Kue Klepon (Klepon Cake)

Klepon is one of  favorite meal in Bali specially in rural area like Beraban village. Klepon become unique cake because this meal usually not always available every day except there are some order from customer or some event like custom ceremony or other religious event.

But in Tanah Lot Tourism Object, merchant of klepon always available every day. Most of them usually from Beraban village and surrounding. And the merchant usually women who can make this cake. Cause domestic visitor or foreigner usually like this cake very much. The excellence of klepon lay on its form and its taste. Cause inside of klepon there are sugar, in Balinese people called “Gula Bali” which cause that sweet tasty.

Klepon made from rice powder mixed with starch powder. And for green color of klepon is made from a kind of leaf in bali that’s called “daun kayu sugih” or a kind of colourant special from meal and beverages, and “gula bali” for it sweet tasty which included inside of klepon.

In bali klepon usually complete with coconut which have been grated, for decoration above this cake. With green color of klepon and white color of coconut, making this cake very attractive and bewitching to be tried.

"Galungan"

Galungan is marked by the sudden surplus of traditional Balinese food, like lawar (a spicy pork and coconut sauce dish) and satay. On Galungan day it self, Balinese devotees pray at the temples and make their offerings to the spirits. Women are seen carrying the offerings on their heads, while the men bring palm leaves. There's also a ceremony known as Ngelawang that is performed in the villages on Galungan Day. Balinese visit their relatives and closest friends.

Galungan Festival Bali, one of the most important festivals in the Balinese calendar, is a time when the spirits of ancestors return to earth to live with the family. Women begin preparing a month before the festival, weaving intricate decorations from coconut palm leaves, baking festive rice cakes and stockpiling packets of incense.
Towering bamboo poles are erected outside every gate, turning simple lanes into avenues of magnificently decorated penjor -looped scrolls of coconut leaf, decorated with vividly colored leaves and tied with sheaves of rice and pieces of fabric, with intricate weavings of young coconut leaf and flowers dangling at the ends.

The day before Galungan Festival is devoted to preparing festive dishes. Fragrant trays of brilliant flowers, shredded leaves soaked in perfume and sticks of incense are also prepared.

Lawar (Balinese Food)

What is Lawar?

Lawar would have to be the most stereotypical Balinese food. Anyone who has lived with a Balinese family will have surely been offered this spicy fare, particularly around ceremony time. “Bani ngajeng lawar?” (“Are you brave enough to eat lawar?”), they will ask, grinning. This expression speaks for itself – lawar is far removed from Western cuisine and for many it is an acquired taste.
 
The basic ingredients are for lawar are: Balinese traditional spices such as kunyit, shrimp paste, salt and ground pepper, galangal and other roots; grated coconut, green beans, boiled young jackfruit and occasionally, singkong leaves, all chopped up and blended together.
 
The meat distinguishes the type of lawar – chicken, duck, beef, pork, turtle, or even dragonfly. Although it is considered a delicacy at ceremony time, fortunately turtle lawar is becoming less and less common. Dragonfly lawar is most unusual because it takes so much time and money because you have to use so many dragonflies to fill you up! Most lawar has raw blood mixed with it but not all Balinese like this and many prefer their lawar vegetarian.
 
You will know when it’s lawar time from the early morning chatter of knives on chopping boards. It’s always the men who make lawar, sitting around in a circle at daybreak, chopping, chatting, and mashing, in between sipping strong sweet coffee and toking on clove cigarettes.
 
Some Balinese like to make lawar to celebrate something outside of a religious ceremony, such as a success at a sporting tournament or cultural event, or simply just to get together with their mates and have a feast.

http://www.baliadvertiser.biz/articles/kulturekid/2004/16lawar.html

Omed-omedan (Wet Kissing Ceremony)

Parents making their teenagers kiss in public? A village in Bali does so once a year.

Following Nyepi — a day of silence for Balinese Hindus marking the Saka New Year — Banjar Kaja in Sesetan, Denpasar, holds Omed-Omedan, a kissing festival for local teenagers that is believed to ward off bad luck in the year ahead.

The story goes that the festival began “a long time ago,” but nobody quite knows when. A group of bored teenagers were hanging around, playing games outside on Nyepi near the house of an elderly village leader who was sick. When the leader stepped outside to scold the laughing teenagers, he instantly felt better.

