In the daytime I didn't really do anything that special, just had a Christmas Starbucks (it reminds me of England!) and went to the markets to practise my haggling and Indonesian skillz. At 8pm Koko came to my hotel with his brother, I didn't really know what was in store apart from that we were going to some Hindu holy place. He told me that I needed to bring a change of clothes, hmmm. We drove for about 40 minutes and arrived at the holy springs. I was put in a sarong and we walked into the temple. First you have to pray by sitting on the ground and taking a flower in your hands. You do this three times. It felt weird being that I've never been a religious person, but I always think its good to experience new things.
The first time I saw the holy water I could see a large pool with a number of fountains lined up along the far length of the rectangle. So basically you have to fully get into the water, it was very cold. Koko went first and I had to copy what he did. And what happens is you go under each of the fountains, after each one move along to the next one. There were maybe about 10 fountains in this pool, but two are used only for special purposes, like if there has been a death, or to cure bad dreams. We got out of this pool and moved across to another, smaller one. We repeated the process in a similar fashion. This pool also had little flowers and petals floating around in it. Whilst waiting in line to go under we had a little languages session in English and Indonesian as Koko's brother didn't speak much English. Vocab exchange bringing people together, lovely.
After this we put on some dry clothes, including a new sarong and went to another part of the temple. We had to pray in a similar fashion to at the beginning, but this time with incense. Throughout the trip Koko's brother had been carrying a woven box containing the offereings - flowers and leaves and lots of food. After the praying part we eat the offerings. This was fun as we sat at the edge of the temple and some old Balinese men came to say hello and to talk to me, probably wondered why I was there. It was all a very nice experience, it was very peaceful and even if you're not religious it allows you to contemplate.
So overall it was a Christmas so different to any other that it helped me not to miss home tooooo much. A lovely cultural experience finding out how real people live in Bali. I'll write again soon, the next locations have been a bit more chilled but I'm sure I'll still have a bit to say. Belated Merry Christmas, byeeee!
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| Me with Koko's brother Maday, stylin' the sarong I think. |
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| Koko! |
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