Perang Pandan

When: two days at the end of the fifth month of the Tenganan calendar, usually in June or July; exact dates change every year.

Where: the village of Tenganan Pegringsingan, in the hills about 3 kilometres north of Candidasa in East Bali.

Don’t miss: the short, fierce bouts to the sound of the sacred selonding gamelan, and the more festive second day, when a stage goes up at the central pavilion so everyone can see.

Tenganan is one of the Bali Aga villages, communities that kept pre-Hindu customs when Javanese Hindu culture spread across the island. Its people follow their own customary law and their own calendar, and they believe they were created by Indra, the god of war. Perang Pandan, also called mekare-kare, is their offering to him and to the village ancestors.

The duels are the high point of Usaba Sambah, a month of prayers, sacred dances, offerings and ceremonial food that the village treats as the summit of its ritual year. Earlier in the month the unmarried young women, the daha, sit on great wooden ritual swings that the young men, the teruna, turn by hand.

For the fights, the teruna dress in woven cloth with bare chests. Each man holds a bundle of spiky pandan leaves bound into a club in one hand and a round rattan shield in the other. Pairs face off in front of one of the village’s meeting pavilions, and each bout lasts only moments as the fighters grapple and try to rake the thorns across each other’s skin. Drawing blood is the point: it is a blood offering, or tabuh rah, rather than a contest, and there are no winners or losers. Boys join in from a young age, and every man of the village is expected to take part.

When the fighting ends, the young men dress each other’s wounds and sit down together for megibung, a shared meal eaten from common trays. The village is also the home of geringsing, the rare double-ikat cloth that the fighters and other villagers wear for the ceremonies; you can see it being made in family compounds along the main avenues, and Balinese arts and crafts covers the wider craft traditions of the island.

Tenganan keeps its own twelve-month calendar, and Perang Pandan falls over two days at the end of the fifth month, sasih kelima. That usually lands in June or July, but the dates move from year to year, so check with the village or a guide in Candidasa shortly before you travel. In 2026 the fights were part of the Tenganan Pegringsingan Culture Festival, held from 9 to 11 June. The action usually starts around midday with a ritual procession around the village, and the second day draws the bigger crowd and feels more like a festival.

Fly into Denpasar I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport and head east along the coast road towards Padangbai and Candidasa; Tenganan is about 70 kilometres from Denpasar. The easiest base is Candidasa, from where a taxi or hired driver reaches the village gate in a few minutes; it is also a pleasant walk uphill if you start early. On festival days the lane up to the village fills with cars and scooters, so arrive well before midday to find space and a spot near the platform.

• Visitors are welcome to watch; leave a donation at the counter to the right of the village entrance.
• Wear a sarong and sash, as you would at any Balinese ceremony, and keep shoulders covered.
• Stand back from the fighting platform. The bouts are fast and the thorny clubs swing wide, so don’t crowd the edge for photos.
• Bring water and a hat: the fights run through the hottest part of the day and shade around the platform is limited.
• Take time to look at the geringsing and other textiles being made in the village; a local guide explains a great deal about Tenganan’s customs and the meaning of the rituals.