Blimbingsari Village

The influence of Balinese Hindus in Blimbingsari are applied to several more activities, including Christmas tradition, naming hierarchy, and religious rituals. One of the most unique activity is the churches’ rituals, where the villagers of Blimbingsari wear ceremonial clothes native to Hindu temples while listening to their sermons, while the priests’ liturgies are accompanied with Bali’s gamelan music. This unique assimilation continues to draw visitors from all around the world that are considerably curious about the village’s culture. Originally, the church wasn’t made to look like a temple, until an earthquake destroyed the original building in 1971. After that, the church was rebuilt and remodeled to look like a Balinese temple, earning the nickname “Pura Gereja” or The Temple of Church, and gaining recognition from the World Church Council as one of the most unique churches of the world. This church is now the center point of Blimbingsari Village, which could be easily mistaken for a Hindu temple if not for the signboard and a few crosses on the roof. Today, the Belimbingsari community stands stronger than ever, with significant progresses in several categories, including sanitation, security, economy, and population growth - it even won the national Community Based Tourism Award for the best community-based tourism village in 2017. The village welcomes anybody with open arms, and is already quite popular among local and foreign tourists, and anybody who's been there will tell you the same thing; you haven't been to Bali if you haven't been to Belimbingsari.