---
node: spot_ubud_goa_gajah
type: spot
slug: goa_gajah
destination: dest_ubud
title: "Goa Gajah"
lead: "Goa Gajah is an eleventh-century cave sanctuary carved into a rock face, its entrance framed by a giant demonic head with the doorway in its mouth. Hindu and Buddhist remains sit within a few hundred metres of each other here."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_ubud_goa_gajah.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bali_-_Goa_Gajah_(2022)_-_img_06.jpg"
image_author: "Chainwit."
image_license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

## Overview

Inside is a shallow T-shaped chamber holding a Ganesha and three lingams, blackened by centuries of lamp smoke. The bathing pools in front, with their water-pouring nymphs, were buried until a 1954 excavation; the fountains still run. Down the ravine behind the site are fragments of a Buddhist stupa and rock-cut niches, which is what makes the place unusual — two religions kept their sanctuaries side by side.

## Highlights

Walk down the steps into the ravine, which most visitors skip and which is the cooler, quieter half of the site. The carved face over the cave mouth is best read from a few metres back, where you can see it as a face rather than as ornament. A sarong is required and provided at the entrance; the site is twenty minutes east of Ubud.