The festival has been held ever since. In the 1970s, it was moved to the day after Nyepi to respect the silence edict. There was only one year that the festival did not push through and locals say that on that day, the head of the community found two pigs fighting outside the main temple. Unable to separate them, he took this as a sign that the festival needed to continue yearly to maintain harmony.

Being in Bali over the Nyepi holiday, I headed to Banjar Kaja on Wednesday to see the kiss fest for myself.

The festival is held in the afternoon so not to disrupt the tradition after Nyepi called Nyembak Geni, where Hindus visit each other to pray and ask for forgiveness. Before the festival, participants also visit the temple to make prayers and offerings.

When I arrived, Balinese rock and punk bands were taking center stage and teens were dancing and singing along. After the official guests arrived, the entertainment took a more traditional turn, with barong dancers and singers, along with a gamelan orchestra.

But the crowds kept swelling in the narrow street where the event was held. Pretty soon, I found myself being pushed back into a pole with someone else’s baby holding on to my head, a random child occupying the gap between my thighs and toes, and with the complete inability to move my left arm, while a man puffed kretek smoke in my face. It also felt like someone was using my generous backside as a pillow. But sometimes, these are the trials we must endure to see something interesting.

As beautiful and talented as the dancers were, nobody got to kiss them, so the crowd was anxious for the main event to go ahead. The teenage boys looked like they were particularly ready for Omed-Omedan, standing in groups, shuffling their feet and laughing anxiously, looking too cool for school in their traditional headpieces and sarongs, official festival T-shirts and topped off with hipster sunglasses. The adults then started to round up the teens while spraying the crowd with water to both cool us down in the scorching heat and hype everyone up. Boys blushed but walked off to perform their manly duty and girls squealed and tried to hide behind each other.

“I’m too young!” “I’m too old!” “I’m too shy!” they squawked, as they were coaxed, or pushed from the audience. But despite the initial displays of reticence, they eventually gathered in the space that one man told me was called the “kissing fields,” with girls down on one end, boys on the other.

The first step was to parade the guys and girls before each other in circles. Nobody near me in the crowd could explain exactly why, though one relaxed guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt might have gotten it right when he shrugged nonchalantly and said: “Excitement. Entertainment. Look, it’s funny.”

It was pretty funny. The two groups were trooping past each other, sneaking sideway glances, squealing, giggling, whispering, almost tripping over their own feet in youthful awkwardness. Most of the participants looked to be around 14 to 16 years old.

Once again, they gathered into groups of girls and boys at each end of what would become more than a kissing field — it ended up being more like a make-out runway.

A girl and a boy is selected from each side one pair at a time and hoisted up onto the shoulders of the group. Then, under the careful direction of community leaders who were taking on the job of directing the pair like air traffic controllers with a complicated series of hand signals, the two sides rushed forward with the boy and girl on their shoulders so that lips could lock.

The crowd went wild as soon as the chosen ones went for it in their enthusiastic yet somewhat awkward display of passion and community obligation.

But the ever-responsible adults were ready to keep the situation under control. After about 10 seconds of lip-locking, it was cold shower time for the lucky pair who were sprayed with hoses and buckets of water.

Then, the tribes regrouped, each picking a new victim. The process was repeated about 10 or more times, every time with no less enthusiasm, water or shoving.

We saw awkward kisses with girls’ and boys’ lips tightly pursed, pecks on cheeks, partially open-mouth affairs complete with a few sneaky gropes and kisses where the boy effectively managed to miss the girl’s mouth completely. “That’s her ear!” screamed an older man near me to one boy who was having trouble with his sense of direction.

But perhaps the loudest screams of all were heard when the group of cheeky youngsters took to the stage, pushing the village leader and his wife into the crowd and hoisting the couple up on their shoulders for what was probably the most timid kiss of the day.

Before attending the festival, I wondered what the atmosphere would be like. In this antipornography law land, the event has come under some scrutiny in recent years. However, despite the very public displays, you couldn’t accuse this event of being anything more than fun.

With the kissing over, the music continued until late in the evening. I hobbled out, completely drenched with a severely bruised toe, a broken flip-flop, a rib cage covered in elbow-sized bruises and not even a kiss on the ear.

