Getting sloppy kisses from our darling six-months-12-days old puppy (as of March 22), Caramel…

After hearing so much about Nyepi*, I thought that I would be prepared for my first experience of the day and night on Friday March 7: total silence and quietude, as well as sleeping in total darkness.

The first indication that not all Balinese are religious Hindus that observe this arrived at 5.15am of Nyepi morning: our neighbour and his wife decided to have a 10-minute conversation in their garden, but were speaking so loudly, they sounded as if they were standing outside my bedroom window!

So much for beginning the day in silence!

Throughout the day, I would also hear their children talking loudly, and once, their home phone rang.

Further, I had not counted on spending my first Nyepi with my mother, who was visiting in Bali while the S.O. is away on business.

My mother is, as she herself puts it, a city girl. She lived in a kampung (small village or settlement) as a little girl, and her memories of those times were quite unpleasant (mud floors, insects, dirt, leaking roof etc.). For her, living in an apartment now, with modern comforts sans creepy crawlies and dirt is her idea of home.

Thus, the concept of fasting along with silence for meditation on Nyepi day, as well as not using any form of light source during the night (it was pitch black outside, as there was no moonlight, considering that the sun, moon and earth were all aligned) was something that she could not understand.

Sit in silence? Not eat? Grope around in pitch darkness? Worry about intruders that might take the opportunity to steal under cover of darkness?

NO WAY!

So she spent the day doing whatever she had to do to keep herself occupied, and at night, we had to leave the light of the dining room on so that we could at least find our way around the house.

It was not so bad, as the rules are relaxed a little for houses that have a pregnant woman, sick person or child under a certain age (I cannot be certain of the age, but I am guessing either one or two years).

Since I am pregnant, I could have lights on in the house. However, as I wanted to respect the Hindu customs of my current adopted home-land, I dutifully switched off external house lights, drew the house curtains as best as I could, and switched off any internal house lights that could cast a glow on the external grounds.

Needless to say, I had a fitful sleep that night. As the curtains do not cover the top part of the window, I could see that it was pitch black outside. The silence outside was resounding

Any sound woke me, whether it was our puppy’s paw hitting my bedroom door as he stretched; my mother waking for a toilet break in the middle of the night; or dogs barking through the night, at times in the distance and at times sounding as if they were about 20-metres away from our house.

Interestingly, our puppy refused to sleep outside this very night. He resolutely stayed within the house, sleeping either just outside my bedroom door or on one of the swivel office chairs that he has claimed for his own, instead of laying on his usual spot just outside the front door.

The darkness disappeared around 6.30am on Saturday March 8, with the arrival of sunrise. The silence was also sliced away with a lone motorbike that came down the lane in front of our house around 7.30am, only to do a u-turn and head out again.

Thus marks the first Nyepi that I spent in Bali. It was not as easy as I thought it would be…

I am already making plans to be away from Bali next year when Nyepi comes around!

* For more reading about Nyepi, refer to Nyepi: Bali’s day of silence and Nyepi: Bali’s New Year’s Day: New Year Celebrations on the Indonesian Island of the Gods.

As those of you who are updated with news know, my mother was with me in Bali from Feb 14 to Mar 9, so that I would not be alone in the house while the S.O. is away in Italy on a business trip.

In the 24 days that she was here, she spent her time cooking nutritious meals for me, afraid that I was not consuming sufficient protein, calcium, iron or fibre during my current pregnancy.

Dearest mom also helped with some of the more strenuous household chores that I could no longer manage, such as mopping the floor and washing the bath tub. These would normally have been covered by a maid, but we have had no success in hiring one before the S.O. departed for his business trip.

During the time that she was here, I brought mom to the few malls that we have in Bali because as with most Singaporeans, shopping is one of her favourite activities. We also spent one Saturday in Ubud where she did more shopping (!) at the Ubud art market (pasar seni), and generally eating as much as our tummies could handle.

However, the highlight of her trip had to be the evening when I brought her for a Bali Hai Cruises Sunset Dinner Cruise in Benoa Harbour on Wed Mar 5.

When the car transfer arrived, it had already been raining for an hour and a half. Thankfully, 15 minutes after we started on our journey from Jimbaran to Benoa Harbour, the rain stopped. Clouds still covered the sky though, so there was no sunset.

However, we were thankful that at least there was no rain throughout the cruise. It did drizzle during the last five minutes as the Bali Hai II boat was docking after the cruise, but even that stopped just as the first passenger disembarked.

Here are some pictures from the night, which I am sure was an unforgettable one for my mom!

The Bali Hai II