In Reply to: Nyepi day advice posted by richosbali on Friday, 23. September 2011 at 13:41 Bali Time:
I have spent a few Nyepi days in Bali and have to admit that I like it. The night before has that "night before Christmas" feeling that you get when you are a kid and the Ogoh-ogoh parades are such good fun with all the excited little (and big) boys carrying the Ogoh-ogohs and the girls with flaming torches I tried the stay pretty quiet (hard for me) and sit peacefully reading on the verandah version twice and the silence really is amazingly, well, silent. Not a motorbike nor a dog barking.
That night really is like the night before Christmas when "all through the house nothing is stirring, not even amouse". I like to stand outside my room and listen to the nothingness.
If I am honest though, I must admit, that the best Nyepi day I ever had was spent in Sanur at Sanur Beach Villas last year and OK I know before you tell me that it was not traditional nor spiritual at all. I do respect the Balinese spiritual and religious life but in our little compound, and being mindful of the "blackout" with the lights and shush each other when necessary we had no impact on those outside the walls. Even the join in the front gates was carefully covered with flattened cardboard boxes so that no light would escape and since this beautiful religion is not mine I do not feel guilty for enjoying a day which can only be described as being like a family Christmas.
Everyone chipped in some sort of food or another and what transpired was an absolute banquet with course after course spread out over a couple of hours. Naturally the Big Red Esky got a bit of a caning too. Can you believe that some of the ladies had "girlie drinks in there"?
As always the thing about SBVs is the people you meet there, and run into again and again and who made the day such good fun. Before anyone who likes to have a go about "Bogans" pipes up actually there weren't any, nary a one! If there had have been they would have been made welcome like everyone else though. The hotel was full except for one villa due to a cancellation and we made use of that for preparing food. Well that's a bit inaccurate, since I am being honest, because I only unwrapped the platters which we bought from Bali Deli but those who were less bloomin' lazy than me certainly did a lot of preparing, marinating and cooking. Thanks to Ibu Irma and Ibu Rosie for the delicious Indonesian food they contributed.
That was Nyepi day and we went to bed early to be awoken the next day by the usual birds, roosters, dogs and the first motorbike.