Hadas Kuznits Video Diary

Holy Humidity!

Bali is HOT! I got here to Indonesia last night when it was a little too dark to really see it. Bali is all about the holidays and the culture and the gardens… probably because of the humidity!

Bali is a Hindu-majority island in a Muslim-majority country.

There was a holiday last night called Siwalatri. It’s a holiday in which all the young people travel from temple to temple, leaving offerings, praying a little. If they manage to stay up the entire night, their sins are forgiven. I walked around a little bit and saw the kids going from temple to temple, so I went inside. One of the kids saw that I’m a tourist and called me over. I sat next to him on the mat. He lit incense and told me to follow what he was doing. He had a small pile of flowers in front of him. He tore a petal off of one of the flowers, so I did, too. He put it between his hands in prayer position, so I did, too. He moved it around the incense and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he put the flower petal behind his ear. We did this about three times, and then someone came by with what he told me was “temple water” I guess that’s like “holy water” and the boy sprinkled some on his head, then on mine. When it was over, I told him thank you, then it was time for him to move on with his friends to another temple and repeat until the sun comes up.

Later, I went into a restaurant where I met a guy named Oka. He was older, probably in his 30′s, about my age. I asked him about the holiday.

Oka said staying up all night for the Siwalatri celebration is a social event. All the younger kids stay up all night and meet with each other, pray a little and hang out a lot. Some also give rice offerings to the gods.

We talked for a little while. I liked him. He spoke English well, and told me about his life as a guide here in Ubud. I sat with him and his friends, then excused myself to go to bed.

The next morning, I had planned on doing a bike tour through Bali, but I overslept. To make up for it, the driver at my guesthouse agreed to take me around. Since we were up and it was a beautiful day, I asked him if he could first stop by the home of Ketut Liyer, the medicine man from the book, Eat Pray Love. He obliged and I met Ketut!

I asked Ketut why his didn’t smile so much in this photo. He told me he doesn’t want to show his teeth — or tooth, I should say. He only has one left.

Ketut was just as author Elizabeth Gilbert had described him — sweet, quirky and yoda-like.

Ketut introduced me to his granddaughter who was trying to learn English. Afterwards, he read my palm. Ketut told me I have good karma. Then he did a very thorough medical check-up on me by examining my fingers. He took my pointer finger in his hand and said, “lungs, good.” index finger: “heart, good.” Ring finger: “blood, good.”

Then he touched my knees and told me I was healthy. “No arthritis,” He said.

He examined my ears and told me I had a nice nose and mouth. Back to my hand — he told me I would live a long life, get married in 2 years and have two children and possibly two miscarriages. He told me I was on my third life.

I asked Ketut for some good life advice and he said, “Don’t worry! You have good luck. You don’t need to worry so much.” I think that’s the most useful piece of information I got. I really liked him, though. Ketut is a sweet man with smiling eyes and I’m glad I got to see for myself what Gilbert was talking about. Apparently, Ketut gets a lot of tourists visiting him now as a result of her novel.

Then it was off for a little sight seeing with Didi, my driver for the day. We went to see the elephant temple (no real elephants there),

some rice fields,

the Ganum Batur volcano

and more rice fields again.

Then I noticied I was having camera issues. I’ll have to fix that or get another camera. I’d hate to not have photos of my adventures.

This entry was posted on January 25, 2009 at 6:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized.