Bajra Sandhi Monument

This guide to the Bajra Sandhi Monument in Bali starts with the seventeen gates ringing the site and unpacks the numbers built into its 1980s design by architect Ida Bagus Gede Yadnya, commissioned by governor Ida Bagus Mantra to hold the whole story of the Balinese people. You'll hear why construction dragged for roughly two decades before its 2003 inauguration, and about the thirty-three dioramas inside tracing Bali's history from its earliest settlers through Dutch colonization, including the 1906 puputan badung. Look up at the gates again once you know what they spell out.