Bali's oldest trees are fig giants kept by temples and villages, spread across the island rather than in one town. Nearest to Ubud is the banyan at Pura Kehen in Bangli, with a drum tower built into its crown. The Kayu Putih tree near Marga is about six metres across at the base, and in the Bedugul highlands the Bali Botanic Garden keeps a fig of eight twisted trunks. In the west a road runs through the base of Bunut Bolong. None has a measured age, so the ages given are local estimates, stated as such.
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Indian Banyan (Ficus benghalensis) · 400 years · Cempaga, Bangli
A wooden drum tower sits in the crown of this banyan, and it was built without stairs. The priest who sounded it reached it through the roots. The tower is a bale kulkul, the slit-drum pavilion a Balinese temple beats to call people in, and here a living tree holds it up. Higher still in the branches sits a monk's cell.
The banyan stands in the outer courtyard of Pura Kehen in Bangli, just past the entrance gate, and the town treats it as sacred. Local belief says a falling branch foretells disaster, which they call grubug, so a broken limb here is read as a warning, not as weather.
How old it is depends on whom you ask. Wikipedia says at least 400 years; the other accounts we found say only centuries old, and nobody has dated the trunk. Take 400 as the one number on offer, not a measurement. The most recent travel and local news pages still describe it standing, but we have no dated photograph, so if you have been lately, tell us.
Our pin marks the temple rather than the tree. Pura Kehen is about 25 km from Ubud, roughly 45 minutes by car or scooter through Bangli town; there is no bus worth waiting for. Expect a small donation at the gate and a sarong to wear inside.
Fig (Ficus sp.) · 500-700 years · Tua, Marga, Tabanan
Nobody can say for certain what kind of tree this is, and its base is about six metres across. Villagers call it kayu putih, white wood, for the pale trunk, or beringin; an article from Indonesia's Ministry of Finance says plainly that the species is not known with certainty. We list it as a fig and would like to be told.
What you see is the root system. Pale buttresses flare out and fold into a sculpted base with a small window straight through the trunk. People have long taken its bark for traditional medicine, and the shrine beside it, Pura Babakan, is named for that bark.
The age is a local estimate either way. The ministry article says more than 500 years. The temple caretakers say about 700, tying it to the age of the village and calling the tree older than Pura Babakan, which they date to the 15th century. Nobody has dated the wood.
Local lore says a gamelan and weapons were buried beneath it in the days of the kingdom, and a neighbour says he has heard gamelan music coming from the tree. It went viral in 2013.
It stands behind Pura Babakan in Banjar Bayan, Tua village, about an hour north-west of Ubud by car or scooter, on the way to Jatiluwih. There is no bus. Entry is a donation written in a visitors' book plus a small parking fee, and you need no sarong to walk round the outside.
Fig (Ficus sp.) · centuries old · Manggisari, Pekutatan, Jembrana
A paved road runs straight through the base of this tree. The hole is nearly four metres wide, and cars drive through a living fig on the road between Pekutatan and Singaraja in west Bali.
Locals call it Bunut Bolong, the hollow bunut, bunut being their name for a banyan-type fig, and also Gelung Kori Agung, the crown of a grand door. The tree stands on a narrow mountain ridge. When the road was cut, the roots were cut with it, but only after ceremonies asking the tree's resident spirits for permission. They are said to be two holy tigers. Prop roots have kept the tree alive since, and it is still widening.
How the hole got there is disputed. One account says it is natural; another says Dutch colonial labourers widened it. Its age is no clearer. The province's tourism page says locals believe it is centuries old, and nobody gives a number. Nor has anyone put a scientific name to it on a page we could read. If you know either, tell us.
The tree still keeps its own traffic rules. By local custom, cremation processions, wedding parties and hearses do not pass through the hole, and take the bypass road round it instead. The neighbouring temple, Pura Bhujangga Sakti, honours the priest Dang Hyang Sidhi Mantra.
It is free and beside a public road, about two hours by car from Kuta and roughly three from Ubud. Treat it as a stop on the drive to Singaraja.
Fig (Ficus sp.) · 100 years · Candikuning, Bedugul, Tabanan
Eight trunks leave the ground here and twist into a single tree. It is the giant fig of the Bali Botanic Garden, one of the most photographed trees in the garden, and it was here before the garden was.
The garden opened in 1959. Its own page calls the fig more than 100 years old and one of the oldest plants it holds, which puts the tree on this hillside decades before anyone laid out a path to it. How much older is guesswork. A travel writer suggests hundreds of years, and a visitor who logged it in 2013 noted it was believed to be hundreds, but nobody has dated it. The garden's figure is a floor, not a birthday.
The species is open too. Naturalists' records at this spot name it variously as Ficus virens, Ficus altissima or simply Ficus, so we list it as a fig and would welcome a firm answer.
It stands high on the upper slope, which the garden calls the Rasamala Forest and other accounts place on Tapak Hill, with views toward Lake Bratan. Visitors have recorded it standing as recently as October 2026.
The garden sits in the Bedugul highlands, about 50 km north-west of Ubud, roughly an hour by car or scooter; there is no bus worth the name. Entry is a ticket, quoted between about 17,000 and 30,000 rupiah, and the garden keeps daytime hours. Expect an uphill walk once inside.
Fig (Ficus sp.) · Gesing, Banjar, Buleleng
The roots of this banyan form a maze large enough to walk among, and one account says they once hid villagers from the Dutch. It stands outside Gesing, a village in the north Bali highlands south of Munduk, and the community keeps it as a sacred place. A spirit living in it is said to grant wishes.
Most of what is written about it comes from travel pages that repeat one another, so read every fact here as told rather than checked. Tradition puts the tree at over 700 years. Nobody has dated it, and the same figure is told of the Kayu Putih tree near Marga, so it may have travelled between the two. One page concedes it holds no records for size.
We have no recent dated photograph, and our pin is approximate. Maps show one banyan here and another about 290 metres along the same road, which may be a second tree or the same one marked twice. We found no clear word on entry, fees or hours either, beyond one visitor's complaint about parking touts. If you have stood under it, tell us where it is and what you found there.
A short track leads to it from Gesing, signposted in the village, off Jalan Pura Puseh. Munduk is about 5 km away, 5 to 15 minutes by car depending on the source, and Ubud roughly an hour and a half. There is no bus; trekkers walk it from Munduk in about an hour.