Wednesday evening in Seminyak I arrived home from Kuta around 7.30pm and noticed a large chunk of upper Jl. Legian, Jl. Seminyak in fact, was in complete darkness. Arriving at my house I saw that we had power and thought it a little strange. Usually when there is a power outage the whole block is out, not just the main street. I and asked Ika where she wanted to eat and with neither of us being super hungry decided to share a pizza at Santa Fe round the corner. When we got to Jl. Dhyana Pura we were amazed to see every place closed and all the lights off. This has to be a banjar inspired event I said. When the banjar say the place is closed, the place is closed. We strolled around the corner to Jl. Seminyak at up to Pondok Dua, the decent nasi Padang place we go to at the top of the street. The lights were all on at that end of the street and places were doing business.
Walking back home Jl. Seminyak was eerily quiet and Ika commented that it was so nice to have the main street without all the traffic. I agreed and my mind went to what Seminyak must have been like 20 years ago.
Reaching Jl. Dhyana Pura again we saw that the pecalang had blocked off the road and Ika asked them what was going on. They told us today was Ngreihan, the ceremonial cleaning of the temple masks. Balinese dances (Barong, Kecak, Baris etc.) use special masks and costumes. They are stored in special thatched huts at the temple and only a certified priest can work on them or remove them. Once a year they must be purified. Tonight on Jl. Seminyak at midnight a procession will carry the masks from the temple to the place of cleaning and back again. We were told the event is somewhat similar to Nyepi in that the evil spirits must not be alerted, hence the light out.
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