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.