As soon as we got to Bali we were told about Nyepi, the holiday of silence. No stores are open. No one leaves the house. Silence. Today’s the day.
Here’s the view from our house to the gate of the Villa Bhuana Alit compound. Beautiful, aye?! Fish pond to the right and communal space to the left. In Bali you can always find a place to rest in the shade; these communal spaces are for everyone.

What might have been the front door in the past is now a beautiful piece of artful glass. We stayed in Villa Cantik in Villa Bhuana Alit.

This is looking to the right from our place. Our friend Dennis lives here on the corner.

Ubud has some buildings that have fallen into disrepair or not been used for ages entirely. I loved this door, compare it to others we’ve found in Europe and it ranks highly! Great colour and awesome rough look. It’s easy to see the forest/jungle is ready to swallow anything up that isn’t constantly maintained.

Nyepi Parade

We walked to the centre of Ubud, the long way much to the kid’s chagrin, but once we made it (a monkey tried to rip my backpack off at one stage but wasn’t successful thank god) we saw the Ubud Palace full of the floats/statues ready to make their procession through town.

Lots of people milling around speaking many different languages besides Balinese Indonesian, I’m told Balinese Indonesian is similar to, but also quite different to, the national language of Indonesian. Cool what you find out when you give it an effort. Don’t be afraid to ask your locals about their language, most are happy to teach you!

This one caught my eye particularly, it is fierce and friendly at the same time, very much like the Balinese culture. Fun loving but steeped in tradition too.

Some statues/floats were so tall they got stuck in the power lines across the road. I’m amazed at how elaborate they all were. Now by this time we were all melting, it doesn’t cool off much at night in Bali and the kids were tired from our epic march (ask me about the young men setting off incredibly loud and powerful fireworks in the soccer field closer to our Villa sometime; they were no joke!)

A few random shots now from our house in Ubud. Here’s our usual breakfast staple, Daddy Pancakes. We made them the day before Nyepi so we wouldn’t have to cook anything on the day. You shouldn’t leave your house or do work of any kind on Nyepi.

Here I’m lying on the cool stone of our front porch and looking up at our front door.

There are some amazing butterflies in Bali, this one was on its last legs but we were very gentle in holding it and ooh-ing and aah-ing. Look at the colours! It’s officially the largest butterfly I’ve ever seen.

So many great sunsets at our Villa in Ubud. Funny we didn’t spend much time upstairs, but when we did we were usually treated to spectacular sunsets, and a view of the pool next door.

Imagine no road or people noise and add that silence to this sunset. Nyepi is a day I think anyone could benefit from. You forget how noisy life is normally but Nyepi makes you remember.

What a great day! We had been warned about this day two weeks prior when we arrived, and every day after that, so it didn’t take us by surprise but it was still amazingly wonderful. This night we had another tour from Guli which saw us following fireflies! My phone camera sucks so this one blurry image will have to suffice to remember the experience: