June-July Art Festival

A major highlight eagerly anticipated by the Balinese is the annual June-July Art Festival, a 2 month celebration of traditional Balinese arts, crafts, songs and dances.

I was lucky enough to be there when it was on, and it's absolutely awesome. I was there for the opening ceremony when all the villages presented themselves in their traditional dress. This is a festival by the Balinese for the Balinese.

I got tricked by a cheeky local into wearing the traditional Balinese outfit, he told me it would please the Balinese.. it sure did - they sure got a good laugh out of it.. but so did I when I realized what he did. It was giggles all round, all day, seeing a westerner dressed up heheh (who cares, noone knows me.. lol)

Even funnier because, in true Balinese style, I had to site on Joni's motorcycle sideways in my sarong!

The parade was supposed to start at 2, but we were waiting for the Indonesian president who never arrived, so it was closer to 3:30 by the time it got started. Thousands of us were sitting on the side of the road in the blazing sun for all that time. There were no public toilets (unless you felt like peeing in a river in front of thousands of people), and the thing was to go for approx 6 hours…  so I was reluctant to drink any water (or anything!).

   
The street sellers were selling real junk. "$2 shops" eat-your-heart-out, these guys 'took the cake'. Noisy, plastic chipmunk-type rackets for kids, bubbles, balloons, parachutes with plastic army men. Absolute crap. Though the best part about this junk, is that the Balinese people were BUYING things instead of shoving it in MY face to buy!

This is a photo of Joni's nephew Gidday with my umbrella trying to protect us from the hot, HOT, sun. There were thousands of people everywhere. I filled up my entire digital camera taking photos of all the people in the parade. I had a good day with Joni and Gidday, they are just so nice, and Joni's laugh is infectious - and he laughs ALL the time, so we all just joked and laughed all day. Joni doesn't need to drink, he's naturally drunk all the time :)

Highly recommended day out to everyone who is in Bali for June-July. It's located in a "can't miss it" spot in Denpasar.