Love Wins
Celebrating Galungan in Bali
19.08.2008 - 21.08.2008
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Asia '08
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It’s a big world
We’re hoping for a big change
We’re broken
In the fading light of a dying sun
We cry for redemption
There is hope...
Keep on dreaming of the day when it all will change
Believe in the end that love wins
If you’re waiting for the time when your sun will shine
Look above, for love wins
-- Robbie Seay
According to a Balinese legend, many years ago there was a king of Bali who was pig-headed (figuratively -- and literally, apparently, though I don’t quite understand that part). In his arrogance, the king declared himself divine, offending the gods. Shiva, the god in the Hindu trinity who represents destruction in the universe’s endless cycle of renewal, sent his lieutenant to bring justice, and after a mighty battle the evil king was overthrown. Good had triumphed over evil, and every year this victory is celebrated in Bali as the holiday Galungan -- one of the two most sacred celebrations in Balinese Hinduism.
After several days of rain that had hampered our plans to strike out into the Balinese countryside, the sun broke through just in time for Wednesday’s celebration of Galungan.
Holiday revellers
All over Ubud, people flooded the streets in their best traditional costumes with a few grains of rice stuck to their foreheads, carrying offerings to the temples and baskets of goodies for their friends and family.
I wouldn’t think a lace blouse over a bustier was “traditional,” but it’s what all the Balinese women were wearing... *shrug*
There were parades of children with noisemakers and dancing dragons. All kinds of hullaballoo.
Kids and noise -- a universal combination
And, of course, tourists doing their best to fit in by wearing their batik sarongs so they could enter the temples.
”Honey, does this sarong make my butt look fat?” “No; do these sneakers make me look like I have chicken legs?”
We had the honor of being invited into the home of the family who ran the restaurant across the street from our hotel. We were welcomed with a banana leaf bowl of wine-soaked rice, and I Wayan Darta, the father, told us the story behind the holiday and invited us into their family shrine to learn how they worship.
Darta and family
Offerings were placed on the altar, and then we were invited to bow five times with our hands held palms together before our heads: once in thanksgiving, once in prayer to the supreme god, once to the sun, once to all the gods, and then once more in thanksgiving.
Bowing in prayer
Now you can debate all day about the theology of general versus unique revelation, blah-blah-blah, but it’s an honor to be invited into someone’s home for a holiday, and the triumph of good over evil is a truth that I believe is universally revealed. And bowing in prayer three times has a nice symmetry with our own beliefs, so this worked out rather nicely for us.
Galungan is also the day for celebration of the marriage of everyone who has wed in the past year, and Darta invited us down the street to meet his nephew Ketut and his bride Komar.
The newlyweds, Ketut and Komar
We spent some time visiting with them, and all the while friends and neighbors were pouring in with baskets of food. Within an hour, the table was ready to collapse.
After a brief walk through the rice fields, we left Ubud in the afternoon for Kuta, wishing that we could stay longer and experience more of this beautiful part of Bali -- Kuta is definitely the ugly side.
Dudes -- surf’s up and our boards are losin’ wax!
This is Indonesia’s answer to Daytona: a nice enough beach despoiled by tattoo parlors and swimwear stores, bars and nightclubs, highrises and sleazy hotels, and more drunk Australians than you can shake a surfboard at.
”I just know there’s a beach around here somewhere...”
But it was close to the airport for the next day’s flight, and it was worth seeing for an evening of slumming.
At the busiest intersection in town is the Memorial Wall to the 2002 bombings that took the lives of over 200 vacationers.
Memories of October 12, 2002
A sobering reminder that while love does win in the end, we are still in the battle to get there.
‘Til then, we’ll keep looking above.
Posted by Bwinky 04:59 Archived in Indonesia Tagged tourist_sites Comments (0)