Galungan: celebrating a Hindu ceremony in Bali

Occurring once in every 210 days in the pawukon (Balinese cycle of days), Galungan marks the beginning of the most important recurring religious ceremony that is celebrated by all Balinese. During the Galungan period the deified ancestors of the family descend to their former homes. They must be suitably entertained and welcomed, and prayers and offerings must be made for them. Those families who have ancestors that have not yet been cremated, but are still buried in the village cemetery, must make offerings at the graves.

pouring rain

This is one of the major balinese hindi holidays and we got to observe while here. It was pretty neat to experience the celebration at the guest house we are staying at through our guesthouse family here in Ubud. The day before they decorated their penjor (a tall bamboo pole that they place in front of the home). The family also spent hours decorating the family temple and preparing offerings.

Family temple all decorated for Galungan

We dressed in sarongs and sashes and watched all the people walk around delivering their offerings to the different temples. All in all it was a really fun day.

penjor and decorated shrine in front of a house on the street I am staying

penjors galore

Base of the penjors and the women making offerings

At the temple praying after making offerings

What the offerings look like

The family dressed in their Galungan best (with Jasmine)

In search of a good Beach

We spent a very busy week with Alison visiting a few new places around Bali including the east coast area of Amed. This is a relatively isolated area of coastline with gorgeous black sand beaches. Unfortunately we landed there during a 3 days of extreme stormy weather and the wind and waves were big almost the whole time we were there. We did get one day of not bad weather, but they lost power on the whole coast the day we arrived and never got it back. I had sorta planned on staying there for a couple of days after Alison left but with high winds, big waves and no power, it was just too hard for us. So we moved on to calmer pastures... Sanur.

Black sand beach in Amed

Before coming to Bali I had this impression that it was the land of gorgeous beaches. But in reality the beaches here have been pretty sucky. Even in places where we had fun, like the Gilis, the beaches have been coarse broken up pieces of coral and really shallow water or dirty with huge waves (both Kutas and Lovina). No fine sand beaches with clean swimmable ocean. Amed had the beaches but the weather was so bad we couldn't really enjoy it.

more black sand beaches

The gorgeous Amed coast

But finally in Sanur we found a nice clean beach, with easy access and a swimmable ocean, even if most of the tourists there were in there 50s and 60s. But it took us visiting 6 different towns to fine a halfway okay beach. I guess now I know, you don't visit Bali looking for world class beaches. Not that we didn't enjoy all of our ocean experience (after all it doesn't take much for someone from Montana to get their ocean fix on). But definitely different than expected.

fishing boats in Amed

yes, she gets to drink soda here

Seems only fair since I get to drink yummy microbrews

Ubud: otherwise known as the Love in "Eat,Pray,Love"

After a rough couple of days spent in Kuta, the armpit of Bali, trying to get our visa extension we finally landed in Ubud. Ubud is located in central Bali and it is a very relaxing place with lots of pretty rice terraces and amazing shopping. And for those of you who know me, you know the shopping has to be great for me to like it. Cuz I hate shopping generally.

My guide book said that it was a simple one day at the immigration office to get our visa extensions. They give you a 30 day one on arrival, but we are here longer so had to extend. Well, it turns out that you have to go back 2 more times, which would have meant us losing 2 more days of our trip, not to mention having to pay to go back to Kuta so I finally had to pay an agency $150 to do it for us. 

Kuta is a loud touristy town with a dirty, crowded beach and really aggressive touts. Along the beach are such classy restaurants as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks and other American pollution. Our first hotel had bedbugs and every street has hundreds of crappy teeshirt shops. Apparently 18yo Aussies love it, but for me it is my idea of hell.

Classic rice terrace

One of the attractions here is a temple in a forest inhabited by hordes of aggressive monkeys. They steal, they bite and generally are mean. So they are fun to see but we had to be pretty vigilant in keeping them off of Jasmine. Another nice thing about Ubud is the hundreds of cheap Spas here. I got a 1 hour massage and half hour body scrub for about $11. Oh so nice, I could get use to that everyday, though I have only had 2 since I've been here.

Hordes of Monkeys

Baby monkey

My friend Alison has joined us for a week and we went and did some of the touristy stuff around Ubud. We visited a couple of temples and another volcano. Man I love all the cool geology here!

The Dragon Alison brought Jas in celebration of the Year of the Dragon

Mt Batur, with the 1994 lava flow in the front.

Temple

This is generally how we get around. Me doing all the work and Jas watching the scenery

We have had a relaxing week here in Ubud, but it is time to see something new. We are going to the beach to spend some more relaxing time. It's a hard life we are living!

Finally Bali

Pool!

Home Sweet Lovina Home

A few notes on Indonesia so far:

• Food is WAY more expensive than expected. I've eaten a few meals here that were more than the prices back home. And soda is the same or more. We are trying to keep to the warungs (small roadside shack restaurants), but it is still $5-7 a meal in those (at least here in touristy Lovina) including drinks.
• Hotels normally include breakfast, which can vary in quality. The place (Nariwana Hotel)we are now SUCKS, they are basically giving us toast and coffee. We stayed at one place that served us a banana pancake that was more like a crepe, perfectly cooked with the fresh caramelized bananas in it. Yum. More commonly is nasi gorem (Indo fried rice) with a fried egg. Usually with coffee or tea.
• It seems like the people here are more aggressively out to take as much money from you as possible. We have definitely meet some really nice Indonesians, but mostly outside the tourist areas.

After our epic adventures in Java we are spending 3-4 days just relaxing, catching up on our sleep and generally getting into the rhythm of being in Bali. I choose Lovina on the north coast as our first stopping point because my guide book described it as laid back and not as rainy.



Dolphin statue in Lovina

So after our first night in a crash hotel we walked around til we found a nicer place to stay for the remainder of our time here. It has a pool, air-con, hot water shower, breakfast included and is a stone's throw from the beach. All for about $17/night. Just what we need to recuperate. Listening to the waves crash is a nice way to fall asleep.

We are spending our time in the pool and just walking around enjoying the small amount of the area we can reach with Jas's limited walking range. We went on the dolphin watching boat ride this am. It was nice and we did see the dolphins, though why the dolphins hang around with 50 boats chasing them I don't know.