We arrived in Bali over four months ago with a 60 day tourist visa. That meant we had to leave the country before we could stay any longer. On day 60 we headed back to Perth on our pre-arranged trip. It was not only a chance to renew our visa, but after two months in Bali we …
Tag Archives: Bali
All Dressed Up for a Temple Ceremony
Kadek, one of the staff at the T-House, invited us to join the local villagers for a ceremony last weekend. It was a ceremony for Kalangan, which is the final day of Galungan, a Balinese holiday celebrating the victory of dharma over adharma, and the time when the ancestral spirits visit the Earth. The day before our …
Balinese Traditional Games
Olive has leant some traditional Balinese games from the teachers and friends at school which we thought would be interesting to record and share. The descriptions and images below are by Olive. Bekel To play this game you need a rubber ball, or any small bouncy ball, and 5 or more small pieces, such as stones …
All Quiet for Nyepi
Selamat Hari Raya Nyepi Tahun Baru Suci 1936 Saka(Happy Nyepi Day, Holy Saka New Year 1936) Most of you probably didn’t know that the Balinese follow several different calendars, and for one of these their new year started on March 31 this year. This calendar is based on the phases of the moon and is approximately …
Foods We Miss
Living in Bali we missed a few foods from home Moving to a new country certainly does provide the opportunity to sample a huge array of different foods, but there are still some things that our western palates find hard to give up, even if it is only for a short time. I have to admit …
Ogoh Ogoh Parade
The day before Nyepi (the day of silence), the Balinese celebrate their New Year. Each village (Banjar) have been building Ogoh-Ogoh for the last couple of months. See our previous post showing the Ogoh-Ogoh statues from the villages around here. These Ogoh-Ogohs are carried through the streets for the Ngrupuk parade, culminating in the ritual burning of them …
Ooh the Ogoh Ogoh
One of the great things about the Nyepi celebrations in Bali is the Ogoh Ogoh statues that are built in every village. A parade of these creatures takes place on the eve of Nyepi day, which is tonight! We took a drive around town yesterday, where last-minute preparations of the statues were busily being done. …
The Elephant Cave – It’s all a façade
Up until now we had avoided visiting the nearby Elephant Cave due to too many negative reports (small and boring, too many touts), but as it is one of the tourist destinations of Ubud we thought we better go there anyway. We were pleasantly surprised, we are either easy to please or our expectations were …
Paradise Found
There are some references to Nusa Lembongan being “Paradise Island”, and after our long weekend trip there we would not quite call it paradise but agree that it is a beautiful place well worth visiting for a relaxing or adventurous break. View of Bali from Jungut Batu Beach Nusa Lembongan is a small island just off …
Is Bali Zoo For You?
We are on a mission to explore Bali as much as we can this year, but we are mostly limited to the weekends when Olive is off school. Last weekend’s day trip was to the Bali Zoo. We have been to the similar but more popular Safari and Marine Park, and the Bali zoo sounded …