Every Balinese Hindu is supposed to pray at Besakih, Bali’s
holiest temple, in the weeks leading up to Galungan. Three
years ago Wayan and Nyoman invited me to join them on their
first pilgrimage since their children were born. From
that time, it’s become a family affair.
At 06:30 we pile into my little car — three adults,
two kids, a huge basket of offerings and a big bag of
snacks. Every year it’s a tighter fit. The
kids immediately fall asleep and Wayan begins passing out
fruit and home-made sweets to keep up our strength as Nyoman
drives up the mountain in the sparkling morning.
The first stop is always the big temple at Batur at the brink
of the spectacular caldera. If we get there early enough
we can park on the main road near the temple; any time after
about 8 we have to queue behind dozens of smoky buses full
of pilgrims and walk up from the big new parking complex down
the hill. This year our virtuous early rising pays off
and we nab a parking spot a block from the temple. We
awaken the slumbering cargo of children, straighten their
sarongs, plug them into their shoes and make our way into
the prayer area.
After Wayan has placed the big basket of offerings on one
of the long tables to be blessed, we settle down in a companionable
row and share out the flowers and incense. There is
quite a wait, and I enjoy the opportunity to examine the latest
styles in kebayas and exchange nods with familiar faces from
Ubud. The local people have the sharp, slightly wild
features of mountain folk everywhere. Toddlers stagger by
in squeaky shoes. An old man leans against a wall in
the thin morning sun, eyes shut, snugly wrapped in a pink
faux fur jacket.
Finally the priest begins to ring his bell and we purify our
hands in the smoke of fragrant incense. The familiar
ritual begins. Even tiny children raise their hands
above their heads in prayer. The banners snap in the
cold mountain air as flowers are held aloft, dropped to the
pavement or tucked behind an ear or a curl of glossy black
hair. Prayers swirl upward with the smoke. Then
the bell stills. We are blessed with holy water and
press rice to our foreheads.
Wayan retrieves the offering basket and reorganizes the contents
in the bale along with a couple of dozen other women.
Kadek, her small daughter, wanders along the row of shapely
batik-covered bottoms looking for her mother. She pauses
a couple of times behind strangers, then reaches out to pat
Wayan’s familiar hip. As we queue with a couple
of hundred others to leave the temple I ask whether the small
children ever get lost in these crowds.
“When I was very young, I got separated from my family
at a big ceremony in our village,” Wayan recalls as
she guides Kadek through the throng. “I was only
about two years old and followed a strange woman home.
I didn’t even know my name or where I lived, and there
was quite a panic trying to figure out who I was. They
didn’t find my family until the next day!”
She laughs merrily.
Now we drive further up into the mountains, through the clouds
to Besakih. Still early, we’re able to leave
the car in the parking lot nearest the temple. Wayan
remembers coming at midday when she was a teenager, having
to walk two kilometres in the heat from the furthest parking
lot with the heavy offering basket on her head and then waiting
for hours to pray. No wonder she always urges an early
start.
At Besakih, we make our way to the little family temple, one
of dozens tucked away amid a maze of stairs and passageways.
The priest beams at us in recognition and we take our places
on the clipped grass. Once more the incense smoke swirls
as we make our prayers. After filling up a bottle with
holy water, Wayan wangles an invitation to visit the house
of the priest’s family behind the temple. We wander
through their little garden. Wayan, bold as brass, borrows
scissors from the priests wife to take clippings for our own
garden. “I’ll bring her some seeds from
Ubud next time,” she says. Everyone seems happy
with this arrangement.
Our final pilgrimage is to the main temple, lower in the complex.
The time is not yet 10:00 but the big space is packed with
devotees. It is a seamless river of Balinese lighting
incense, laying offerings on the long tables, praying, touching
rice to their foreheads, rising, collecting their baskets
and making their way down the steep steps as hundreds of others
flow in to take their places. Between prayers, temple
caretakers sweep up great heaps of discarded blossoms.
Other foreigners must make this pilgrimage, but I have never
seen one. A gamelan crashes in the background, the priest’s
bell clangs and once again we raise our steepled hands in
prayer. The kids, all prayed out by this time, are fencing
with sticks of spent incense behind Nyoman’s back.
Then it’s over. Rather wearily, we collect the big basket
and carefully negotiate the stone stairs out of the temple
complex. Nyoman fetches our food from the car and we
settle in the grass below the temple for our picnic.
“It’s funny,” Wayan says as she passes out
the packets of savoury rice. “When I go to Denpasar
I never want to eat, but when I come to Besakih to pray I’m
hungry all the time.” It must be the mountain air, or
the holy smoke.
