Nusa Dua

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For our first few nights in Bali we stayed at the newly opened Bali Gardenia, and very nice it was too.
   

The  hotel is a little remote from Nusa Dua so they provided a family dance troupe for our evening entertainment

Complete with cheeky frogs
Hotel Bualu

At the end of our time in Bali we also elected to stay in Nusa Dua but this time we wanted something more lively.   We chose the Hotel Bualu because it was in the center of old Bualu village, a serendipitous choice as it turned out.   It was one of the first hotels in the area and was built as the training center of the Bali Tourism School.    We enjoyed this hotel and it is a pity that it no longer exists as it played a part in the history of tourism in this part of Bali
The private beach was a short walk or an even shorter shuttle ride away

On our penultimate morning in Bali we were rudely awakened by shaking beds, we were experiencing our first earthquake.  Now they had our attention we noticed a commotion in the street below.   A large group of people chanting and drumming were marching to the beach.  We had been on the island long enough to know this was going to be a spectacle.  We rushed to join the parade.  This is the scene that met us at 7.00am on a  Nusa Dua Beach.  What an end to our wonderful magical time in Bali.  This is the final and greatest of all the cremation ceremonies, the cleansing of the soul, the Mukur

Forty days after cremation the Mukur marks the entry of the deceased into a world where all is 'light without shadow, they have entered heaven.  A second tower, the bukur, tall and slender and always adorned in white and gold is carried with the same mad recklessness we saw at the royal cremation ceremony in Ubud

Barbara as usual found someone to tell us what was going on.  What would I do without her?
 Women tuck a pleated fan into their headbands as a symbol of the purity of the occasion.  The men  wear the traditional white headbands of mourning

The representation of the three departed souls are brought from their tower, placed on a boat and taken out to the open sea, where they are thrown into the waters far enough out so as not to be washed ashore

 

The bukur is dismantled and burned.  All the accessories are destroyed, nothing  remains.   Patrols are appointed to destroy whatever is returned by the waves.  All had been accomplished by earth fire and finally water

A party atmosphere takes over with the weary participants frolicking in the water before setting off for their home village, which may be some distance away.  The obligation to their predecessors is honoured and their loved ones can continue to guide and protect them as deities as they did during their time on earth
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