BALI FLOWER OFFERINGS

A bit of a rant: I am beginning to really HATE Google. When the internet started if you typed something in a search engine, you got reference material, articles, college library hits. Now I get tons of commericial advertisements.

To wit: I wanted to learn more about "Bali Flower Offerings", and typed into the Google search engine: "Bali Flower Offerings". So what did Google return? A bunch of stock photos I could buy. Some flower companies. A couple of wedding websites where I could buy my Bali flowers. Oh yeah, and of course, the 1-800-Flowers website. Reminds me of the definition of an economist: "Gives a lot of data and tells you nothing."!!

I do know that on Bali the Hindu population makes prolifc offering to the Gods. Yes, the Gods as there are many,both good and evil, for almost everything or spirits if you prefer. At Ketut's Place in Ubud, he explained that offerings were made each morning to the spirit of the ravine to appease the spirit for disrupting the area when he built his house.

This was left as a comment by Tanas Aramuk:
An offering is something tangible, presented to appease the Gods in times of prayer. Philosophically, an offering is a sort of self sacrifice. One spends a significant amount of time and money in making an offering, putting something of oneself into it.

The most common form of offering that is seen everywhere in Bali on a daily basis is known as canang. It placed in temples, shrines and strategic locations of importance with a waft from a stick of incense and sprinkle of holy water. Shop keepers place this kind of flower offering in front of their stall upon opening up for trade and taxi drivers invariably have one on the dashboard of their vehicle.

At the hotel in Legian, I was there for only two mornings, but each morning the design in the bowl was different. Next time I want to be there when the offering is made and designed. I wonder how long it took to create one of these.

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MONKEY SHINES

Ubud Monkey Forest. A vast park with monkeys everywhere. I don't know how anyone can take a bad photo with these guys. Yeah, I was thinkin' "...more fun than a barrel of ......"

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BALI DANCERS

Bali was such a great week long vacation that I've got to do this in a couple of posts. Here's the skinny:

Bali has the beauty of Hawaii, the landscape to match, and the people are some of the friendliest, funnest folks you'll find. In my travels over the past three years to such places as India, Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, and Turkey, after one week I said: "I'm coming back here next year." Why...because being in Bali felt like a vacation and not an excursion. Excusions are fine mind you, they're just not always relaxing. Bali was just that.

I digress.

In two separate towns, Ubud and Permuteran, I stumbled across young children practicing traditional Bali dances. Just pure luck. The first time was down the beach from our bungalow at "Puri Taman Sari" where I found out we were one day too late to see the nightime show. The next was in Ubud, at a temple where young girls were practicing dances.

What amazed me was the grace, poise and sheer determination of these young dancers. As you can see from their faces, it was concentrate, concentrate..and then think really hard about what to do. No monkey business here. That comes later at the monkey jungle.

To read more about Balinese Dances:
Bali Dance Info <--Click Here

For example: "The typical posture of Balinese dance has the legs half-bent, the torso shifted to one side with the elbow raised and lowered in a gesture that displays suppleness of the hands and fingers. The torso is shifted in symmetry with the arms. If the arms are to the right, the shifting is to the left and vice-versa."





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What a Long Strange Month It's Been

Now if I could only remember the song with something like that line in it.

Ze Problem has been that for some reason my BLOG would revert to strange characters that looked like this [] [] [] [] [] instead of words. I got it fixed only for it to happen again. After three weeks, I can now see my BLOG again. I was just about to head on over to the Geocities BLOG site, but that really lacks a bunch of features.

So coming to a BLOG, like this one, near you will be.

BALI: Everything you thought it was and more.

CHINESE NEW YEAR: More Bang For Your Buck.

BACCHETTA SUNCOAST RALLY: The passion for a new recumbent was fueled and I can't find a fire extinguisher!!!!