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Temples, Palm Wine and Parties, Oh My! (Updated)



This is the third time I'm having to redo this entry (grrrrrr!), so it will be shorter than I originally intended....

We were lucky enough to be at Cozy Wayan Sueta for the bi-annual temple festival -- twice! The photos below are are combination of both nights. Going to the temple means getting dressed in proper clothes, and Wayan and Ayu were kind enough to loan us some of theirs. 



Ayu carrying her offering

The children look especially cute in the clothes.

Agus and Anta

Ayu playing the gamelin

As part of the ceremony, all the alters are brought offerings, and are blessed with incense and holy water. A line of about 20 people (mostly women) snake through the grounds.


Some people watch this waiting for the part when they will be blessed,


...some watch just to take photographs,


...and others just hang out listening to the gamelin music.  Oh, and some people gamble on cock fights.






According to Wayan, no trip to the temple is complete without a trip to the nearby shop that sells palm wine. We were happy to help him with that mission, and boy did we! Our second temple visit with Grace, Jessica and Scott was an epic night, and I took lots and lots of videos, but uploading the videos will have to wait.  For now, here are just a few photos to illustrate the night.



See those water bottles? They're filled with palm wine.  The shopkeeper was refilling them from a 50 gallon bucket behind the counter.  We drank so much, that I thought it would be easier to just give us straws to the bucket, like a huge hooka.



All these photos were taken shortly after we arrived at the "bar", while everyone was still sober. As the night progressed, Scott, Tadashi and a few other guys starting playing guitar and singing. This was when the theme songs mentioned in my previous post, were born. The night was truly epic. So much so, that even Ganesh was hungover.  That's a rice steemer on his head.


Just for the record, I would not suggest drinking a copious amount of palm wine, then having a few beers, some scotch, and then more beer.  It's not a good combination. But did that stop us from partying on in future nights? Heck no! But it did limit our palm wine intake. 




Wayan had some good friends from Australia come to town, and he threw a big party for them, complete with live entertainment. The local band, Sexbrenx, was really good. Just don't say brenx sex, because that's f-u in Balunese!





Both Scott and Jessica were brave enough to go on stage and dance with one of the performers. 



Tadashi and Scott also each played a set. I will upload all the videos when I can get them off the camera.

It was a fun, but long, night for us all.




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