Jalan-Jalan

Nearly every day I find some excuse to walk the 4+kilometers in to Ubud; and every day I answer the question "Transport??" with "Walking."
"Oh, jalan-jalan."
Not sure why the repetition, Hati-Hati is attention. And jalan-jalan definitely requires a lot of hati-hati to avoid screaming scooters and roaming dogs.

I thought you might like a look at some people and things I have encountered on my walks.

Could he want to preserve his smooth skin?

Stained glass bicycle wheels?

Mom's everywhere schlep kids to school.
Not always with 4ft offerings though.

Mega offerings for a mega ceremony.

The canal walls are trimmed regularly
and the greenery is packed up for the livestock.

Never know when you'll run into a Rangda.

Tilling the field the 'modern way' with a 2-stroke rather than a cow.
The egrets are ready to gobble anything that gets
turned up, including: worms, frogs, snakes, rats and eels,

Protecting the palace during
preparations for the Royal cremation.

Nothing like an ice cream after a big ceremony!

Prepping for the mass cremation on the 22nd. 

No idea! How did this car even get on this island!

 Although Balinese are not Buddhists, they believe in giving 'em what they want.

Dogs ride free.

There are carts for every kind of food, but this
is the first ever coffee cart in trend-setting Ubud.

No worries honey, I'll pick up a chicken for dinner.

4pm is the start of bath time.

Some gestures need no translation.

No Trevi Fountain this

These boys are hiding a sign that says 

"Don't throw coins in the sacred lake Tirta Empul". 

This sign says: don't leave your clothes here while you bathe. There are multiple pipes pouring water into two segregated pools for ritual bathing. In this case, fully clothed people cleanse themselves before entering the inner temple. Non-ritual, completely nude bathing occurs daily in creeks and rice field runoff within full view of locals and tourists alike. The Balinese feel they are invisible when 
bathing naked.

Indra shot an arrow into the earth to foil a demon's plot to poison the gods. The result was Tirta Empul and the gods were brought back to life. Legend has it that the waters keep mere mortals young as well. What's a girl to do but participate in the purification prayers and get sprinkled with some of this holy water? I was adopted by three generations of women as we all knelt towards the sacred pool and prayed. By the time they had coached me through five rounds of mantras holding up a different colored flower petal in our praying hands, I was seriously praying for relief from the rough stones imbedding themselves in my knees.

After offering the flower petals to the gods, they are either put behind your ear,
or when you run out of room there, on the ground.

Let me start a little earlier, this is the same auspicious Dead Moon day as the visit to Gunung Kawi, so I don't think I was too surprised to run in to a grand ceremony.

Some of the hundreds of extravagant offerings, and of course...the band!

The Barong and the Rangdas (here the white one) 

are always honored guests at any important ceremony.

Sometimes it takes a priest to rouse a Barong toter out of his trance. This fellow needed more than a few doses of holy water.

Before all that praying though, the gods needed to be welcomed to the party 

and I caught a few of the dancers before their big performance.

Young boys before the dance.

Young girls before the dance.

And a beautiful performance it was too. The pre-pubescent girls (and boys it seems in this case) are dancing the Rejang, where heavenly maidens present themselves to the visiting spirits row by row.

The men are performing the Baris Gede. They are armed with lances and are protecting these same visiting gods.

Some of the priests had more important things to do than watch the performance.
The height of the elder's turban more than matched the length of his beard.

And those hundreds of offerings? The gods took their sustenance

 and the women gathered up the remains for Sunday supper.

Just as there is the uncontrollable human impulse to toss a bit of metal into a fountain and wish for luck; there also seems to be the urge to feed captive fish and the entrepreneurs to sell you the prescribed food. Just like a boy to dump the entire contents of the packet into the water and watch the feeding frenzy.

As an aside, these wee bananas are the absolute best. The flesh is a rosy-cream color and the taste is so sweet, that I'm spoiled and refuse to eat any other. For $2.50 we bought big two bunches.



I cannot attest to the waters making me any younger, but it seems the scabs on my knees healed remarkably well.

How to throw a party in Bali

You start with an auspicious date, in this case the Dead Moon or as we call it the new moon. Then you choose the most ancient site on Bali—Gunung Kawi, an 11th century monument consisting of 10, eight meter high, candi (shrines), which legend has it were clawed out of the cliff face in one night by Kebo Iwa. 

As it takes a little effort to get to the best parties, one must descend at least 270 steps to the valley floor, but the gorgeous view of rice terraces at 7:30 am make it worth while.

Inorder to feed all the spirit guests expected to attend, you'll need a lot of rice and a lot of wood for the cooking fires.

You'll also have to spruce-up the place. In this case, a complete restoration of the temple. And of course on the day of, there are always finishing touches of paint and gold leaf.

The gods are a hungry lot and it will take many men and hours to prepare all the ritual food. Thousands of little shallots the size of a clove of garlic are peeled and sliced; herbs such as tumeric, chili, galangal and roots unknown are minced. Mountains of coconuts must be peeled and shredded; and of course, white ducks need to be plucked. The ducks are one of five different types of poultry, each of a different sacred color, which will be offered to the gods as a thank-you for visiting.

After the initial plucking, the small feathers are torched off. 

Those thousands of shallots? Deep fried for garnish.

Prime among the ritual foods is sate. This is not your local Thai restaurant variety!

First the sate sticks must be individually cut, then notched to show the up/high side of the bamboo. Heaven forbid—literally— that the sate  mixture is placed on the wrong side of the stick. The ritual sate  consists of herbs, meat, coconut and blood.

