000 for a maximum of seven people.
The Bali Aga are the island's oldest inhabitants, aboriginals
who lived here long before the Majapahit invasion in the 14th
century. The first direct evidence of Indic influence on Bali
dates from an early copper plate, inscribed A.D. 882-914, referring
to the founding of a temple to Batara Da Tonta in Trunyan. His
title, Batara, indicates that the Bali Aga's most important
ancestor figure was incorporated into the Hindu religion.
Legend has it the village was established on the spot where
an ancient taru menyan tree stood-thus the town's name. It is
said that in ancient times the lake goddess Dewi Danu was lured
down from heaven by the lovely scent of this tree. The taru
menyan is the lair of underworld spirits distracted only by
corpses, which may explain the people's practice of neither
burying nor cremating the dead.
Today Trunyan is a real tourist trap, and you may not get to
experience much more than villagers clamoring for money. Still,
the setting is spectacular-green mountain backdrop and deep
blue lake, mist-shrouded Gunung Batur rising up dramatically
on the other side. A path from Trunyan zigzags up the inside
face of the crater wall on the southeast slope of Gunung Abang.
Culturally and ethnically outside the mainstream, Trunyan provides
evidence of how Bali's earliest people lived. The inbred inhabitants
are mostly fishermen, their harsh expressions mirroring a harsh
life. Women wearing warm red kain pound padi in giant stone
mortars. Although they plant cabbage, onions, and corn in plots
near the lakeshore, the Bali Aga have no rice fields. Since
ancient times they've relied on begging to supplement their
meager diet. Much of the village-houses, walls, alleyways-has
been cut crudely out of volcanic rock. Without trees and gardens,
their homes present a bleak impression, unlike any other village
on Bali. Modern Indonesia is now making heavy inroads, with
the construction of new brick, concrete, and zinc-roofed buildings.
Except for a massive 1,100-year-old milkwood tree in the center
of the village, there's little sense any longer of Trunyan being
an old village. The few traditional architectural oddities include
special boys' and girls' clubhouses (bale truna and bale daha),
a pavilion where married women meet (bale loh), and a great
wooden ferris wheel put in motion during ceremonial occasions.
The giant contraption is revolved by foot power. Trunyan's bale
agung, where married men sit in council, is one of the largest
traditional buildings on Bali.
In contrast to the Bali Aga village of Tengenan with its numerous
craftspeople, old interesting buildings, and streets where you
are free to stroll and look, visitors to Trunyan are not made
to feel welcome. Except for the temple, which seems to take
up half the village, you don't really see the ancient ways of
the Bali Aga, and there are a lot of hustlers around. A guide
will attach himself to you and expect a fee of at least Rp5000.
Most visitors just get out of the boat, pay Rp5000 for stepping
ashore, go up to a temple (also Rp5000) which Westerners are
not allowed to enter, then march right back down to the boat
again for a trip to the cemetery (another Rp5000) in Kuburan
which is around a rocky point a little north of Trunyan and
only accessible by boat. |
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