Banjar is a small laid back village whose primary attraction is a hotsprings that was discovered and developed by the Japanese occupying force stationed there during World War II.  Juha and I enjoyed the hotsprings in the morning where we had a great time getting in water fights with the local kids.  We were losing badly, but we attributed that to being outnumbered about 10 to 2.  Juha recruited a few of the locals to our side, an impressive act of diplomacy, but we lost nonetheless.  

The hotsprings were relaxing and fun, but the highlight of Banjar for me was actually stumbling upon a traveling fair that had come to town. My brother John had a bad experience with a fair that came to our hometown when we were kids.  They basically sucked away all his money in about 20 minutes … as do fairs in most places.  I was convinced, however, that this fair would have been great therapy for him.  It only cost $0.50 to get in (I’m sure the locals got an even better price) and even after eating, drinking and playing our way through the fair, we still hadn’t spent $5.

fair food

Most of the games and rides are the same kind of thing that I’ve seen at fairs at home:  the ring toss game, the ferris wheel, little train that circles the grounds.  There were of course some decided differences as well - particularly in the food department.  While Juha played it safe, I went out on a limb with an avocado shake (yummy) and a grape jelly drink … that actually had the consistency of jelly mixed with liquid.  Weird.  Another difference I noticed was the distinct absence of stuffed animals as game prizes.  Instead, the prizes were practical items.  In one ring toss game that Juha won, the prizes seemed to be limited to soap and cigarettes.  We must not have understood the rules, however, because he was awarded no prize at all.  Bummer.  We were almost out of soap.  In a game that I won, I was awarded a small package of laundry detergent.  I had just had all my laundry cleaned so I gifted it to one of the kids standing nearby … which I regretted the next day when Juha wore his new favorite shirt for the 4th day in a row (and day 3 consisted of a hot sweaty hike).  Big prizes were oscillating fans and motorbike helmets.  

jelly drink from the fair

 As Juha and I wandered around the fair, we were again like Disney characters at Disney World.  Everyone spoke to us, shook our hand, photographed us.  One little girl surprised me when she took my hand, I thought to shake it.  Instead, she kissed my hand and said “I love you.”  Talk about feeling welcome!

To see video of the fair, click here.

Since I’m obviously still quite behind in my writing, I’ll just give you the highlights of the the next few days.  From Banjar, we drove a short distance to Lovina where we took a pre-dawn ride out into the ocean in canoe size boats with spider legs to try to see some dolphin pods.  We were rewarded after 3 hours of boating, but most of the rest of the time was just a bumpy, cold, wet ride.

In an oddly surreal moment, we stopped at the side of the road for a soda and snack to take a break from the ride. After serving us, the woman who owned the shop and her five kids came to the front of the shop and sat on a step right by our table and literally just stared at us while we ate and drank.  It was such a comical scene, I had to make a video of it (of course!).  Click here  to share our surreal experience. 

Tianyar "cremation" ceremony

On our way to Amed, we passed through Tianyar, another small village, where some kind of ceremony was going on.  About 20 villagers were holding sticks that had white t-shirts and stuffed white sheets that resembled heads.  I’d never seen or read about anything like this so of course we doubled back around to observe.  I got out both of my cameras and starting videoing/shooting away.  “You’re photographing all this but do you know what it means?” someone laughingly asked me.  A young handsome Balinese man named Kadek introduced himself.  He explained that this was a cremation ceremony.  I’ve come to realize in my time on Bali that there are a multitude of aspects and phases of cremation and, although I’m certain they each have distinctive names in Balinese, all of them are described to us tourists as “a cremation ceremony.”  I watched and listened, fascinated.  When the villagers stood up and started their procession through the streets, I was ready to pick up and follow.  Sensible Juha, however, pointed out that we still had a drive ahead of us in order to get to Amed before dark so I reluctantly left the ceremony and we continued on our journey, but not before accepting Kadek’s invitation to return the next day to see the continuation of the ceremony.  To see a video of this interesting ceremony (there is no cremation), click here.

Juha and I motored on to Amed where my favorite group of Balinese guys welcomed us warmly. We enjoyed dinner, drinks and music with them and then went out to a local club to hear some live music. It felt great to be back in Amed!

