We have a temple festival in our mother temple called Besakih Temple in our island, Bali. The temple festival, being held every five years, is usually attended by people from different part of the island. And for my case, since it took me 5 hours drive from the village I lived in, my family and I decided to join a small group bus trip from our village to go to the temple.
We departed at about 4 AM in the morning. We gathered in the village hall waiting for Mr. Wayan (he is the bus owner) who drove his bus himself. When the bus came, there were already some people including Mr. Wayan's wife and kids.
The bus was packed with people as we departed. Luckily I my family got seats. There were about seventeen people, and the bus was full. It's a small bus, mind you.
The bus, like other public bus, did not have air condition. The heat was bearable in the early morning. It got hotter as the sun appeared in the sky. We opened glass windows to let cool air pass into inside the bus.
The seat was uncomfortable, there no room to move my legs. But every now and then the bus stopped for toilet stop. At one time, the bus stopped, because Mr. Wayan wanted to go to toilet. There was no toilet around when we stopped so he disappeared into the bushes nearby to finish his business.
When we arrived at the mother temple parking area , we need to take motor bike taxi. We did not realize this at all. So, I had to spend my hard earned money for hiring 4 motor bike taxis, to take my family and I to the main temple area. Walking for about 1,5 kilometer was something that I could not bear of doing at that moment.
The sky was blue and bright when I stepped in front of the temple building. It's located on the bottom of Mount Agung, the highest mount in Bali which towered about 3142 meter above sea level.
We went to take the stairs of the right side of the temple. This lead us to our clan temple. There were more than hundred people on the stairs, that the traffic was congested. After passing the congestion, we managed to get into our clan temple and pray there.
After praying in the clan temple, the service was not over yet. We still need to go to the main temple, called the Penataran temple. We had another struggle of passing hundreds of people in the temple.
It was not easy, but we managed to navigate into inner area of Penataran temple despite the sea of people. We prayed along with hundreds of people in side the temple. And that was last pray we did on the temple.
Still I need to push through hundreds of people to be able to get out of temple. It was a small opening, and with lots of struggle and difficulties we made it out.
Just then, there was a phone call asking me, if I was finish praying. Everybody was waiting in the bus. OMG, how can they were so fast?
"I'll be there in two minutes." I said. That's not very accurate, but I was glad, we have done the praying. And, now time to push through again among these people.