With all that chopping, mixing and wrapping, a cigarette break is mandatory.

Every part of the animal is used.

Finally, there is the last minute sweeping up.

This was only the first few hours of what was a most auspicious day for photographers as well as spirits.

Next post from Tirta Empul.

Royal Send-Off

running with the bull

Whistles blew! Men yelled!

Before I knew it, the ten ton (really) bade was upon me. I ran while simultaneously trying to get a few snaps of the wildly careening tower. At the last moment, I found a narrow step and squeezed in with dozens of spectators. As I pressed myself into others to avoid being struck by the bamboo supports that transected the entire width of Ubud Raya street; I continued to click away, hoping to get some sense of the magnitude of effort needed to move the bade.

And then it was gone.

Over 1500 men from all the local bajars (community organizations) had been enlisted to carry the bade and sarcophagus. The 500 or so needed to man the bamboo and two-by-four structures were relieved every 300 meters or so by a new group. The men from 'my' banjar in Bentulung were justifiably proud to carry the bade the final challenging segment. Not only do these men have to move the gigantic structure, but at the cross roads to the cemetery it must be spun around several times to confuse the evil spirits that might tag along with the spirit.

princess, priest riding with the body on the bade, prince, other men of the family ride the bull

As I looked up, the 75 meter-tall, gaily decorated tower, carrying the body of Anak Agung Niang Rai, the Queen Mother of the royal family of Ubud, was further down the road on its journey to Pura Dalem, the temple of death. Here her shroud-wrapped body would be moved from under the nine roofs denoting royalty; carried down a steep gang plank, for it had no real steps; and placed in the 7.5 meter high Lembu, (bull sarcophagus). Then, after dozens of offerings including: babi guling (roast suckling pig), duck, rice and cloth, among others are blessed by the priest and placed in the sarcophagus; the bull is set afire by a giant propane torch.

the men in the band

The Pelebon ceremony is an ancient Hindu-Balinese rite during which the five elements of which the body consists (earth—flesh and bone; water—blood and fluids; fire—the light in the eyes, particularly love that one; air—breath; and space—ether, spirit) are purified and released back to the universe from which they came. After that the karma one has built up in life determines one's future existence.

Later in the evening around 9pm the Queen's ashes were taken to the sea at Sanur and released.

This short impressive parade has a cast of characters familiar to all celebrations, not just Balinese: the marching band (gamelan), the vendors, the security, the fans.
Here are a few:

vendors

more marching bands

It's all about balance....and nasi goreng

Between the few dim pools of street-lamp light, Putu navigated the car by the full moon. At 8pm the small village seemed shuttered for the night and I was sure we'd missed it. Following the smell of smoldering coconut husk, the pounding of the surf and finally the delighted squeals of children, we made our way to Seseh's village temple, awash in light from fluorescent tubes mounted on the walls.

The full moon is an auspicious time in many cultures and in Bali often the time to bless a new temple and tonight to commemorate its anniversary. I was here for the sacred dances of the Barong, Rangda and Kris.

Putu parked the car near the only others: a couple of local entrepreneurs selling steamed corn-on-the-cob, water and sweets. The six of us got out and man and woman alike wrapped ourselves in sarongs, the respectful garb when visiting a temple.

Upon entering the temple gates, we were awed by the altars overflowing with offerings and the 30 or so women and girls in trance dance. Incense from the sticks in their hands wafted over us all. We were the only Bule (boo-lay), whites, in attendance and were welcomed by the women and men watching the trance dancers.

Next we were taken in hand by an older woman in a green pakaian adat (formal temple dress), escorted from the temple and ushered to the best seats for the upcoming dances. As the children ran around and played games, we watched the various stands and flag poles being set up to delineate the stage. All of us awaited the performance which was signaled by the entrance of a woman balancing an offering on her head followed by a priest flinging holy water. She set it down about 50 meters from the gate of the temple and sat down behind it on the ground, some of the trance dancers sat around her forming the audience. The rest of us watched from the wings, so to speak. The gamelon members took their places behind the drums, gongs and metallophones to begin the prelude.

A gasp went up as the red-faced, hairy, black Barong emerged from the temple gates and danced its way forward, clacking its nutcracker-like jaws menacingly. It takes two of the strongest men to bring the Barong to life and many men to lift the costume on to its stand while the men take their periodic rests. Don't kid yourself though, the Barong even at rest is a formidable presence. Barong and it's ilk are common in Asian ritual and represent the low spirits, the ones deterred from entering the house by a tall door step and offerings put on the ground outside the door or drive way.

Next four white-faced spirits, the forces of good enter the arena, followed by the red-faced representative of evil. 

As in life, a battle ensues.

Next the red witch or Rangda enters the fray followed closely by the more powerful white Rangda, a manifestation of the god. On her heels is a boy in a ghost-like, featureless white face—the comic relief. He stays mostly in the background taunting the various characters. All of the spirit representatives including the Barong participate and are each for a time victorious.

During the hour and a half that we sit spellbound, four men standing with the women at the offering are going into trance. They begin to dance. Each produces a Kris or long dagger, with which to kill the evil in his heart. This is literally the battle for the hearts of men as the witch entices them to commit suicide and the temple elders stop them. Meanwhile, all around the same battle is raging between the spirits. 

With no clear winner, but a balance achieved between the forces of good and evil; the men are brought out of their trances and the spirits retire to the temple to eat the offerings (often nasi goreng).

I stumble back to the car in a trance myself. There are few words and fewer pictures to testify to what I've witnessed here in this tiny village of 200 now-balanced souls.