On our second night in Bali, the tour guides brought the lot of us to a place to watch Kecak [fire dance].

Kecak is a unique Balinese dance not accompanied by any orchestra but by a choir of 70 men. In the Sanghyang [trance dance], a person dances in a state of trance and communicates with the deities or ancestors. The deities or ancestors convey their wishes via the dancer who acts as the medium.

The dancers in the middle.

Rama, the legal heir to the throne of Ayodya, was exiled by his father Dasarata. Accompanied by his wife Sita and his younger brother Laksamana, they went into a forest called Dandaka.

While they were in the forest, the demon king Rahwana found them and lusted after the beautiful Sita. Acccompanied by his prime minister Marica, they schemed to steal Sita away. Using his magic power, Marica transformed himself into a golden deer and succeeded in luring Rama and Laksamana away from Sita. Rahwana then made use of this opportunity to kidnap Sita to his palace, Alengka.

The fearsome creature.

Discovering the deception, Rama and Laksamana set out to rescue Sita from the demon king’s clutches, assisted by a huge army of monkeys under the command of their king, Hanoman. Rama succeeded in getting his wife back safely and all’s well that ends well.

Of the hundreds of spectators, the monkeys chose our small big boss to participate as one of the monkeys. Needless to say, we had a field day watching him get ‘malu-ed’. Hur hur.

Before the show started.

These two monkeys snatched an old lady’s glasses away and destroyed it. The lady was barely a metre away from some of us! Yikes!

How does she do that?! The ladies should teach other peeps walking lessons.

We then headed off for dinner after the performance.

Dinner was by the sea. No, really, a few metres away from the waves lapping onto the beach. Wheeeee! The Korean lady I met mused that it was the same place where her husband and her went to during their honeymoon. Very romantico.

There was a shot where a waiter stood beside the Furama flad and did a ‘peace’ sign. I think he thought I was trying to take him?!

To my horror, dinner was this.

It was a feast to many of them there, but not to me. I’m allergic to crabs, and do not eat 90% of the stuff in the basket. Booooo….. I went back home [hotel room, rather] hungry.

Dinner on the third night was, thankfully, much better. The hotel did up a makeshift ‘restaurant’ beside the golf course.

The sun’s last face for the day. It looks like a painting methinks!

Private party.

All of us, including the men, had flowers on our hair/ behing our ears. Nice touch.

There were constant music floating around while we took our places… another kecak!

The musicians.

The performers waiting for us.

Cock fight!

Two sisters performing a graceful dance.

The entire Kecak was performed throughout the night. Woah. At the end of it, the five ladies stepped up to look for partners to dance with and all of us immediately pointed to our small big boss [the one who got picked for the first kecak]. Haha!

Everyone danced for a bit, had some fun and laughter, before retiring for the night.

Other Bali posts:
Ever Summer
Ever Sunset