The Nyepi Blog... to be updated throughout the day

Nyepi is the start of the Balinese year, and it is a day of complete silence across the island (at least in theory). No lights come on, no cars or motorbikes are on the road, absolutely no stores are open, the airport is closed, and people are not allowed to go off of their property. This is our first Nyepi, so we thought we would let you know what it is like...

6:45am (the day after)- wake up, motorbikes and cars are roaring outside. Life back to normal on the island...

9:30pm- We venture out into the road (which we could barely see) to have a look around. It is still really, really dark. At one point, a friend decides to hide from us. He is about five feet in front of me throwing small twigs in my direction, and I could not see him at all. About 1/4 of a mile down the road, we see some flashlights come on and point in our direction. Fearing the pecalang, we run back inside.

8:15pm- We head out now to check out the stars. It was really dark. The stars were awesome. Probably have only seen more when we were in the middle of nowhere in Utah a couple of years ago. We do some random flashes of light out in the rice fields, but it is probably just some people out trying to catch eels...

7:00pm- It's dark now, and we went outside to check and if the lights could still be seen. They can... So we are shifting to candlelight now. There are religious "security guards" that roam around checking for Nyepi "violations". They are called pacalang and some are really strict, while others could care less.

6:00pm- the sun is starting to go down now, so we have put up some blankets over the windows so that the lights can't be seen from the outside.

11:15am- have the first round of visitors. We are staying at our friend's house and some of their neighbors have come to sit, fish, and talk. Technically this is violating the rules of Nyepi, but they are telling us that people get more and more relaxed about Nyepi every year. Especially outside of the Denpasar, the rules become increasingly lax. They weren't too brave though because they walked across the rice fields to get here (they didn't use the roads).

10:30am- took a walk outside and the absence of motorbike/car noise is so hard to get used to. Hearing some voices around, but that's about it.

6:00am- Kenan wakes up around this time, and the first thing I immediately notice is the lack of motorbikes outside. The only thing I can hear now is birds, which is pretty strange. Kristi thought she heard a person's voice, so we looked outside and we already saw our first two "cheaters". Two guys were out tending their plot of rice. I guess they didn't realize it was 6am...

11:00pm (the night before)- all kinds of fireworks are going off right now. It actually sounds more like cannons... I guess everyone wants to be get all of their loudness and craziness out before the silence starts.

7:30pm (the night before)- we left our house to get some dinner and some money from the ATM. Although Nyepi does not technically start until 6 am the next morning, almost all restaurants are closed, all ATMs have been shut down, no stoplights are working, and very few other stores are open. Most of the billboards and lights in the city are already dark. We drove around for an hour trying to find stuff to eat, and we got stuck in three different Ogoh-ogoh parades (the ogoh-ogoh parades are big paper machet type statues paraded around the city with a lot of people following behind... the statues are supposed to scare away evil spirits). We end up eating peanuts for dinner!