Galungan is the celebration of the dominance of dharma (good) over adharma (evil) and the religious holiday lasts for three days.
The first day is called penampahan. On this day, Balinese Hindus prepare all the offerings and decorations needed for galungan day. They also prepare a lot food, including lawar (spicy vegetables normally mixed with raw blood) and suckling pig. In fact, well before this day, people have already started making cakes and slaughtering the pig needed for the pig dish. These days are called penyekeban and penyajaan.
On galungan morning, the whole family prays together in their family temple (sanggah) and then normally proceed to one of the village temples to pray and take part in a larger ceremony with other villagers. People offer thanks to God for protecting man from temptation. They then beg forgiveness for any sins they have committed in the past and also pray for spiritual peace.
The next day, manis galungan, is a time to get together with the family and catch up with more distant relatives, who may have come from far away to pray at the sanggah.
Over the galungan period there are always many temple ceremonies which are attended in large numbers. Worshippers get dressed up in their best temple costumes and the most popular colour for men is white and yellow with the women dressed in a kaleidoscope of bright colours.
You can be sure to see a great deal of interesting entertainment put on by mostly local groups. This is mostly at night but in some villagers there may be daytime performances, depending on the local custom. Some of the music and dance is performed in the inner sanctum of the temple as offerings to the Gods and may only be performed over this religious period.
