Happy New Year (Birthday)!
After sleeping long and deep, and waking up quite rested, we met in the open dining area for breakfast. And we all promptly fell in love with the fresh fruit plate and Siti's banana crepes...mmmm! Our plan today was to orientate ourselves with Ubud, then later experience the Balinese New Year's celebrations. We headed down aptly-named "Monkey Forest Road" to visit...Monkey Forest Park. Monkeys everywhere, of all ages and sizes, some ready to jump onto your shoulder, or steal something from your purse. We did see someone get bitten, too. Creepy! Three of us somehow lost the other three, so we walked along the main tourist road, window-shopping. Soon heat and hunger began to takes its toll and we stopped for a lunchbreak. Although we never did catch up with the others, we eventually made it back to the resort, hot, tired and suffering from sensory overload.
Later that evening, our hosts drove us to the town center to witness the New Year's Eve celebrations. On this day, all villages in Bali hold a large exorcism ceremony at the main village square, supposedly the meeting place of demons. Each community makes Ogoh-ogoh -- huge, fantastic monsters-- for carnival purposes. The Ogoh-ogoh monsters symbolize the evil spirits surrounding our environment which have to be rid of from their lives. And they are extremely GROTESQUE (do check out the pictures!) All have fangs, bulging eyes and scary hair, and very exaggerated body parts! A group of musicians playing Balinese gamelan music accompanies the procession into the main area.In the evening, the people start making noises, light burning torches and set fire to the Ogoh-ogoh in order to get the evil spirits out of their lives. The area we were hanging out quickly became jammed with locals and tourists alike. The monsters were carried in by groups of young people dressed in their community colours. It was all very surreal but unfortunately we couldn't follow the monsters back to the place for the burning as we had dinner planned back at the resort.
We were going to get a taxi but there was not one to be seen as all traffic was banned on the streets in the area. We walked 30 minutes back to the resort, stopping to detour around a street play, and ended our first full day with an Indonesian meal cooked by Siti--YUMMY! And as it was my birthday, our hosts made a special cheesecake, complete with candles. How special!
On Nyepi day itself, every street in Bali is quiet - no one does their normal daily activities. Pecalangs (traditional Balinese security man) patrol and check for street security. No traffic is allowed, not only cars but also people, who have to stay in their own houses. Even the airport is closed for the day! Light is kept to a minimum or not at all, the TV is turned off and, of course, no one works. The whole day is simply filled with the barking of a few dogs, the shrill of insects and is a simple long quiet day in the calendar of this otherwise hectic island. On Nyepi the world is expected to be clean and everything starts anew. For us it was a "quiet, reading around the pool" kind of day. And surprisingly we all appreciated the non-activity to process the impressions of our trip so far.