Perang Pandan

Again Perang Pandan is specific to Tenganan village only. The word “ perang pandan “ is a two words noun in Indonesian language, while in Tenganan this war dance is called “ makare-karean “ This event is carried out during the ceremony of the temple called “ Ngusaba “ It is strange because this kind of ceremony is also known by the rest of Balinese, especially those living on lowland with rice irrigation system called “ Ngusaba Nini “ The basic idea of this ceremony is to request a good rice harvest. At lowland area this ceremony is not a regular one, but it is decided by the village elders with ritual leaders in a plenary meeting. While in Tenganan village this is a regular ceremony based on Çaka year calendar and is organized in the village temple. While at lowland areas especially in Kabupaten Gianyar this is conducted for a ceremony called “ Maleladan “ ( a procession along the village main road toward the temple ). It is hard to understand who influenced whom in this case. Seeing from the name of the ceremony it must be an influence of lowland, since the rest of ceremonies and customary organization's terminologies Tenganan is specific, and “ Ngusaba “ is belong to a mid-Balinese vocabulary ( ca. 14 to 16 century A.D.), an era when the Majapahit influence was becoming intensive.
Çaka year is a lunar calendar created 78 years after Christian Era ( 78 Anno Domini ). Since this ceremony is based on Çaka year and Hindu-Java calendar, so it is hardly able to know the exact International Calendar date within which this ceremony will fall. We can only know the exact date around 6 months ahead of the date. While Hindu-Java calendar is consist of 210 days. Balinese use these two systems at the same time, and mixed it up. So you can find a ceremony coming every 210 days, and every 365 days.

Despite the fact that Bali Aga village has their uniqueness, but in common they share almost the same way of thinking. They consider religion, customs, arts, architecture, economy and other cultural aspects as the same entity and are involved in each of their creation and work. For example is the dance. Dance is considered as a ritual requirement, an amusement, and medium of education. While dance can be a performance from any kind of art, such as the idea of woman beauty, the warrior strength, prime minister wisdom, up to the animal behavior which interests the artist to imitate, and translate it into dance. No one doubt that Perang Pandan originally was a war dance or practice of self-defense which is also introduced by the rest of the world's ethnics in its different form and fashion. The only thing in Bali is that almost all dances are considered as the requirement of a ritual.

For makare-karean war dance there is no rule of fighting, except the dance is given more to younger generation. The term “ fighters “ may more appropriate name to designate perang pandan instead of a dancer. The fighters bring in hand sharp edged pandanus leaves, while the other hand holds bamboo or rattan woven body shield to protect the body from the provocation of opponent. One person acts only as a referee. The fight resulted the scratch on the skin by thorny pandanus leaves and caused the bleeding. No one is safe from the scratch of the pandanus leaves after the fighting, the only smaller or wider scratches. After the fighting the ritual leader gives the scratch an oil made from herbal medicine, and spread holy water to the fighters. No heart feeling among fighters, and they all sit together to have meals on banana leaves.

There are some writing say that this dance is related to the ceremony which is basically a scarification of blood. First of this, I really realize that this assumption might based on the wrong informant and wrong source. As you might have read that religion for Balinese is not a social institution, instead like water flowing to various soil, whenever it flows on red soil the color become red, and on a black soil it become black. So to know the real ideas we have to screen it in a minutes detail. It seems that in the past the religious leaders just left the religion flowing uncertainly, and developed according the local paradigm. There is a ceremony in Bali using blood called “ Tabuh Rah “ but they used chicken blood or some time egg just as a symbol of underworld being ( a strong influence of ancient Buddhist left hand path ). The understanding of underworld was inspired by the animistic belief that this world is divided into 3 levels. The highest level is the abode of gods, the medium level is the abode of human being, and the lowest level ( netherworld/underworld) is the abode of inferior being such as invisible being of the animals, dead spirits, and natures spirits. “ Tabuh Rah “ ceremony is offered for this netherworld which was at the beginning of Tantrayana sect of Buddhist in Bali the ritual was offered to the goddess of death. Since Tantrayana school in Indonesia and Bali also used blood as the symbol to provoke strength and power to their opponent and enemies. But this is merely symbol, and it is not specifically mentions that is human blood.