Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BATIK AND PERADA
Despite being more common than ikat for everyday and formal wear on Bali and Lombok,
nearly all batik fabric is imported from Java. The batik process involves drawing patterns
on the fabric in dye-resistant wax, then dyeing and re-waxing as necessary to create com-
plex multicoloured designs that look the same on both sides. Screen-printed batik is gener-
ally inferior as the dyes don't penetrate to the reverse side.
A special type of batik called perada is used for ceremonial outfits and ornaments. This is
the gold-painted cloth that you'll see fashioned into temple umbrellas, adorning some sac-
red statues, and worn in the Legong and other traditional dances. The background colour is
nearly always bright green or yellow, sometimes purple, and onto this is painted or stamped
a symbolic design (usually birds or flowers) in either gold-leaf paint or, more commonly
today, a bronze- or gold-coloured pigment.
Pura Bukit Dharma Durga Kutri
Daily 8am-6pm • Donation • Coming from Gianyar, the easiest way to get here is on a bemo bound for Den-
pasar's Batubulan terminal
Kutri , 4km west of Gianyar, is the site of an interesting temple, Pura Bukit Dharma Durga
Kutri . Head up the staircase from the temple's inner courtyard to the top of the hill, where
you'll find the statue of the many-armed goddess Durga slaughtering a bull and brandish-
ing a conch shell, flames, bow and arrow, javelin and shield. Many people believe that the
carving actually depicts Mahendratta , the alter ego of the legendary widow-witch Rangda ,
and that this is her burial place. An unusual way of visiting Kutri is to walk there from the
Yeh Pulu rock carvings east of Ubud (3-5hr), for which you'll need a guide.
The crafts villages
At the village of Blahbatuh , 5km south of Kutri, the main road is lined with bamboo-fur-
niture workshops. Nearby, Bona and Belaga villages also make bamboo furniture, as well
as baskets and other artefacts woven from rattan, palm and alang-alang grass. At Kemenuh ,
7km southwest of Gianyar, the speciality is woodcarving , and there are workshops all along
the road to Goa Gajah, 5km north.
Pura Dalem
Sidan • Daily 8am-6pm; opened on request • Rp50,000 • The temple is 2km east of Gianyar then 1km north up
the main Gianyar-Bangli road and served by bemos between the two towns
The widow-witch Rangda makes an especially gruesome appearance at the Pura Dalem
in Sidan . This temple of the dead, dating from the seventeenth century, drips with grisly
carvings and statues of the terrible Rangda squashing babies, along with depictions of the
punishments that await evildoers in the afterlife - which include having your head sawn off
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