At the Intersection of Hinduism and Atavism: Bali, Indonesia

“When an elephant dies it leaves its ivory, a tiger leaves its stripes and a man his name.”-Indonesian proverb

Family compound upon family compound add up to a village. Land rarely changes hands, and generations of a family live in a compound centered around a shrine and a ceremonial platform. There is often a farm for each family, and neighbors who have been neighbors for generations. As the shrine is the center of the home, the temple is the center of the village. And the Hindu ceremonies are the adhesive of the village.

Thus is the traditional village in Bali.  Below is a photo of the walkway off which the family compounds are entered in one such village.

But villages are not the only way of life in Bali.  The cities are filled with shops and restaurants, the proprietors of which often live behind or above their businesses. And those businesses have a way of spilling out onto the streets.  The streets are heavy with traffic—plenty of cars and trucks, but primarily motor scooters.  Atop a scooter might be a couple of schoolchildren, a man with a load of rice, someone carrying other cargo, or just a single rider.

Driving is on the left, but that seems to be more suggestion than rule, as are the lane markings. To my western eye, it appears to be chaos, but our driver/guide managed to navigate it all with aplomb.  Indeed, all the drivers seemed to know what to expect of one another, and I saw nothing resembling road rage or even any accidents in our two days of extensive riding around the island. 

Among the many things that struck me about Bali were the deep sense of spirituality that permeates the island, as well as the people’s respect for life (for example, our driver constantly swerved to avoid not only the many dogs and people in the road, but for the snakes as well). The Hindu religion that dominates Bali is rather different from what we found when we visited India a few years ago—it has become mixed in with the ancestor worship that predated Hinduism, and is tied deeply to the outdoors. The temples are all open—no roofs and few walls.  Below is an example of the grounds of a typical Balinese Hindu temple.

So what exactly did we do in Bali?  A lot: attended a traditional Balinese dance, went to a traditional market, viewed some artisans at work, saw a spectacular waterfall and beautiful (and practical) rice terraces, tried to see a volcano and lake (covered in clouds most of the time, I’m afraid), visited a temple and a traditional village, drove the backroads through such environs as rainforests and bamboo forests  (I will never again complain about U.S. potholes), bathed in a natural hot spring, and last but not least, rode an elephant.

 

It would be fair to say that Bali was the highlight of the trip so far. Beautiful, fascinating, and both peaceful and hectic at the same time.

A stop in Java, with a visit to Borobudur, an ancient Buddhist temple that is the largest of its kind, should have been next up, but I had to miss the excursion because I was under the weather. So the next entry in this blog will be Kuala Lumpur.