Jan 14, Tour Day

by Chi Jiang (Tim Jiang)

Today we were away from Cudamani and went on a tour with our tour guide Ketut, whose father is the priest we already met on Jan. 9.

*Feel free to check this link to my last blog post for more about the priest:

Jan 9th, Siwa Ratri

Ketut lives in Pengesokan, Bali, but works with tourists in Texas and Florida in the U.S. While he speaks English very fluently, he is proud of Indonesian and recommends us to learn it, simply because it is the easiest language. There is no tense or gender. It is spoken by 300 million people and is useful for communication too.

We began our journey in a van at 9 am and traveled about half an hour to a local temple to do cleansing, a ritual process for the religion of water in Bali. On the way, Ketut told us that Bali comes from a word pronounced like “Baoli” that has Sanskrit roots, which means ceremonies. So Bali is the island of ceremonies.

Ketut explained that a Balinese offering consists of five elements: leaf, flower, fruit, seed (rice), root (potato). The incense and its smoke is a symbol for guidance, and the fire of it serves as a witness. An offering usually consists of young coconut leaves and ricecakes.

[Balinese ricecake for breakfast at Puri Kobot]

[Offerings at the water temple, cr. Jiho]

In Bali, every fifteen days there will be a big ceremony. The Balinese calendar operates on a 210-day big cycle. It also operates on three small cycles, 5-day, 7-day and 35-day cycles. Every 22 years, the different birthdays will overlap. There are festivals and ceremonies for animals and water. The biggest celebration is on the day before the silent day, which usually falls in March (the silent day in 2024 will be on March 11th). During the silent day, people practice fasting. No tourists are on the street. No airports will be open. No fire, no leisure, no gold, no light for 36 hours. Some even say no talk. But Ketut admits that he never succeeded. I remember seeing a painting of the silent day at the painter’s house nearby the other day. On the day before the silent day, Mangde’s local youth gamelan group performs for the community. Big celebrations are throughout Bali.

[Ceremony before the silent day by a Pengosekan painter]

As we drove past by Ubud, Ketut explains that Ubud is famous for its medicine and healing. There was a bridge near the Ubud palace and a lot of people were healed by the holy water. The temple we were going to is called Mengening. It is the second best temple built in Ubud for cleansing. Similar to the civilization of India that grew from the Ganga rivers, temples in Bali are also built around rivers. There is a legend of a big tree and a cleaned sword surrounding Ubud, too.

Ketut explained that there is no standard for how to do the cleansing. It is only between you and the water energy. Usually, Balinese people close their eyes and bow to let the water pour onto their bodies and repeat for an odd number of times (odd numbers are favorable because it corresponds to the auspicious numbers associated in Hinduism). Every village has a spring water temple. Only clean AND holy water is qualified for cleansing. Clean means the healing is powered by nature, and holy by human.

[Ketut at the entrance of Pura Mengening]

Entrance fees were already paid (sarongs included upon request). We walked downstairs and the sunshine was just fine and lively. Streams were flowing peacefully and we were surrounded by the greens.

Lively chatter became louder as we approached closer to the crowds at the spring water. At first, there was hesitation, as we were not sure how to get involved with the process. But soon, we were reassured by Ketuk and left our valuable items by the shore or in a locker. With our sacred garments, we followed the crowd into the water.

I was the first to step into the water. The pool felt much deeper than I thought, and the water much chiller. I put away my glasses and asked our fellow guide to keep them. My body got used to the temperature after a while and began to move slowly towards the spring fountain. There was a tiny sense of fear of the water initially, but it was soon gone. As the splattering sounded louder and closer, I moved forward countering the current and bowed similarly as the Balinese man before me did. The water hit my body from the top to the bottom. I was fully soaked but felt a very peaceful joy emerging. I bowed again, made some wishes and prayed this time. My feelings and thoughts came spontaneously. I repeated the bow and moved to the next fountain, and so on.

After I finished cleansing in the pool, I moved to another and repeated. I took off my wet shirt and was able to enjoy the touch of the water more fully this time. I became more confident with the cleansing rituals and made a couple more wishes. I felt grateful and peaceful.

I let the holy water stay on my clothing and my body for a while and sat down at a pavilion where a crowd was praying with a priest. An offering was already sent by our group. I was a little bit far from the priest and basically followed the Balinese around me. I found myself surrounded by the energies of the good hearts of the people. After the prayer was done, I left to get changed and welcomed a few ladies who were trying their best to sell us sarongs. I was in good terms with them. I explained I already got two sarongs the day before at Ubud market. They were smiling at me because I affirmed that they had a good price, and was tacitly cooperating with them to sell the sarongs to my friends 🙂

We were then on our way to Batur temple, the second largest temple in Bali. Ketut explained that the original Batur temple was built in 17th century. It had at least 26 eruptions since 1805, and the biggest in 1926. The huge eruption damaged the temple and the government ordered to build a new temple at a higher elevation to keep the sacred objects safe. The new Batur temple was finished in 1935. It consists of a complex of nine temples and 285 pavilions.

What makes it special is that there was a Chinese temple built to commemorate the history of a marriage between a Chinese princess and a Balinese family in the 12th century. Nowadays, business people go to the Chinese temple to worship and pray for good commerce.

[The Chinese temple on the right]

On Batur there is also a big lake with a size of 16 km^2 and a depth of 88 meters. Whenever there are ceremonies in the mother temple Besakih (the largest temple in Bali), the two Batur temples also hold ceremonies.

When we arrived, many little girls helped us with wearing our sarongs warmheartedly. One of them asked me to buy postcards. I hesitated and said “Later.” She smiled and repeated “Later? Promise.” I ended up buying the postcards later when I returned to our van. We were both happy.

The view was magnificent and there were not a lot of locals and tourists at the temple. I wonder how it would look like if there is a big ceremony (for example, on the day before the silent day!) Each temple has its own purpose and one of them was actually visited by Cudamani for ceremonies. As the cool breeze of the mountains blew, wind chimes hanging at the roof of the temples were shaking silently. They were made of dead leaves. I wonder how many histories and stories were left on the temples and how much culture was still preserved now.

After a fancy lunch buffet, we stood at the balcony and enjoyed the view of the volcano Batur, the lava, the lake and the island. On the island live the original Balinese. Now in Bali, 80 percent are from Java and only 20 percent are original Balinese. The original Balinese live in only three villages now. The beautiful iron gamelan instrument Selunding came from one of the villages.

Ketut shared with us that the burial ritual on the island was unique. They buried them on the ground instead of cremation. There is a unique plant on the island whose root absorbs the scent of the dead bodies perfectly. As soon as the body touches the root of the plant, there is no smell. Smugglers tried to do transplant but they failed to grow them in other places, and some ended up in weird car accidents and died. We took some nice group photos here.

Next, we went to the rice fields. The rice fields look similar to the ones in China without the coconut trees. Here farmers climb the trees or even use monkeys to harvest the coconuts.