Read the authentic experience of contributor Ivana Grešlíková.
I wake up to loud sweeping of dry leaves right behind the window. The mobile shines 05:47, behind the window is dark. The sounds of the broom in the courtyard of the Balji family I live in overlap with motorcycles, which is witching along the way to the house. Everything is silent in thirteen minutes. In thirteen minutes, Bali dives in silence for 24 hours. Within thirteen minutes, everyone has to get home, to the hotel, and keep the ban on getting up until six o’clock in the morning. Otherwise, they are at risk of admonishing or escorting houses. In the case of foreigners, deportation from the country.
Bali celebrates the New Year Nyepi in his own way. Without champagne, no fireworks, without roaring crowds in the streets. They do it as their ancestors have done since time immemorial. For one day a year, they postponed all the duties, plunged into themselves, and did everything they could not to bring old problems, illnesses and worries to the New Year.
While the date of New Year’s Eve is clear, the Nyepi celebration day is changed annually according to the Lunar Hindu Calendar Saka. The New Year in Bali is usually celebrated at the turn of March and April, depending on the day of the new month. Jacket is a fundamental astrological indicator for the Baljans, which also determines which day is suitable for wedding or cremation.
Without sacrifice God or step
Indonesia officially acknowledges six religions, with the most believers saying to Islam, Catholicism, and only in the third place is Hinduism, the center of which is Bali – the island of the gods. You will find out when you land in Denpasare, when you will see the highest statue of Indonesia and the highest statue of the Hindu deity in the world from the aircraft deck. Garada Wisna Kencan Meria 122 took my construction for twenty -eight years.
Grandiose statue is just the beginning. Bali breathes through the daily Hindu rituals. Since the early morning, the domestic households have been wearing gifts on the altars in the yard, in front of the gate or to Hindu sculptures on the roundabouts. Inflated a fragrance stick and a small cupcake Canang Sari (Palm leaves with plume flowers, fruits and rice) express local devotion and ask the gods for protection. All this before they go out of the house or start working.
Whether it is a day, whether it is dark, the smell and smoke of fragrant sticks and the decisions of flowers on the sidewalks are an essential backdrop in front of the shops.
On Sunday morning you will come across groups of locals in the parade to the temple. It does not have to be a big holiday, but the home team always goes to the temple in traditional clothing.
Safe space
The fact that Bali is an island distant from the strongly Islamic Java and Sumatra gave him the advantage of choosing his own belief, and to use it to this day. This happened thanks to the Hindu and Buddhist intellectuals and the nobility who was looking for in the 13th-16th. century to Bali refuge. The isolated island offered them not only a place to live, but also a safe space to continue their religious and cultural traditions.
Bali, with its strong animist faith, added its belief to the original Hindism of how important it is to be linked to the ghosts of the ancestors and especially nature around. This is what distinguishes Bali Hinduism from that in India, where they have over a thousand festivals, but Nyepi is not among them. The day of silence is celebrated in only one place in the world – in Bali.
How to deceive evil spirits
Preparations for Nyepi begin already a week before the celebration. The locals meet home from all corners of Indonesia or other countries of Asia, where they migrated to work. While we in Europe are preparing fireworks, and cool champagne, in Bali is going to cleanse the body and mind.
The day before Nyepi there are parades of Ogoh-Goh with paper-mache sculptures. During the pompous parades, which begin after dark and last until 3 am, the domestic people “play into the note” of the Balinese god of time and disintegration – Batara Kala. Loud drums are to ensure that God is mercy on them and that they will bypass them next year’s bad luck.
Four rules must be followed during the day of silence: no lights, no fire, no work and no movements. They concern everyone. Children, adults and foreigners. The Balians believe that on this day the evil spirits are giving out to the island they want to avoid. To fool the ghosts, the island must be immersed in absolute silence and darkness. Only such bad beings believe that no one is on the island, and they will continue.
The streets, roads, bridges, beaches are guarded for one day with special patrols Pecalang. No one from the house. Shops, food stalls, gas stations, banks, and in some places and ATMs are out of operation. In some parts, the Internet turns off. The airport closes. The day before all the parasols, loungers… Ghosts must convince that there are no legs.
After dark, the candle must not be lit. The street lamps are only turned off for twenty -four hours a year. There must be no sound from the houses, no sound. The ban on rising also applies to tourists. Luxury hotels offer ready meals for their clients, just to make nobody out, the delivery is out of service.
Ignorance will not help here, as it was in the case of two Polish tourists who in 2023 spread a tent on the beach during Nyepi. After a friendly warning of the patrol that asked them to stay in the nearest hotel, they comply with traveling with a limited budget, while you will find a simple hostel for ten euros in Bali. The couple ended up with immediate expulsion from the country.
We will finally sleep!
Most of the domestic people are resting on that day, some Hindus will add purification fasting to silence and darkness, as they must not be cooked. In addition to trying to protect the island during Nyepi, they take the day of silence as an opportunity to leave everything unnecessary, and enter the new year without a mental load and without toxins in the body.
When I asked friends in the city of Sanur, where I was during Nyepi what they used to do that day at home, we unanimously replied “sleep!”. Many of them work in the work or family businesses of nonstop, without a day off. Nyepi is a redemption for them from fatigue and stress. Therefore, if you are on holiday at that time, take it as a chance to slow down and enjoy the silence and darkness that has a sacred sense for the home for twenty -four hours.
How to prepare for Nyepi on the island of Bali?
1. Find out the date you celebrate.
2. Do not plan during that day, nor the day before or in the morning after the end of nyepi no movements. You would come across clogged roads and highways.
3. Make your food supplies.
4. Prepare books, movies, or count on that you will just rest that day, after dark without light.
5. If you watch movies or listen to music, do so with the headphones on your ears.
