Archive on 'August, 2006'
by Putra - 30 Aug 2006 @ 3:54 am · Category Religion and Culture
The Hinduism people of the Balinese does not gaze at women as the weak creature that has to be protected. They are considered to have the strenghten to create the beauty, however they also can make the dangerest life in the world. They who want to release from the worldly as include in ‘Sarasamucchaya’, should be avoid or even if its possible to release the women from our mind. This as one reason how worried a man to the women magical strongness that may be crush the powder to the Gods and make their struggle for imprisoned and united with the God become down.
In their daily life, the community respectful to the women, as seen when veneration to the Goddesses who have believed to help the human life in the world. The venetration for the dedication and the grateful for God’s generosity of ‘Dewi Sri’, the Goddesses of paddy that the sources of human life. The venetration as the grateful also for Dewi Saraswati, the knowledge Goddesses that is symbolised as a woman with four hands, that stand up the lotus flower.
She is the symbol of woman who has to be provided with a formula extolling God’s perfection at the first hand, She tribute ‘Hyang Widi Wasa’, with palmyra palm leaves at Her second hand She penetrate the knowledge, with the musical instruments at the third hand She enjoy and announce about The beauty and arts, and with a flower at the fourth hand She spread the fragance and softness.
Even in puppet story, ‘arja’, ‘mask’, and folklor are mainly expressed the character of strong, independent, wides experiences, and has a charismatic woman as the princes.
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by Putra - 27 Aug 2006 @ 3:08 am · Category Religion and Culture
Bali Hinduism is only a veneer over complex, deeper-lying, indigenous superstitions. Before a Balinese picks a leaf or flower or chops down a tree, s/he first asks permission of the spirit (tonya) within. The Balinese even respect such inanimate objects as books, stones, large trees, and motorcycles. Just as the Balinese treat themselves to a bath in the streams late in the afternoons, revered objects too are accorded frequent bathings and renewals.
The Balinese are scared witless of ghosts, goblins, and the like, which disguise themselves as black cats, naked women, and crows. A Balinese can tell when a domestic animal is possessed-a cow that darts away, startled; a chicken that pecks in a peculiar manner. Many Balinese can point to several people in the village who practice black magic, but would never name them for fear of incurring their wrath.
The Balinese believe souls sometimes wander from people’s bodies while they sleep. This is why a Balinese will never wake up someone sharply or suddenly, fearing the soul would not be given time to return to the body. One must always wake someone gently, even in a crisis. It’s also believed the soul may enter the body of an animal during the night; this is why a chicken is never slaughtered after sundown.
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by Putra - 22 Aug 2006 @ 2:50 am · Category Place of Interest
The attractive drive to Sibetan winds through palm-leaf fenced rice fields, flowering teak, fragrant clove trees, and plenty of snakeskin-like ’salak’. Since 1950 Sibetan has been the ’salak’ center of Bali, hundreds of hectares planted of this low, thorny palm. The area ’salaks’ are known for their crisp, sweet taste, somewhere between apples and strawberries. Price depends on grade.
It requires three to four years of intensive tending for the three-meter-high trees to bear fruit. Pruning plants that have grown too tall and heaping soil around the stalk improves productivity. Planted among coconuts to provide shade, each plant yields from 40 to 50 fruit annually. Since the trees are planted close together, harvesters must crouch between the thorny branches to reach the fruit. The main season for ’salak’ is December through February. From October through November, trees bear smaller fruits, called ‘gadon’, which are more expensive because they’re available so early in the season.
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by Putra - 21 Aug 2006 @ 3:52 am · Category Religion and Culture
There are two kinds of priests on Bali, the ‘pedanda’, or high priest, and the ‘pemangku’, or temple priest. Only a Brahman can become a ‘pedanda’; ‘pemangku’ are recruited from the lower castes. There are about 20 times more ‘pemangku’ than ‘pedanda’. Priests don’t hold political office and their economic power is limited, yet they’re the most respected members of Balinese society, their place the highest a mortal can achieve.
Balinese priests don’t stand between a worshipper and god; he’s there to make sure a person’s prayers are properly directed so the desired results may be achieved. Before a family moves into a new house or opens a ‘losmen’, a priest is asked to give god’s blessing. Priests purify people after an accident or illness, avert curses, and bring people out of spells and trances.
‘Pedanda’ all claim lineage from Wau Rauh himself, the highest priest of the Majapahit Empire. A ‘pedanda’ is usually an old man, quiet, gentle, thin, clad in white with a white turban. He is cared for by his sons, his spiritual practice “subsidized.” It’s bad manners to ask a proud ‘pedanda’ how much a ceremony will cost; the answer will most likely be, “no, I’m busy.”
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by Putra - 16 Aug 2006 @ 6:32 am · Category Flora and Fauna
Hire boats at Labuhan Lalang for snorkeling and diving in the marine reserve of Bali Barat National Park in the northwest. The wonderful sealife of the coral reefs off Menjangan Island is one of Bali’s premier dive sites. A unique species of lobster is caught in these waters, as well as a wide range of colorful coral fish, including parrot fish, damsels, angels, wrasses, butterfly fish, puffer fish, groupers, and moray eels.
To the east, about 10 kilometers before Singaraja, is the coastal resort of Lovina Beach, where dozens of motorized ‘perahu’ go out to view schools of dolphins in their feeding grounds. These shallow, calm waters teem with a wide variety of small reef fish, crustaceans, sponges, and hard coral. In deeper waters are plankton-eating whale sharks. Two other popular, dolphin-viewing and dive locales are Candidasa and Padangbai in Karangasem. An indispensable reference for marine study is Kal Muller’s Underwater Indonesia: A Guide to the World’s Greatest Diving.
Endangered Species
It’s a common sight to see men and boys walking the back roads of Bali carrying small caliber rifles and air guns for the purpose of shooting birds for food or sport. Because it’s illegal to shoot birds without a license, if you see this say “Jangan membawa senapan tanpa ijin!” (”Don’t carry a gun without a license!”)
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by Putra - 14 Aug 2006 @ 2:42 am · Category Place of Interest
After Agung, Batur is the most sacred mountain on Bali. Most often the mountain’s only sign of life is an occasional wisp of smoke that drifts across its lava-blackened slopes. However, when this 1,717-meter volcano erupts, it glows red, bellows and throws out rocks and showers of volcanic debris.
History
Batur was initially formed in the shape of a sharply pointed cone over 3,500 meters above sea level. A terrific explosion blew the point off the cone, atomized a large portion of the volcano and collapsed the bulk of the mountain into the magma chamber, which was emptied by the initial cataclysm.
Before the present caldera was born, Penelokan and Kintamani lay on the western slope of the “first” Gunung Batur. Now Penelokan and Kintamani are spread out along the top of the caldera’s outer crater rim. The present younger, smaller volcano-of the effusive rather than explosive type-gradually grew out of the crater floor over a period of hundreds of thousands of years.
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by Putra - 12 Aug 2006 @ 6:30 am · Category Flora and Fauna
There’s been a dramatic drop in the local bird population over the last 20 years. Although many of the more obvious and colorful species, particularly birds of prey, have been all but eliminated, species still number about three hundred. These include beautiful wild fowl; an iridescent blue kingfisher; the dollar-bird of western Bali’s open woodlands; the acrobatic ash-colored ‘drongo’; the olive-beaked sunbird, which feeds on flowers; the black-napped oriole, with its completely black abdomen; the white-breasted wood swallow with triangular wings; and the streaked weaver, which builds delicate nests in colonies in the long grass of open country.
Specialized seabirds inhabit Bali’s south coast. The white-bellied sea eagle and white-tailed tropic bird nest and breed in the stunning vertical limestone cliffs and offshore islets of the Bukit Peninsula and Nusa Penida. At low tide, a prime viewing area for waterbirds is the long, sheltered coast of mudflats and mangrove swamp from Sanur to Benoa Bay. Here you’ll find large flocks of plovers, sandpipers, and other wading birds feeding on the mudflats at low tide. Along the shores of the Bay of Gilimanuk on Bali’s western tip are the large brown and white brown booby, the great crested tern, and the common tern.
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by Putra - 02 Aug 2006 @ 6:31 am · Category Flora and Fauna
The island is home to the rarely spotted lethal, luminous green viper (lelipis gedong) identified by the red in its tail. Bali’s other snake, the ‘ular sawah’, is brown and nonpoisonous.
There are also crooning frogs, lucinea spiders which build their webs along paths (if they bite you, your head aches for three days), fireflies, butterflies, crickets, poisonous scorpions (rare), and huge black, harmless beetles that thud off your hotel walls trying to find a way out. Children catch dragonflies on long, glue-tipped bamboo poles, then thread them like sate on strings to take home and deep-fry in oil for a crispy, protein-rich delicacy. Cicadas are the multitudinous unseen chorus to all Balinese nights. Bats can be seen at Goa Lawah cave east of Klungkung; they also emerge all over Bali at dusk to feed.
What do you call an Indonesian lizard with a loud voice? A gecko blaster. The lovable gecko-’cicak’ in Indonesian-is about 15 cm long, has a scaleless alabaster body and beady eyes, screeches “tsk-tsk,” and scampers upside down on any surface with the use of vibrations from its pudgy toes. The bottoms of their feet resemble the gills of fish. It’s believed that if a gecko chirps while someone is talking it means that person is telling the truth. Geckos make cheap pets because you don’t have to feed them-they eat each other.
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