ngaben

The cremation ceremony was the topic of today. After weeks of preparation (which always seems exhausting for me, but made me couldn’t stand for giving praise to the villagers for consistently preserving tradition), the primary part of the ceremony was held this afternoon. And like usual mass ceremony happening in Bali, it successfully created drama on it’s surrounding. It blocked the only road we have to go to the office!

I passed this village to go to work each morning and to go back home each night. This is the only road we have. The other option is to take further mud and gravel road up north along the ayung river, which is definitely not the road you want to take if you are not local people and not riding TVS. The temple is located on this main road, which means the ceremony would take the whole side of that narrow road and gave no space for vehicle to pass by. The ‘bade’ itself was several meters high, even they had to detach the electricity cable. From far, there's no way i could pass this way. Thank god I’m with my motorbike. So I squeezed my body and my bike under the 'bade' and successfully move on. Too bad for whoever riding car and having their first time in Bali. And thank god that’s the only mobile activity I had to do today.

I love Bali. I love it more when I get used to the custom here.Bet ya! There’s no other place in the world that you could find anything like this.