- CELEBRATION of Galungan Day in Bali always looks lively like a festival organized all over the island
- If you happen to be on vacation in Bali at that time, you can immortalize this beautiful moments
Approaching the Galungan and Kuningan celebrations (on September 16 and 26), the Hindu community in Bali has begun to look busy making various preparations. One of them is to prepare ceremonial ingredients such as young coconut leaves. This young coconut leaf is used to make various offerings.
For urban communities, this young coconut leaf needs can be obtained by purchasing it in traditional markets. During the times of high demand, the price if young coconut leaf is around IDR 25,000 per bundle (containing 10 small bunches) instead of IDR 15,000 for young coconut leaves supplied from outside Bali and IDR 60,000 per bundle for local one instead of IDR 40,000-45,000 on normal days. Then, each bundle contains 15-20 pieces of young coconut leaf. What is the difference between the two? People say that the local leaf sheets are thicker so they can last longer.
However, those in the village who have coconut trees can pick them directly in their garden. At least ten days before Galungan, they have collected the materials for the ceremony offerings. A week earlier, they also celebrate Sugi Jawa (Thursday) or Sugi Bali (Friday) as a pre-Galungan celebration.
In addition, they also prepare various cakes for the content of their offerings. Meanwhile, the preparation of the young coconut leaf is used for making various offerings, hanging sampian and making penjor.
On that account, if you happen to be traveling on the Island of the Gods which coincides with the Galungan celebration, you can witness the villages in Bali will look lively resembling an island festival. Each family installs a penjor in front of their house compound. Penjor is a bamboo pole with decoration and ritual completeness like snack, tubers and fruits as an expression of gratitude for the blessing bestowed by God for the past six months and bamboo platform shrine to put the offerings.
