Penelokan is the stretch of the Batur caldera rim where the road from the south first reaches the edge and the view opens across to Mount Batur and Lake Batur. The name is Balinese for a place to look, gaze on or enjoy the view. Administratively it is part of Kedisan village in Kintamani district, Bangli regency, and like Kintamani and Batur villages it sits on the rim at about 1,500 metres above sea level.
What you see from the rim
Across the caldera stands Mount Batur with its fields of black rock, and below it the blue crescent of Lake Batur. The broad lava field from the 1963 eruption is still plain from the Kintamani side of the rim. Some cafes face three mountains in a row rather than the lake, and on a clear day with low cloud you look down on the cloud from above.
Part of the area is protected. The Penelokan nature recreation park (TWA Penelokan) covers 574.27 hectares and is managed by the Bali conservation agency, BKSDA, which also runs the separate park around the volcano. The whole caldera has been part of UNESCO’s Global Geoparks Network since 20 September 2012.
Cafes, buffets and the museum
Jalan Raya Penelokan is lined with cafes, many with photo spots facing the volcano and the lake, and some open before dawn so people can watch the sunrise with a coffee. Along the main road in Penelokan and Kintamani there are also many buffet restaurants aimed at tour buses, with lake views and all-you-can-eat lunches. The Bangli tourism office recommends trying mujair nyat-nyat, a tilapia dish that is a Bangli speciality. Roadside stalls sell Kintamani oranges, jeruk Kintamani, grown in the highlands. If you come on a tour, the guide or driver will almost certainly bring you here for lunch.
The Batur Geopark Museum stands close to the junction where the road from Bangli meets the rim road. Its exhibits cover the Pacific Ring of Fire, the history of Batur’s eruptions and local volcanic rock, with a telescope trained on the mountain; Wikivoyage lists it as open Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm. Kintamani also has a reputation for pushy souvenir hawkers, who tend to approach visitors as soon as they stop to look at the view.
The Kintamani levy
The road through Penelokan has been a levy point for the Kintamani tourist area since 1993. It was first run by a private foundation, Yayasan Bintang Danu, and later taken over by Bangli regency. Wikivoyage lists the foundation’s office on the rim road, near the turning down to the lake, as a tourist information office open daily from 10am to 3:30pm. The current charge is set by regional regulation No. 5 of 2023: Rp 50,000 per foreign visitor, Rp 25,000 per Indonesian visitor and Rp 10,000 for holders of a Bali identity card. It is collected from 8am to 5pm at five points, including in front of the Batur Geopark Museum, on Jalan Raya Sekaan and on Jalan Sekardadi.
In March 2026 a video of a collector stopping a car in Jalan Raya Penelokan and asking Rp 25,000 a head went viral, and the head of the Bangli tourism office confirmed the levy was official. Residents passing through to another regency and people going to a temple to pray are exempt. The same month, the Bangli branch of the hotel association described a downturn in visitors, blaming weaker spending, the levy and swarms of flies around Kintamani that foreign visitors had complained about online.
Planning a stop
Penelokan is about 57 km from Denpasar, roughly 1.5 hours by car, and the road from Ubud climbs steadily until it reaches the rim here. Local bemos, orange vans, run along the rim road between Penelokan and Kintamani for about Rp 10,000. The rim is usually about 15 degrees cooler than the coast, and cloud and drizzle are common, so bring a jacket.
Go as early in the morning as you can, before the cloud gathers; Bangli’s tourism office advises putting the trip off on a rainy or overcast day. Weekends and holidays bring heavy traffic: on 21 March 2026 the junction at the Geopark Batur art market was jammed.
From Penelokan a steep, winding road drops down to Kedisan on the lake shore, and the rim road continues northwest to Pura Ulun Danu Batur. For more, see our guide to Kintamani, things to do in Kintamani and Kintamani tours.
