Bali Odyssey: 2011

The priest at ngaben ceremony. They kept on chanting the prayer from beginning.

You can find many aspect in Ngaben, local villagers become accidental tourists, foreigners who stay in Bali feel just like a villagers.

The first procession coming. The children also participating in this ceremony. I had no idea what would be in the procession, how many, how big, how long, who would involved in it, and so many other questions .. I just wait and watch...

So here came the bigger procession with grown ups carrying it. Still wondering what would came next. The air is getting hotter as sun also went higher. And I got no idea how long it will take or last.

My goodness.. !! This is really fantastic.. To me they really has taken it seriously. They've got to design and built the statue for a ride or it will tumble down, not to mention the shakes and tossing around ... Also imagine how many people to bear on the shoulder...

In Bali you will never miss anything without music. From a dance performance to cremation, there will always be music in them. And they also dressed up purposely according to their role.

The children take the cremation ceremony in a different approach. Being part of the community of Balinese and get used to Ngaben will prepare them to involve further when they all grow up.

There's some kind of energy when they passed on. It's Bali and it's the land of the spirits. So if you wanna experience spiritual life you should go to Bali and stay in the small hotel in the midst of the local people. There are many things you could learn here.

The two roof in the background is two roof to shield the cremated bodies. Also, the higher the status of the deceased in Hinduism, the bigger their procession and the more the offerings plus the orchestra and so on..

The two towering shelter in the background are for cremation ceremony. The cow statue with the body of the deceased inside would be laid under the shelter then the protocol will be carried out and the family members stood waiting.

The amazing things I love so much is the Balinese never forget the art in every aspect of life. Here I saw the blood red cow statue decorated with colorful details and a painting of the judgement or the after life tortures. Any decorations have their own meanings in their cultures. I still don't have enough time to write down all the stories behind this aspets yet.

Another group of drum and percussion musician coming. Very highly spirited and passionate being here. Forgot the hot sticky feeling on my skin and the dry throat begging for water...

Honestly, frankly, I didn't even imagine my pictures would turn out like this. I just shoot and shoot and shoot like there's no memory card in my camera. Yeah .. the day of film cameras are over and now we don't have to think about film or processing expenses and it kind of helping me getting more good images as I just concentrating on the subject.

First Cremation coverage made me still wondering what or how this ceremony looks like. As I saw some people with happy faces and children participated in laughters.

The best is yet to come. As always, the best part of the show would show up at almost the long end of the procession. The biggest cow statues, the most expensively built, more people carrying it, more attention, more crowds shoulder to shoulder, more difficult to get perfect angles, more sweat to get the moment, also more possibility to step on others feet... ha ha ha ha... any way .. click.. click.. click.. gotcha..

Here came my beautiful red barong. Ambience, sounds of people, musical background, visual beauty in front of my eyes, they all stirred up emotions in my heart and mind.. inspired an artistic move to shoot.

Uh huh.. huh.. Not only human being, dogs also took a part in this event. A dog walking around was part of my first ngaben moment. There are a lot of dogs in Bali, they just patrolling around the villages. As opposed to any other moslem populated area where dogs are forbidden by religion, here it's a heaven for them.

All people were still coming to center of cremation area. Who's absent ? None, even the deads were there.

The big tree where they put the things for cremation. These are umbrellas for cremation purposes.

In here, the more prosper you are the more beautiful and bigger your decorations for cremation will be. It shows status either financially and level wise.

Waiting under the shade. Awaiting the time they just sit around the trees and relaxed. I love this scene so much.

The day of dance performance was coming. Me and Doddy planned to stay in Adriaan Palar's house in Lodtunduh, as it's closer to go to Peliatan from there. So in the morning we went there with all preparations, cameras, lenses, etc. Still tired from last night shooting the rehearsal, Pak Adriaan's employee informed that the banjar (village) will have a mass cremation ceremony or "Ngaben" in Balinese language. What a surprise ! I was thrilled as I've never seen ngaben myself yet.

So I was dressed in Balinese clothes so I could get close to the cremation sites and photograph everything. We drove and walked to the main area, it's a very wide area with lots of trees and typical nature. It's still quite and people started to flock in.

There will be hundreds or a thousand people gather for this ngaben so drinks & food sellers also came looking for their luck.

This was my first ngaben experience so I felt kind of excited and curious about what would happen next.

Turned out that villagers and families slowly poured into the location gradually. Some walked and some with motor cycles. Tourists also came, using cars, or motor cycles as well.

In Bali you could expect tourists flock in for any cultural event especially if it's big. People from all over the world come in to see, feel, photograph, or document using film, from amateurs to commercial ones.

Families of the deceased each have their own place built specially for laying the offerings for the ngaben purpose. In ngaben most of the body normally had been buried for long time so only the remains (bones) are present, so the family members are not in mourning condition. But despite this, they always take their ceremonies seriously and religiously. And they must wear their traditional dress, men or women.