November 5, 2026
Finally getting to see – the gigantic Hindu-god-riding-bird statue in Bali!
This year’s anarchic SAS has been duly covered. “But what about tourism?” you might ask. To which I’ll reply: we found time for that too!…
At long last I got to see up close one of the biggest statues in the world with my own eyes – Garuda Wisnu Kencana, which depicts the Hindu god Vishnu riding the sacred bird Garuda.
Here’s what the sculpture looks like from the beach:
// By the way, we flew around this monument by helicopter back in 2024, on our trip to the Ijen volcano on the neighboring island of Java.
A while later we found ourselves in the park that surrounds the statue:
Woah: it’s one seriously enormous structure!…
Around it (in the park) are several smaller installations:
And here’s another Garuda bird:
Keeping a watchful eye on us! ->:
And these must be her eggs:
The park around the main sculpture is far from ordinary. It’s a maze of plazas, roads, and passageways carved out of volcanic rock:
It was time to head closer to the main attraction:
It’s massive, all right.
Zooming in a little – Vishnu riding Garuda:
From the outside, it’s quite a sight.
Inside, though, it’s rather modest. There’s a museum about how it was built, plus some activities related to the construction (but, how interesting is that for the average tourist? Not very, surely). And there are limited views of the world outside through openings like these, cut into the body of the structure:
A section of the sculpture’s face is in there too. And that was it! Well, well :)
Alas, that was it for Bali, too. A little later it was time to say goodbye to our hotel:
By the way, I wouldn’t rule out our choosing this very location – and the very same hotel – for our events again in the future. Both were truly wonderful.
And so it was farewell to the beach views with fishing boats and the statue of Garuda and Vishnu on the horizon:
And where to this time?…
Bye-bye, Indonesian volcanoes – see you again probably next year!…
