Bali's biggest temple - Besaki

On the Balinese calendar's New Year's day, my friend Django and I rode to Besaki to see the huge gathering with a special ceremony that occurs every 10 years or so...
Sweating in the searing heat and humidity, we climbed up endless stairs to the last temple on top of the hill.



You have to be respectful and wear a sarong to cover your legs and a sash around your waist. Except here my colour coordination is so good that Django thought I looked like a bonbon!


We followed the crowd as they walked to the temple.



Met with a group of young men starting early on the Arak (traditional palm wine alcohol) - see blog post 'Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali' for more on how this is made.




The Barong dance was performed by differnet groups all along the road back to Ubud.

Motorcycles and snorkelling down Bali’s north east coast – Amed.

The coastal road is one of the most lush and beautiful in Bali...



Then we arrived to this: Amed



My friend Django came to spend his well deserved RnR from Bangladesh! We rented a motorcycle and cruised down to Amed for a bit of beach-bumming and snorkelling. There are a few old Japanese shipwrecks to snorkel around which kept us busy for an afternoon. Amed is a sleepy fisherman’s village with a series of small bays with limited sand beach space but a very chilled out place to take in the beach life...








At 'Good Karma' lodge, the hamacs on every porch says it all. The owner has 2 Japanese wives!


Django - the sea God...

Concerts and hippes

Have you ever heard Michael Franti's music? He is the lead singer for his band Spearheads?

That was my first time ever hearing him and his very earth-conscious, rebel against the capitalism system, and promoting peace and love and understanding all over the world! Set in the beautiful Bamboo Foundation grounds, it attracted about 1400 people and the event was to raise funds for a school here in Ubud. Was an enormous success.

Here he is:


And his slash-looking guitarist!



See this link for an example of a song he sang and the message that goes with it!
http://www.metrolyrics.com/hello-bonjour-lyrics-michael-franti.html

So lots of hippy, happy, jumping people, all loving life and feeling connected through Michael's feel-good vibe, charisma and sounds!

All 3 of us had been in the retreat together and we may have been the ones jumping the highest!




And of course a bit of fire poi to top up the evening...

Bike trip across rice-fields in central Bali

After a week of silence, I couldn't imagine being alone not speaking to anyone right after it so with one of my new-found friend Katarina the Kiwi world traveller, we decided to hang out for the next couple of days and we just talked non stop! It was hilarious! We went on a bike ride from central Bali coming all the way back - but all downhill, I assure you, this was no workout!

This below is a sophisticated traditional system to extract the purest form of alcohol from the cononut palm to make the best arak! Basically the palm boils in the pot, the fumes come up through the bamboo and collects in the recipient leaving only the most concentrated liquid in there to be drank straight up.







Stopping by traditional Balinese villages, visiting their houses, seeing local produce being made (including palm wine - had a few shots to keep us going!), and visiting temples and ridding through rice field terraces. The guide knew everything about the Balinese culture which was so refreshing.




I love this scene: a man is very carefully and lovingly washing this calf in the river, scrubbing her up with a bunch of leaves...

Silent Vipassana meditation retreat - one week

It may surprise some of you but I wanted to learn how to meditate so I thought, what better way then just thowing myself in at the deep end...

A one week Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Bali's oldest temple way up north is what I went for!





Some pictures all taken on last day (Nyepi), of the calmness found there.






















Day programme for 7 days:
2.45 am Bell for getting up to start meditating
6.00 am Bell for breakfast
11.00 am Bell for lunch (last meal of day)
14.00 pm Bell for 2 hour break as meditating throughout afternoon
22.00 pm Bell for bed time!

And that was not the hardest... the hardest was to stop thinking! And be aware and mindful all the time...
I thought I was spiritually void before I experienced this week, but I had some incredible happenings during that week which I did not expect at all... I think we should all try this at least once in our lives!
















This last one was on the last evening, when the teacher was speaking to the Indonesian-speaking group and a lighting storm lit the sky behind him. I caught a part of the lit sky on this last picture.

Surfin' Lebih

My friend Django came to visit so we went to the nearest spot on the coast from Ubud and we came across a bunch of local surfers just riddin' the Lebih waves...








I like this one, caught in the act of being wipped-out!

Kecak Fire dance

The Kecak fire dance is performed all over Bali but this version in a temple in Ubud was particularily impressive with better costumes, and an incredible fire-walking performance at the end...











There are a few rhythm leaders which set the tone, pitch and rhythm of the "kechakechaketchaketchaketchaketcha...." sound. An all human orchestra - very rhythmic and impressive.













This man is in trance and was walking and kicking burning hot coconut husks all over the floor. At His black feet at the end looked charred...

Ubud cultural centre of Bali

Ubud finally!

I am sooooo late in posting so having to do some serious catch up, I’m keeping my word count down and instead letting you indulge in the pictures...

Ubud is the cultural centre of Bali. Many artists, expats, hippies, tourists come here to chill in the green rice-paddy surroundings and get away from the mad clubbing of Kuta and the shop-till-you-drop temptations of Seminyak. Here in the evening it is so calm and quiet on the streets that you wonder where everyone is! Well, they are all at some cultural show like the Kecak fire dance or the Mepantigan – which I’ll give you a taster of.

The Mepantigan Balinese Martial arts (or Mud-wrestling) in a rice paddy field! Now this I stumbled upon as I was walking past the ARMA (Agung Rai Museum of Arts) in Ubud. Every night there is some kind of performance but this one really blew my mind...



Here this young boy looks entranced and playing with a type of fire-poi. Him and his fellow performers were kicking around an inflamed coconut husk making it look like they'd just invented fire-football...
More fire-poi here.


















The boys also spit fire which makes them look even more terrifying as they represent demons as they fight with the Gods...













Here the good and evil fight each other in a cacophony of grunts, groans, screams, screetches, yelps, hootings, grumblings and evil laughter... They are all killing each other with sharp krisses... All this under full moon of course.

KuDeTa

KuDeTa:
A very cool lounge/bar in Seminyak on the beach where you can drink cocktails, listen to live lounge music and ethnochill by live DJ, lay on the sofas and watch the pink sunset with the pirate ships floating in it ... Real nice... My favourite drink: Espresso Martini... but you gotta pay the price for the 300% tax on alcohol so the 15$ cocktail will make you make it last longer...