Beach Barong [Shannon]

They did a crazy thing today. The villagers of Nyuh Kuning trucked their giant dancing puppet gods, Barong, that weird Rasta/Chinese couple, Rangda, etc., down to the beach. These gods are very large: it takes two people to wear Barong, who looks like a giant Tigger. He's very handsome. They only get out of the temple once a year, and they haven't done it with this 10-day fanfare in 50 years. Timing!

The idea is the Barong needs to play. He's a giant dog, see. So they take him and the other wackadoos to the beach in a giant caravan with bands playing on trucks and golden floats, banners flying, all this shining color and noise. There were about 10 trucks and 20 cars in the caravan, and dozens of motorbikes, about 200 people wearing their temple best. We rode along on our bike and it was a festive parade.

At the beach, about forty minutes away, they set up all these pavillions and bandstands, and the priests did their thing. We got to pray with flowers and get rice put on our foreheads. Jonathan said, "This is how Hindus go to the beach." Then they packed everybody up and paraded home, gamalans clang-clanging all the way.