Return to Bali the island of demons

It would be impossible to visit or live on Bali and not be exposed to one of the country's most highly developed art forms, batik. The word batik is thought to be derived from the word 'ambatik' which translated means "a cloth with little dots".

The girl in the Taman Nusa open air museum playing the Balinese Xylophone called Angklung. The Angklung is a musical instrument made of two to four bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame.

My name is I Gusti Agung Wira Ditya, call me Wira, and I send my greetings from Sembung, a small village on Bali in Mengwi. I'm the two years old son of my mother Gek Suzan on Bali.

Just call me Mayun. I'm the second son of my mother Ni Kadek Mayang Sari and I was exactly 105 days old, when this photo was captured on 29th of August 2017 in Sembung a small village in the province Mengwi on Bali. It was the day of my big ceremony the Tiga Bulanan, when I got in the community of Hinduism. Tiga Bulanan is the great ceremony to honor of the parents Fatih and Mayang and the new born son Mayun.

The water temple, lake, bathing pools and surrounds at picturesque Tirta Taman Mumbul Sangeh is an idyllic and serene spot to take a break and maybe partake in a ritual water cleanse.

Pemuteran is an idyllic place at the northern coastline of Bali. The starting point of amazing dive courses.

The pedanda is usually an old man, quiet, gentle, thin, clad in white with a white turban. He is cared for by his sons, his spiritual practice "subsidized." This priest was blessing the young boy to his 105th day ceremony called Tiga Bulanan.

Portrait photo from a girl friend in Kesiman a part of Denpasar who came to the holy festival Tiga Bulanan in honour to the new born baby Mayun. Dewi stays in relation to the parents of I Gusti Agung Mayun Jaya Santosa.

The people of Tenganan Pegringsingan are called Bali Aga the original Balinese. Tenganan is charming and has some very fascinating authentic traditional house buildings. This is the entrance gate to a very old compound. Bali Aga house is a rectangular post-and-beam structure supporting a steeply pitcher roof made of bamboo shingles or of a thick grass thatch. It is raised on a low plinth of compacted earth faced with stone. The walls are typically thick wooden planks or plaited bamboo strips. The windows are small or non-existent. A single door is situated at the center of the house, facing the central corridor of the compound.

The water temple, lake, bathing pools and surrounds at picturesque Tirta Taman Mumbul Sangeh is an idyllic and serene spot to take a break and maybe partake in a ritual water cleanse.

Desa Sembung the village where I live on Bali. Teh village (Desa) is within Bali and is nearby to Karangjung, Pempetan and Dajanpeken.

Desa is the word for village but the Balinese village is the place for communication of all problems in personal matters. Nuclear families live in the family compounds of their parents, normally that of the husband. In old-fashioned villages like here in Sembungi, privacy is almost unheard of. If someone is ill or having a violent argument, it’s the duty of friends, relations, and all the immediate neighbors to crowd into the house and be on hand in case somebody freaks out. One morning not long ago, I was awakened at dawn by the sound of a crowd of people in my yard. I found about forty people there standing outside the kitchen shed, while inside there were about seven or eight more people, as many as could physically fit in there. People apologized to me for the commotion and explained that Rani (a young relative of Madri’s whom I know slightly) had run away from her husband the night before and taken refuge in my kitchen. She wouldn’t speak and seemed not to be able to hear.

The wife of the ratu pedanda high priest in Bali is celebrating and blessing the hindu people who join the grat festival Tiga Bulanan, where a 105 days old baby in communicated into the hindu society.

Gung Biang Ade the aunt of the celebrated baby is offering obligations to the holy shrine in the compound. Women, not men, make the offerings. Often several generations of a family will sit together chatting, mechanically stitching, skewering and cutting at breakneck speed – the youngest barely old enough to wield a knife. Balinese offerings not only take an enormous amount of time, effort and money to make – but by putting something of themselves into their creations, their creators in turn offer their life-energy, and time, to God.

Only a pedanda can lead larger and more complex ceremonies like the Tiga Bulanan fesival in that case.. For example,a big temple of Bali, can only be led by a pedanda of the right status. In terms of appearance, the pedanda dresses up more fashionably than the lower priest the pemangku. A typical pedanda wears a special decorated crown and special decorated robes, usually with intricate gold decorations. Aside from leading ceremonies, the pedanda also plays an important role in providing religious knowledge to the community.

We're in the center of the Bali Aga village Tenganan. One enters the village through the gate on the southern end. On either side of the entrance are two small temples. Across from these is the long balé agung, where the administrative decisions for the village are made.

About 106 families with a total of 49 children live in Tenganan, a significant drop from the estimated 700 at the turn of the century. A council of married people decides the legal, economic, and ritual affairs of the village. The village customary law prohibits divorce or polygamy, and until recently only those who married within the village were allowed to remain within its walls, others were banished to a section east of the village called Banjar Pande.

The gate to Pura Pangubengan in the village Desa Adat Kutuh on Nusa Dua, Bali. Candi Bentar the split gate, symbolizes the world mountain Meru, cut open in the middle and pulled apart in two halves (good and evil). Shape of the outer gates in South Bali. When an evil spirit enters, the halves of the jagged bumpers collide and crush the spirit between them.