In Reply to: JBR 5...Things that go bump in the night posted by bopgirl on Sunday, 23. October 2005 at 11:09 Bali Time:
What a great read. I have absolutely loved your JBRs - this one in particular caught my attention.
I have been to Bali quite a few times, the first time being in 1996 when I was quite young.
I won't go into details because I'll be here all day, but basically, an elderly Balinese man informed the person I was with (in Bahasa) that I was cursed. The friend I was with was older than I, an experienced traveller and spoke Bahasa rather fluently. As I wasn't able to speak Bahasa, I had no idea what was being said...all I knew was that we had stopped dead in our tracks along Jln Legian to talk to an elderly man who seemed rather frightened and who had ran out to greet my friend pointing from one of the side streets.
My friend just laughed it off with the elderly man and then took my hand and led me away. He didn't tell me what it was about until his last day of the trip. I had asked him time and time again about the exchange that took place and he said it wasn't important. I'm not sure what prompted him to tell me but he did. He said that the old man had told him I had been cursed by a witch and that the magic was bad.
I never really thought about that incident again until April this year when my partner and I were in Bali together.
I met this lovely girl who I became quite good friends with. She was very well educated and spoke English extremely well. On our last night in Bali, she said that she'd been meaning to tell me something. It was then that she said that she thought I was cursed. I at first laughed it off and said that it would explain why the past couple of years of my life have gone so badly but she didn't think it was funny at all and told me that the curse had to be reversed. It then occurred to me what happened years before and I told her about it and she then proceeded to tell me about the magic in Bali which I found rather interesting as I'm always open to learning new things.
Ketut told me that the only way in which I could have the curse reversed was by going to a temple with an "offerring" (the bigger the better) for the Gods. She organised to come to my hotel the next day so her and I could go to a temple together and have the curse removed.
The next day, however, my partner and I pulled up very, very ill and we still had everything to pack and get ready for our flight home. When Ketut came to our hotel, she saw how ill I was and told me that the next time I visit Bali, I should definitely do something about the curse so that things would start to go right.
I really wish I had have gone to the temple with Ketut despite how sick I was but never mind, I'll be back in February so I'll organise to do it with her then.
I'm rather skeptical about the whole thing but who am I to tell these people they're wrong or that what they believe is not real? I certainly don't know that for sure. If nothing else, the Balinese people know how to tell a good story!
I have been reading the other posts about people having dreams in Bali and I must say, when I'm home (or anywhere else in the world), I have dreams every single night without fail - some pleasant, some not so pleasant but they are all very real dreams. Whenever I am in Bali, I sleep soundly...no dreaming at all which is very odd. I think it's possibly holiday mode though...who knows? I don't mind the mystery of it all.
So, my suggestion is this, maybe your friend should get talking to some of the locals, find out what she can, then go to one of the thousands of temples in Bali and make an offerring...maybe then the "evil spirit" or whatever it is, will leave her alone.