Balinese New Year starts with an Ogo Ogo dance parade through the main street of Kuta. In addition to the gamelan-type music played, men and boys enact stories (I think) through dance and parade huge effigies of gods and demons through the town on wooden pallets - carried by approximately 14 teenagers. I started the evening at the end of the parade, where the dance competition takes place, but the crowds were so thick that the only way to really see anything was on other people's video cameras. After waiting close to 2 hours to see so little I was happy that the night before I'd happened upon a rehearsal of one local group's effort to win the contest.
On the walk back to the hotel I met Barrie, a very interesting character and chatted for a few hours. He was very inspiring and friendly and it was so nice to talk with someone who wasn't trying to sell me sunglasses or get me to go on the back of their motorbike.
Now it is officially Nyepi, otherwise known as Silent Day because everyone stays at home and is meant to be quiet: not silent as the can talk, but are not meant to make undue noise. The thing is, that as usual, tourists are not playing by the rules. It is currently about midday. I am staying in a very cheap hotel with 3 storeys of rooms laid out around a miniscule central courtyard. From one upstairs room is the noise of people watching one loud movie, and from another two others are playing their iPod on it's loudest possible setting, possibly through speakers. It is so disrespectful, so maddening. Nyepi is all about having a quiet time for contemplation - of the year that's passed and the one to come.
It's funny and infuriating how unable we are to live even 24 hours without some external noise to entertain us. How scared we are of where our minds might go unaided, or, even worse, bored. The power of the TV has never ceased to amaze me in that respect. There are people who cannot resist, if it is sitting there, to turn it on and tune out. Then the oblivion starts. This automatic urge to plug ourselves in really gets to me, especially because whoever else is in the same room is then subjected to the same interference. But, as with everything else in life, it seems that those who are more considerate of others are going to get trampled on in some way or another by those who are not.
Yet another film's blargh blare is heard from above. It seems Silent Day won't be that silent after all.
postscript:
Later that afternoon I met a fantastic girl staying at the same hotel and we stayed up in the darkness talking, talking, laughing, being shown upstairs to see the stars and all in all having a great time! Hushed, but great：）
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