Petulu Village is Balinese serenity at its best. Around a 15 minute drive north of the popular central town of Ubud, it is a great place to witness village life just how the locals have been doing it for centuries. The scenery has a myriad of green foliage and is boundless with rice fields and forest as far as the eye can see. But what is really unique about this location and has the tourists flocking here is the not the just the panoramic spectacular, but also the birds.
Petulu is home to the Kokokan birds, more commonly known at the White Heron. There aren’t just a few of them flying around, there are thousands of these creatures that call the abundance of trees in the village home. Everything that happens in Petulu Village will occur beneath the wings of these birds, they are a part of life here and the locals would not have it any other way. The White Heron has a particularly important significance to the people who reside in the village. In 1965 Petulu, among other villages, suffered through communist genocide and after the many souls were lost, the Herons started to visit the area every night. They fly in from all over Bali and the locals still to this day believe that each bird represents someone lost during the massacre.
Birds seem to have some kind of spiritual significance in this part of the world. Cock fighting is another pass time that the local men of Petulu Village participate in, and of course with a fight comes the gambling. The followers of the Hindu religion believe that the blood shed by the losing cockerel is a sacrifice to the gods that protect the people from the evil spirits.
Driving around this area as the sunsets over the horizon is definitely when you will see it at its best, the atmosphere and the flocks of birds flitting about will overwhelm first time visitors. To see Petulu at is most spectacular, we suggest you head there between October and March as this is when the Heron population is at its peak.
