The Batur Volcano museum is located in Kintamani District of Bangli Regency in Bali. This is the first volcanic museum in Indonesia. The museum explains huge varieties of information from the history, process, material, studies and many more including Balinese religious perspective towards volcano. Indonesia has more than 500 volcanoes which 129 among them are categorized as active.
Since this museum was built in 2007, not so many people visit this museum in Bali. The front appearance of the building is also more likely to be a market or ordinary building. However, the facilities inside are very interesting and informative. You can find diorama, map, samples of volcanic eruption material, several tools used to detect upcoming eruption, pictures, audio-visual media, computer-based interface, a big theater playing movies about volcanic eruption, and many others.
At the first floor, you will find a big diorama showing the relation of volcanos worldwide. There is also a diagram of how traditional and modern way of early warning system is conducted in the past. When you see the beautiful view in Penelokan, you will feel amazed by the beauty of the wide lake there. In the museum you will understand that the lake was the caldera of the Batur Volcano several thousand years ago. It means that the lake was the basement of the volcano which was very wide, and it can be imagined how high the Batur Volcano was in the prehistoric times. At the second floor, you can see an explanation of how volcanic rock is carved by Balinese people as one of the artistic pride of Bali. A Geopark showing Batur environment and cultural reservation is also exhibited there. Another facility in the second floor is a movie theater with the capacity of more than 100 people inside. An auditorium is also available in the second floor which is usually used by local government or other company. The third floor is specialized as the monitoring and research station towards the activity of the Batur Volcano since it is still active. In this floor, a telescope equipped with aerial photograph is available.
Local citizen are well aware of the might of Batur Volcano based on religious and scientific perspective. Therefore, when a sign of eruption is appear, local citizen will conduct a ceremony that related to this event. Even without modern early warning system, local citizen can notice the signs of eruption trough the changing act of animals and nature condition. And this museum explains all details of the phenomena.
