Make lots of noise to call out the evil spirits, scare them into the sky with giant monsters, then hide for 24h in complete darkness so that the spirits will move on to another island. This is the basic idea behind Nyepi.
For over a month now I have seen people preparing for this special day across the whole of Bali. The monsters I referred to are known as ogoh-ogoh and take a fair old time to construct, some large, some small, but each one is always supported upon a bamboo frame so that it may be paraded on the streets during Nyepi.
The Night Before
The first sign of Nyepi is the sound of pots and pans being clanged together at sunset. This is the beginning of the calling out of the demons and evil spirits and it is important that one starts with their home & garden. Needless to say my family and I had a lot of fun with this one :)
Then as the darkness falls, the ogoh-ogoh spring to life for their street parades, followed by loud dramatic musical performances in which some of the ogoh-ogoh do battle. A most amusing thing to watch.
After the battles and performances are done the ogoh-ogoh are ripped to shreds & sometimes burned.
This one was a rasta demon :)
Trophies are taken.
Esteban my son said 'wowwwwww!' a lot, danced a lot and generally entertained everyone till we bumped into his nanny, a lovely local lady called Ketut who looks after him a few hours a day. She seemed more than happy to quickly assume her nanny duties :)
The Day of Nyepi
From 6am to 6am the following day no one leaves their house or does any kind of work or food preparation. They don't use electricity or any kind of lighting, so when night falls on Bali tonight it will be dark. It will be very dark.
The perfect time for me to head out with my camera to shoot some Milky Way time-lapse photography! And even better, there is no moon so the tonight the stars will glow bright :)
This is what I shot last year.
Notice the green firefly drifting in from the right of the long exposure shot :)
It is a national holiday across Indonesia today though Bali is the only island to take the ogoh-ogoh & total black-out tradition so seriously.
And for that alone, I love this special little island very much.
Hope you enjoyed & learned a few things.
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