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.
No comments:
Post a Comment