Sanur for Nyepi

Its sort of appropriate that I ended one post and started another whilst driving across Bali. Why? Because Nyepi, the Day of Silence, is coming! (Actually, by the time this is posted it will by over.) But to prepare for this event people take to the streets, and we had to pause our drive to let this parade of parishioners pass. They seemed to be having a good time, and tho’ we were invited to “follow us to the temple,” we drove on to our next destination…

Our next stop was the Ulun Danu Beratan, a Shaivite Hindu temple, which kind of expands into a playground and amusement park next to Lake Beratan. Nice grounds, lots of statuary…

More of the Ulun Danu Beratan, our amiable guide Abraham, and a very cute species of mouse deer, more statuary, etc…

We stopped for lunch at Billy’s, another statue museum full of carvings, etc. Cool scooters and chicken curry…

Before arriving in Sanur, we had one more stop at a chocolate shop – actually a chocolate factory, Junglegold. After a free and educational dessert, we arrived at our hotel, Bumi Ayu, and said goodbye to our driver, who got alotta love for delivering us safely. I immediately had to take a walk to suss the sitch, including some fancy hotel action. Later, we had our farewell dinner and said goodbyes, tho’ some of us reconvened for Ogoh-Ogoh…

After breakfast on our last day of the tour, I spent hours trying to get legit wifi and a VPN. It took way too long, but resting for a day was both necessary and a Nyepi rehearsal. I eventually got out and took another long walk around Sanur, again scoping some luxury bubbles…

The next day, before switching hotels to the Swastika Bungalows, I rented a bicycle and did the Sanur bike path all the way to a mangrove swamp that featured a camel riding option and a couple of temples nestled deep in the mangroves…

Having hit a turn-around point (see GPS screen shot above) and having an agenda for the day, I went back and moved to my pool palace, taking a swim before heading out for Ogoh-ogoh. Pix from the path…

More pix from along the bike path in Sanur, from my last Bali hotel, etc…

In the afternoon, the Nyepi hardcore of our group met for drinks before going to appreciate the Ogoh-ogoh festival. We added to the growing crowd at what is called the “McDonald’s Intersection, but that seemed to be mostly tourists and after an hour or so, we started asking the barely effective traffic police for more information.

At one point, I left my seat on an intersection divider, and walked up a road. Eventually, I came to what was a staging area for a bunch of Ogoh-ogoh creatures. Rather than a parade as we understand them, this is more an event where the creatures and their entourage converge at an intersection (Macca’s, as the Aussies say), and swirl about and square off in a chaotic sea of people, gamelan players, and Ogoh-ogoh bearers.

This batch starts at the intersection before the mob completely descended, and a pic of Milos taking a pic of me from across it. It then shows the staging areas and the first part of the procession….

This next batch shows more of the mayhem in the giant moshpit of the McDonald’s Intersection. But these pix don’t capture the excruciating details of some of the swirling sculptures, nor the massive crowds swirling to the cacophony of the gamelan groups. Later, I hope to post more videos that show the undulating masses and the exciting soundrack. Note the guys profiling in the last three pix…

At some point, the excitement having crescendoed, the crowds slowly started to dispurse and a bunch of us started walking back to our respective hotels. After the craziness of Ogoh-ogoh the calmness and serenity of Nyepi was a relief. I slept in, spent the day reading and swimming, with no wifi or TV. I’d stocked up my hotel fridge the day before as it was forbidden to leave the hotel, and while I turned on a light or two for a spell, I honored the spirit of Nyepi and kept silent and contemplative most of the day.

With the exception of the last shot – the Bali Airport – the rest of these were taken by others and included in our Beautiful Bali WhatsApp group….