Have you ever gone to a temple and done something totally unexpected? The week started fairly normally. We are currently living in Ubud, you know, the place with lots of old things. So guess what? We looked at some old things. The place was crammed with temples, some undecorated and simple, while others were a lot more ornate and detailed. At night some of the temples would host traditional dances that could get jam-packed with tourists (We learned the hard way that you need to arrive at a dance about an hour earlier if you want to see anything).
The most popular dance we saw was at the Denpasar 2023 annual dance festival. It was a festival where all of the villages in Bali would come to do a traditional dance-off against each other. Although most traditional dances are held in temples, this was held in an amphitheater the size of a pro-athlete basketball court and the seating could hold a crowd big enough to fill the white house (which is pretty big). All the seats were taken in the back people were even climbing on the support walls to get a look. We could barely move let alone breathe but we managed to squeeze our way through the crowd to a good spot. Now, I say good spot but we still couldn’t really see anything. All around us people were pushing each other and craning their heads to get a better view of the stage. It was a nightmare. After two dances we decided we should leave because it was getting late.
This wasn’t even the highlight of the week. That was when we visited another famous temple called Tanah Lot. In fact, it might be the most famous temple in Bali with over 2 million tourists visiting per year. It was made in the 15th century by a priest named Danghyang Nirartha. The word ‘Tanah Lot’ means ‘land in the sea’ and the temple itself is dedicated to the Balinese sea gods. It is located on an island and the sea is thought to protect it from the evil spirits.
The temple is on an island so we had to wade in the water to reach it. Luckily we came during low tide but not-so-lucky for us there was a ceremony happening that day so we couldn’t go on the island. Fear not, for our efforts were still not in vain. We waited until sunset and just as the sky became an intense color of orange, a long-lasting friendship was created. I was walking along the beach when I found a stranded grasshopper in the sand. It might have been injured, because it didn’t fly or try to run away when I picked it up. It had been low tide then but when the waves got higher the grasshopper might have been swept out to sea. I named it Kalamar (don’t judge, I was hungry) and brought it to my parents. I took a photo shoot with it with the sunset in the background and released it to the wild.
[6/18 – 6/14]