Tianyar "cremation" ceremony

The next morning, Juha headed back to Denpasar to return his back and head back to Finland while I stayed on (and on and on) in Amed.  I did take a few little roadtrips.  I went back to Tianyar to see the rest of the ceremony from the day before.  It turns out, it was a conglomeration of ceremonies.  They had actually had a cremation that morning (and I missed it! Drat!), but while they had the priest in town, they also had 2 other ceremonies that are rites of passage for the Balinese:  tooth filing ceremonies and 3 month ground-touching ceremonies. 

tooth filing ceremony

The Balinese believe that when babies are born, they are like Gods.  As the ground is a dirty place, babies are not permitted to touch the ground for the first 3 months of their lives.  As they get older, they are less and less God-like so at 3 months old, the Balinese hold a ceremony called penyambutan where the baby’s feet touch the ground for the first time.  Kadek told me that his village couldn’t afford a priest for a long time so the villagers were economizing and having a mass ceremony as is becoming the more common custom these days.  Although the ceremony had also apparently taken place that morning before my arrival (double drat!) I noticed that many of the children dressed in yellow and white for the ceremony were 1 year and 2 years old … well beyond 3 months.  Kadek told me they were permitted to touch the ground after 3 months old (I couldn’t imagine carrying a child for 2 years!), but that they just hadn’t had an actual ceremony.  This still seems a bit unusual to me so perhaps something got lost in translation.

I did, however, get to observe tooth-filing ceremonies that were also being performed en masse to save money.  The tooth filing ceremony is a rite of passage for an adolescent Balinese into adulthood.  During the ceremony, the young Balinese bites onto a piece of sugar cane while a priest uses a small hammer and a file to file a bit of the person’s teeth.  The Balinese believe the ceremony helps the youth to rid him or herself of some invisible forces of evil associated with the teeth.

beachside post-cremation ceremony

To see a video of the tooth filing ceremony, click here.

I left Tianyar late in the afternoon and headed back to Amed where the guys were giving me a Balinese cooking lesson:  pepes ikan - steamed fish in banana leaves.  It seems that the secret is in the sauce and that’s where we spent most of our time.  They ground about 10 ingredients together with mortar and pestle.  I’m thinking I’ll use a blender when I attempt to recreate this one at home.

You can see my pepes ikan cooking lesson by clicking here.

In another road trip from Amed, I met Wisnu, the great-grandson from the cremation ceremony 2 weeks before.  We met in Candidasa, a lovely village that used to be a hot tourist destination for diving and snorkeling … until people started harvesting the coral from the ocean to use in their houses.  With the coral destruction, the fish habitat was destroyed (and thus the snorkeling and diving attractions) and massive beach erosion took place so now very few tourists come to Candidasa.  Even Wisnu and I only stayed there for 15 minutes before heading on to scope out other interesting places.  

a symbol used in the post-cremation ceremony

In the course of our drive, we came across some post-cremation ceremonies taking place on a beach.  Small groups of people paraded down to the beach and placed what looked like a sekah (soul representation) in the water.  Each group also released a live duck and chicken into the water, presumably as a symbolic sacrifice to the gods, which was promptly chased down and retrieved by some local kids … for eating?  

After the ceremonies, Wisnu took me to see Besakih, considered the holiest temple on the island of Bali. It’s actually a group of many temples inside one temple grounds.  It was lovely.  

Ujung water palace

My last road trip from Amed consisted of viewing two waterpalaces, Tirta Gangga which I had tried to see unsuccessfully twice before and Ujung, both built by the same king and an unbelievable drive on some small winding mountainous roads that hugged the coastline through teeny tiny villages that were way off the tourist map.  

Tirta Ganga bathers

Ujung water palace

salt production in Amed

Other than that, I spent my last 10 days in Bali happily “holed up” in Amed, hanging out with my friends. The day before I left, Shark and Wayan made me a necklace entirely out of frangipani flowers. To see them making it, click here.

In a nutshell, you’re now caught up on my time in Bali.  Shall we move on to Thailand?  

Additional photos for this and other blog entries can be found on the “Photos of Her Adventure” page of this blog.