Things To Do in Klungkung

Exploring Klungkung & the Nearby Villages

Villagers from the nearby hills head to the city's market every 3 days, and make it a huge social event. The sprawling Klungkung Market has hundreds of traditional stalls selling hand-woven fabrics from nearby villages, religious paraphernalia, including the long handled Balinese ceremonial umbrellas, and lots of glittering mirrored items for the home or family shrines. A couple of stalls sell artifacts and some antiques. Be sure to haggle.

For more shopping, the main street has three antiques shops that occasionally have old textiles worth a peek. Other curiosities are mixed together with real antiques and always worth a rummage. As ever, beware of sophisticated copies.

Tihingan -- Located 3km (2 miles) west from Klungkung, this village is a center for gamelan makers and other traditional musical instruments. The process requires strong workers and specialist pitchers to ensure the right tone is achieved. The quality gongs from Tihingan have a global renown. A few showrooms on the main street have tradesmen at work, typically out first thing in the morning when it is cool. Though some of the showrooms will sell you gamelans, expect to pay a few million rupiah.

Kusamba -- A small side road off the main Klungkung road will take you to the fishing and salt-making village of Kusamba, where the beach is lined with colorful fishing boats, salt-making huts, and rows of shallow troughs. The work of raking and sprinkling the sand with water before the filtration process starts before dawn. Seawater is carried from the ocean and poured into specially dug ponds. Once the water has evaporated, the salty residue is placed in shallow troughs, made from split palm trees, and more seawater is added. Further evaporation and purification yields fully formed, pyramid-shaped salt crystals. Some chefs consider Balinese salt to be some of the finest in the world. Buy some to help support the hard-working farmers and their families.