Bali has many faces but the first one that you see are the many, many motor bikes zipping in and out of the traffic with up to 5 people on each bike. You are allowed to travel with up to 5 and only the adults are required to wear a helmet.
The roads are very narrow and not well paved with no shoulder so that when the motor bikes come dancing around they find any piece of space and create their own bike path weaving in and out in precarious places with seeming little or no fear of being hit by the very very close traffic. This is the place to hire a car, driver & guide. For $55 per day you can have someone else deal with the “crazy” tight streets and endless traffic. We had a little map to follow with our guide and we never really knew where we were, just the vicinity.
Yesterday we went to the mountain rice fields to view and take pictures. The sun was shining when we left our hotel but as we ventured up the mountain area it started to rain and we wanted to take pictures of all the terraced rice fields so we got out to walk and the driver parked on the side of the road, which means not quite in the middle of the road. When we tried to continue up the hill the road was slick with rain and he slide into the ditch. It was thundering and raining very hard and as the cars came up the road many people got out in the rain to try to help. After the third try with three different cars hitching to our bumper, we finally got back onto the road. The tourist police were the first to arrive and they were unable to pull us out but stayed until the “right” vehicle with good grip tires arrived to do the job with many people pushing as well. I think this is Bali, where people are open and willing to give service and help until the job is done.
The next face of Bali that you see is the traditional dress and offerings to their God. We were very lucky to arrive in a week where the local Hindu and Balinese people were preparing for a religious celebration which takes place every 6 mo. This particular celebration will take place on the 12th after we leave. It is a celebration to their God and is about good overcoming evil. They believe that there is evil in the world and they give offerings to the God so everyone is either making the baskets and putting together the offering and taking them to the appropriate temples or as in the cities many are too busy and buy the baskets and materials to put in them and make the offerings.
We saw many Hindu people dressed in their traditional clothes for the few days before as they had also another celebration to do and they were taking their offerings to the family temple as well as the community temple. Every family has a family temple at their home and it always sits on the north east side of the house which is in relation to the highest mountain in NE of Bali, Mt Agung.
There are many celebrations in Bali and so it is very costly to each family as these come up often. There is the tooth filling celebration which is done by the priest and since the cost is the same to do many than just one many wait to do as a community or family. They trim off the incisors as they think of this as like the animal instinct. Cremation is also very expensive so it is acceptable to be buried, then every 5 years each village will have a mass cremation when the bones will be dug up and burned along with many in the village and the rest thrown into the river which will go then to the sea. It is a child's responsibility to take care of this when the parents are old and the child is now married and not a parents responsibility.
There are 5 types of celebrations in Bali.
- To the God
- For the priest
- For human beings
- For the ancestors
- For the Destroyer, like for cremation
We usually buy art in the countries that we visit so we visited many artist shops looking for the “right” pieces. We purchased a traditional rice field painting. The artist was notified as to the price we were offering and could accept or negotiate with us through the dealer. Both the dealer and the artist needed money for the upcoming celebration and were willing to take less for their painting. Our male guide said after he married they say their life is over as the male takes on the duties of providing for all the celebrations that take place in a Hindu’s life, he must make money for them. The female, at least in the village, makes the baskets out of leaves like the palm tree or coconut leaf by cutting strips and putting them together so that the offerings can be put in the baskets and taken to the temples. They get on their motor bikes, dressed in their traditional dress and put their offerings in a traditional painted basket on the bike or, if walking, on their head and go on their way to the temples. There may be more than one temple they are taking them to as we saw the village temple, the family temple and the city temple.
On an ordinary day each morning they also give an offering for the day. It may be outside their business door, in their family temple, at their job or just about any place. The place that I got a massage had an offering on the concrete outside their door, the people selling tours at the beach had a raised small temple where I watched two different people giving their early morning offerings in two locations. This is how they start their day giving thanks.
The day that I will remember is the early morning that we walked down a side street near our hotel looking for a place to have our clothes washed. After settling with the laundry people we asked to take their picture then continued down further into the street life. People were friendly and were willing to let us take their picture and talk some, if they spoke a little english. When someone asked where we were from and we said US they said Obama. We saw the area where they do Cock fighting. The Hindu believe that blood sacrifice is necessary so the blood of the cock is used. It is not legal but tucked away in back streets. We saw families dressed in their traditional garb for the upcoming celebrations and all taking their offerings to the temples and they were happy to have us take their pictures. They seemed happy to see us come into their back street life.
