SCOLE to SCOLE: Bali Bear

Goodbye Auckland!

A pavilion in a temple.

A temple guardian with a lotus filled moat behind.

Another guardian with a sari.

A dragon guardian with an offering.

More offerings in the market.

There are large spiders here!

Goodbye to New Zealand and on to Bali with a transit stop in Sydney, Australia. Bali is an island in Indonesia. It has 3 million people (New Zealand has 4 million) on the island which is about the size of Norfolk. The island is volcanic and has 2 very large craters both with lakes inside. The soil is very rich as it is volcanic and together with a heavy rainfall from a monsoon climate the land is very fertile. The main crop is rice, grown in paddy fields, and the farmers get 2 crops a year. Rice growing involves a whole community as the individual fields are dammed then flooded but each dam has to have a sluice onto the next paddy so all the village can share the water. Keeping the water flowing is very important and is the responsibility of the whole community as is keeping the dams and sluices in good repair. Harvesting involves everybody as it is all cut and threshed by hand. The fields are all tiny so mechanisation is not possible. As Bali is quite mountainous many of the fields are on terraces which are even more difficult to maintain.
The main religion is Hindu but there are some Muslim and Christian communities as well. Every village has at least 1 temple and every house has a shrine. Offerings of food flowers and incense are made daily at home and family shrines as well as at temples. Even businesses make offerings so the whole of Bali smells of incense! Stone guardians in the form of dragons, warriors, and animals protect the entrances to the temples to keep the bad spirits out. The 3 main gods are Brahma, fire, red, Shiva, wind, yellow, and Vishnu, water, black. Different temples are dedicated to different gods and are decorated in the colour of the god. The really large temples have more than one god and are very richly decorated.