Bali Botanical Garden
When Bali Finally Goes Quiet
The first time I visited Bali Botanical Garden, I rented a bicycle with my cousin and we simply started riding. There was no particular programme, no temple to reach before sunset, no viewpoint waiting to be photographed and no list of things we absolutely had to see. We followed the roads through the park, stopped whenever something caught our attention and slowly discovered a completely different version of Bali. A quieter one.
After spending too much time breathing behind scooters in the traffic of southern Bali, an afternoon here feels almost medicinal. The air is cooler, the roads open up and everywhere around you is vegetation — immense trees, lawns, flowers, ferns and plants that seem to enjoy the mountain climate considerably more than I enjoy sitting in a traffic jam.
At certain points, the landscape suddenly opens and reminds you how high into the island you have climbed. The garden sits around 1,200 to 1,450 metres above sea level in the Bedugul highlands, surrounded by forested mountains, with views that can stretch towards Lake Beratan. It is peaceful without being precious, cultivated without feeling artificial and large enough to let you disappear for a while. And it is much more than a beautiful park.
Officially called Kebun Raya “Eka Karya” Bali, the garden opened on 15 July 1959. Its name carries a particularly meaningful piece of Indonesian history: Eka means “one” and Karya means “work” or “creation”. It was chosen to mark the garden as the first botanical garden created by Indonesians themselves after independence. Originally established across roughly 50 hectares, it has since expanded to around 157 hectares and is dedicated to the conservation of tropical mountain plants, particularly species originating from eastern Indonesia.
Today, its living collection numbers more than 23,000 specimens representing over 2,400 species. There are collections devoted to orchids, rhododendrons, begonias, cacti, bamboo and gymnosperms, while the Cyathea Garden alone was recorded as containing more than 200 species of ferns. You do not need to know the Latin names (I certainly don’t) to understand that you are moving through something rather extraordinary. And perhaps that is precisely how I prefer to experience it.
Bali encourages visitors to keep moving towards the next supposedly unmissable thing: another temple, another waterfall, another rice terrace, another sunrise requiring an alarm clock at an indecent hour. The Botanical Garden asks almost nothing of you. Walk. Ride. Sit under a tree. Look around. Give it an afternoon.
The extraordinary thing here is not a single monument or viewpoint. It is the accumulation of green, cool air, silence and space; all those things that can begin to feel remarkably luxurious after too much time in the busier parts of the island. There are certainly more dramatic ways to spend a day in Bali. Few are as good at clearing your head.
The Address
Bali Botanical Garden — Kebun Raya “Eka Karya” Bali
Jl. Kebun Raya
Candikuning, Baturiti
Tabanan, Bali 82191
Indonesia
Price
$ — Very affordable
Currently around IDR 15.5K on weekdays / IDR 25.5K on weekends and public holidays.
Go for
Cool mountain air, extraordinary vegetation, long walks and a side of Bali that feels wonderfully removed from the traffic of the south.
Take with you
Comfortable shoes and something light to wear if the weather turns cool or wet. Bedugul has its own climate and occasionally likes to remind you of it.
Also Nearby
The Lost Café
A Reason to Take the Long Road. A small roadside café worth stopping for before or after the garden, with homemade food, pastries and Ibu Kadek’s excellent jams.
Recommendation
Give the garden at least half a day rather than squeezing it between other Bedugul attractions. I explored it by bicycle on my first visit and loved the freedom of moving through such a vast landscape that way. If bicycles are available when you visit, that would still be my choice, otherwise, simply walk and allow yourself to get pleasantly lost.
