Subak Museum

Tabanan is often called Bali’s rice bowl, and this small museum on the edge of Tabanan town is devoted to subak, the cooperative system by which Balinese farmers share water from springs, rivers and canals among their terraces. Each subak is both an irrigation society and a religious community: water is divided through a chain of weirs, tunnels and channels, and its flow is governed by rituals at water temples, from small shrines in the fields up to the great lake temples in the mountains. In 2012 UNESCO listed the subak system as part of the Cultural Landscape of Bali Province World Heritage site, which includes the terraces of Jatiluwih and the royal temple of Pura Taman Ayun.

The main exhibition hall follows the agricultural year, with life-size figures of farmers and water buffalo, traditional farming tools, models of dams and water dividers, and lontar palm-leaf manuscripts setting out how a subak should be organised. Images of Dewi Sri, the rice goddess, recall the offerings that accompany each stage from planting to harvest. Staff are often happy to walk visitors through the displays.

It makes a useful stop before seeing the terraces themselves, and lies on the way from the south coast to Jatiluwih and Pura Luhur Batukaru.