GUNUNG KAWI
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Impressive royal tombs at Tampaksiring, the most beautiful and oldest large-scale Balinese monument.
South of Tampaksiring, a road takes you to the site of Gunung Kawi, which houses impressive royal tombs dating back to the 11th century. You reach a steep staircase that descends under a stone arch and allows you to embrace the whole valley. The rice fields are magnificent and slip into the light, sometimes colliding with clumps of coconut trees and hamlets that seem isolated. Gunung Kawi remains without doubt the most beautiful and the oldest Balinese monument of scale. It has a total of ten mausoleums carved in the rock and in niches 7 m high. Five of them are on the east bank and four on the west bank. The last one is about one kilometre to the south. A bridge leads from one to the other. The mausoleums are completed by monks' cells, which are accessed by a labyrinthine path. It is not known whether these candi are royal tombs or monuments erected in memory of the 11th century rulers and their wives. The Balinese always speak of royal tombs. It is also said that the mausoleums erected would be tributes to the wives of King Anak Wungsu who would have thrown themselves into the pyre and thus have performed the sacrifice of the "satia". A path runs through the rice fields to reach the tenth mausoleum called "Griya Pedanda", or "Pedanda Brahmin house". The site was discovered in 1920 and to reach it you have to climb more than 200 steps to discover the beauty of the place. A climb that is really worth it.
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