March 10 - Bali, Indonesia (Part One)

I saw and learned so many interesting things today in Bali that I'm writing about it in two parts so I can better remember my visit.  

Yesterday we were on the island of Lombok, which truthfully isn’t worth writing about.  We were docked at a container port with not even a village nearby.  The nearest town was a 40 minute drive away. There was a small market with local stuff for sale and lots of people trying very aggressively to sell things to us.  

This morning we docked in Benoa, the port for the island of Bali.  When I first looked out it was pouring rain, but before we were cleared to get off the ship it had stopped.  It was cloudy for most of the day while I was ashore and that was a blessing;  if the sun had been out it would have been unbearable.  Over the years I’ve read articles and seen photos of spectacular resorts on Bali where celebrities bask on gorgeous beaches and stay in over-the-water bungalows.  I guess I never really thought about the rest of the place outside those luxurious hotel, so today was not what I had pictured in my mind.  I had booked a private tour with Tours by Locals and I saw the Bali in which ordinary people live and work.

Bali is a province of Indonesia and one of the Lesser Sunda islands.  It has a population of about 4.5 million and is quite densely populated with about 2000 people per square mile. It has been inhabited for several thousand years with the original people migrating from Taiwan and other parts of southeast Asia.  Beginning around the first century AD the culture became strongly influenced by Hindu and Buddhist India and China.  Today Bali is the only Hindu majority province in Indonesia with more than 85% of the population practicing Balinese Hinduism.  Indonesia itself is a majority Islamic country but I found it interesting that despite that, Indonesian law is based on Dutch common law as opposed to Islamic.  

My friend Claudia and I set out with our excellent guide Sherif and his “brother from another mother” Dewa, our driver (not sure I spelled that name right).  Today is the day before Nyepi, the Balinese Day of Silence, a national holiday.  Nyepi is a day for self-reflection and therefore any activities that might interfere with that are strictly prohibited.  People are expected to fast, meditate and be silent. To that end everything stops, including the international airport, hotel services at the swanky resorts and all commerce and traffic.  The preparations begin the day before so we were able to see some of them which was fascinating.  I forgot to mention that the day after Nyepi is considered to be the start of the Hindu New Year.

Our guide Sherif told us a little about Balinese culture and family structure as we drove along. From what he said evidently people don’t have a last name (surname).  Boys are named according to their birth order.  For example, the first-born son will be named one of a couple of choices, the second another set etc.  This is uniform from family to family so when you hear a man’s name you know if he’s a second son in his family. Families belong to clans and in small towns and villages all the inhabitants may be members of the same clan.  It’s not legal to sell a family home so it’s passed down from generation to generation.  Later in the day we went to a family compound and I’ll write more about that later.

Sherif was a true adherent of Balinese Hinduism and he told us a great deal about the beliefs and tenets according to which life should be led.  I can’t honestly say that I remember everything he told us because it was a lot of information to absorb, but there was a big impression that I was left with.  While the names may be different and there are three gods, who are actually supposed to be manifestations of the same Supreme Being, many of the underlying beliefs are very similar to that of Christianity in terms of how we should live our lives.  I can see that there are some parallels to the belief in a Holy Trinity and in both religions ultimately a person has to take a leap of faith.  I’m not sure I’ve explained it right but I was kind of surprised at how much more alike we are than I thought.

Enough about philosophy or theology.  Our first stop was to a local community temple. Before we could enter we had to wrap a sarong around ourselves.  Temples here aren’t enclosed buildings like a church. We entered through some gates into an open courtyard with several buildings, most open on all sides with altars under the roof.  There were other gates going into smaller courtyards with more shrines and altars. The place was decorated with banners and umbrellas in anticipation of the holiday.  The people in the community had gone to the beach to purify themselves and their offerings in the sea before proceeding to the temple.  While we were looking around there was a stir in the air and we could hear drums, bells and a sort of Balinese xylophone coming closer.  Then people began to file into the first courtyard carrying umbrellas, papier-mâché figures, an articulated dragon and baskets of things. We were in the thick of the crowd that came in and no one seemed to mind us being there.  After we had watched for a while as the procession continued, Sherif led us out to go to our next stop.

Dressed for the temple

The main gates to the temple

This and the next are scenes within the temple

Our guide Sherif and driver Dewa

One of the floats carried in