Published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on June 29, 2008
By Anne Supsic
For The Inquirer
In Bali, death calls not for tears, but a fiery celebration.
UBUD, Bali - A parade down Main Street with marching musicians and eye-popping pyrotechnics - sounds like the Fourth of July, right? Well, that's not far off the mark. As we discovered, a Bali cremation is like Independence Day for the dead.
Cremation, this most personal of Hindu religious events, begins with a mid-morning meet-and-greet at the home of the deceased. In our visit to a rural village outside Ubud, the deceased is a Brahman priest, and the family compound teems with family and friends enjoying food, drink and lively conversation.
Women are dressed in lacy blouses and patterned sarongs, while the men are more casual in T-shirts, sarongs and turbans. The atmosphere is festive because, in Hinduism, cremation day is a happy occasion -- the spirit of the departed is released from this world to seek reincarnation in a future life. No one cries at a cremation in Bali because, if they did, their sadness might distract the spirit of the deceased from making the journey to that next incarnation.
Family members graciously thank my husband and me for coming as they serve us snacks and cups of extremely hot, strong coffee. Meanwhile, the deceased looks on from his perch in an open pavilion where he lies wrapped in white funeral cloth. He has been on display like this for the last week, injected with enough embalming fluid to keep him "fresh" in the 100-degree heat.
Our visit has been arranged by Suta Tours, which drove us from our Ubud hotel to this rural village in central Bali. For us to show respect, our guide, Poni, provided sarongs, which she deftly secured around our waists. There are only two other people on the tour, a couple from California.
Until now, my husband and I have been content to enjoy Ubud, the SoHo of Bali. The streets are lined with art galleries, handicraft shops and health spas. Intriguing dance performances are available nightly.
We are spending a week on the island as the last leg of a two-month visit to Southeast Asia. After hiking through Thai hill-tribe villages and scaling the ruins of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, we were ready for some R&R. We were looking forward to a week of art museum visits, souvenir shopping, and luxurious massages.
But a brief mention in my Lonely Planet guidebook of the unique Bali cremation ceremony sparked my interest. Learning about other cultures is one of the main reasons we travel, and we are constantly on the lookout for the unusual. When I spotted a flyer at the Tourist Information Office in Ubud about a cremation, I knew we had to do it.
We are fortunate to witness this ceremony, because individual cremations are rare. Cremations are expensive, so poor people usually are buried in a common grave, where they can remain for two to three years while the community pools its money. When enough people chip in, they dig up the bones and cremate the remains en masse. Because of his high rank, our priest cannot be buried and must be cremated within seven days of his death.
By early afternoon, the excitement is building as the priest's body is tied to a colorful, 20-foot tower. The person's status determines the number of tiers in the tower. Our priest merits a six-tier tower, elaborately decorated in orange and gold, that looks like the top of a giant wedding cake.
The tower sits on a bamboo pallet, with pallbearers positioning themselves to lift the unwieldy load. With the body securely strapped on the top tier, the strong, young pallbearers carry the tower, procession style, down the village street to the cremation grounds.
It feels like Mardi Gras as we join about 300 people swirling around the Balinese-style hearse. The tower, which rises above the telephone poles, lurches along. The pallbearers purposely swing it in circles and from side to side to confuse the dead man's spirit so that it will not try to find its way home.
Children laugh, gongs and cymbals resound, and women sway past us, balancing baskets of offerings on their heads.
A half-mile away, the parade ends at the cremation grounds, where a giant, white papier-mâché bull, looking like an oversized Mexican piñata, stands on the funeral pyre. Boys cut a rectangular opening in the bull's back and stuff the priest's body inside, followed by offerings of food and flowers. Then everything is splashed with a kerosene-like fuel.
The gongs and cymbals really get cranked up, and a group of old men, sitting on the grass in front of the bull, chant an eerie song that recalls National Geographic specials about funeral pyres floating down the Ganges River.
At last, it's time for the big event. The piñata bull, dripping with fuel, is ignited from beneath with a torch. Within minutes, the bull is ablaze. With his head poking out of the flames, it looks as if he is screaming. The fire becomes so hot that the crowd draws back.
A man notices my husband discreetly taking photos and escorts him to the front of the pyre, saying, "I will make sure that you get some really good pictures."
As the fire burns, the priest's skeleton drops through the underside of the bull, and the flames rise toward the heavens.
Meanwhile, the carnival atmosphere continues. Vendors sell ice cream and balloons, and children run around, acting as though the circus has come to town. We are mystified, but we wish our priest well and hope this wild send-off helps him attain a first-rate reincarnation.
________________________________________
Cremation Tours
Suta Tours offers Bali cremation tours whenever cremations are scheduled. The cost of the half-day tour is $19 per person. For more information, go to www.sutatour.com or e-mail the company at suta@sutatour.com.
For information about Ubud and Bali, see the travel guide Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok; Frommers.com; and a Bali tourism Web site, www.balinesia.com.
How to get there
American, British Airways, Delta, Japan Airlines, United and US Airways fly to Denpasar Airport from Philadelphia International Airport with at least two stops. The lowest recent round-trip fare was about $2,549.
By Anne Supsic
For The Inquirer
UBUD, Bali - A parade down Main Street with marching musicians and eye-popping pyrotechnics - sounds like the Fourth of July, right? Well, that's not far off the mark. As we discovered, a Bali cremation is like Independence Day for the dead.
Cremation, this most personal of Hindu religious events, begins with a mid-morning meet-and-greet at the home of the deceased. In our visit to a rural village outside Ubud, the deceased is a Brahman priest, and the family compound teems with family and friends enjoying food, drink and lively conversation.
Women are dressed in lacy blouses and patterned sarongs, while the men are more casual in T-shirts, sarongs and turbans. The atmosphere is festive because, in Hinduism, cremation day is a happy occasion -- the spirit of the departed is released from this world to seek reincarnation in a future life. No one cries at a cremation in Bali because, if they did, their sadness might distract the spirit of the deceased from making the journey to that next incarnation.
Family members graciously thank my husband and me for coming as they serve us snacks and cups of extremely hot, strong coffee. Meanwhile, the deceased looks on from his perch in an open pavilion where he lies wrapped in white funeral cloth. He has been on display like this for the last week, injected with enough embalming fluid to keep him "fresh" in the 100-degree heat.
Our visit has been arranged by Suta Tours, which drove us from our Ubud hotel to this rural village in central Bali. For us to show respect, our guide, Poni, provided sarongs, which she deftly secured around our waists. There are only two other people on the tour, a couple from California.
Until now, my husband and I have been content to enjoy Ubud, the SoHo of Bali. The streets are lined with art galleries, handicraft shops and health spas. Intriguing dance performances are available nightly.
We are spending a week on the island as the last leg of a two-month visit to Southeast Asia. After hiking through Thai hill-tribe villages and scaling the ruins of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, we were ready for some R&R. We were looking forward to a week of art museum visits, souvenir shopping, and luxurious massages.
But a brief mention in my Lonely Planet guidebook of the unique Bali cremation ceremony sparked my interest. Learning about other cultures is one of the main reasons we travel, and we are constantly on the lookout for the unusual. When I spotted a flyer at the Tourist Information Office in Ubud about a cremation, I knew we had to do it.
We are fortunate to witness this ceremony, because individual cremations are rare. Cremations are expensive, so poor people usually are buried in a common grave, where they can remain for two to three years while the community pools its money. When enough people chip in, they dig up the bones and cremate the remains en masse. Because of his high rank, our priest cannot be buried and must be cremated within seven days of his death.
By early afternoon, the excitement is building as the priest's body is tied to a colorful, 20-foot tower. The person's status determines the number of tiers in the tower. Our priest merits a six-tier tower, elaborately decorated in orange and gold, that looks like the top of a giant wedding cake.
The tower sits on a bamboo pallet, with pallbearers positioning themselves to lift the unwieldy load. With the body securely strapped on the top tier, the strong, young pallbearers carry the tower, procession style, down the village street to the cremation grounds.
It feels like Mardi Gras as we join about 300 people swirling around the Balinese-style hearse. The tower, which rises above the telephone poles, lurches along. The pallbearers purposely swing it in circles and from side to side to confuse the dead man's spirit so that it will not try to find its way home.
Children laugh, gongs and cymbals resound, and women sway past us, balancing baskets of offerings on their heads.
A half-mile away, the parade ends at the cremation grounds, where a giant, white papier-mâché bull, looking like an oversized Mexican piñata, stands on the funeral pyre. Boys cut a rectangular opening in the bull's back and stuff the priest's body inside, followed by offerings of food and flowers. Then everything is splashed with a kerosene-like fuel.
The gongs and cymbals really get cranked up, and a group of old men, sitting on the grass in front of the bull, chant an eerie song that recalls National Geographic specials about funeral pyres floating down the Ganges River.
At last, it's time for the big event. The piñata bull, dripping with fuel, is ignited from beneath with a torch. Within minutes, the bull is ablaze. With his head poking out of the flames, it looks as if he is screaming. The fire becomes so hot that the crowd draws back.
A man notices my husband discreetly taking photos and escorts him to the front of the pyre, saying, "I will make sure that you get some really good pictures."
As the fire burns, the priest's skeleton drops through the underside of the bull, and the flames rise toward the heavens.
Meanwhile, the carnival atmosphere continues. Vendors sell ice cream and balloons, and children run around, acting as though the circus has come to town. We are mystified, but we wish our priest well and hope this wild send-off helps him attain a first-rate reincarnation.
________________________________________
Cremation Tours
Suta Tours offers Bali cremation tours whenever cremations are scheduled. The cost of the half-day tour is $19 per person. For more information, go to www.sutatour.com or e-mail the company at suta@sutatour.com.
For information about Ubud and Bali, see the travel guide Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok; Frommers.com; and a Bali tourism Web site, www.balinesia.com.
How to get there
American, British Airways, Delta, Japan Airlines, United and US Airways fly to Denpasar Airport from Philadelphia International Airport with at least two stops. The lowest recent round-trip fare was about $2,549.
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