Wednesday, August 11th - Gulangan Day

WILL Today, after a great breakfast at the hotel restaurant, followed by a long voyage in the Putu-mobile, to go off to Putu's village to celebrate Gulangan. Gulangan is a Hindu holiday in which processions of people went from temple to temple blessing them. We first went to Putu's smaller house, which had his dragon in front, and got some ceremonial clothes for the march. He said his dragon was terrible, but it was actually very good. We then followed the group through Putu's village on a giant parade, in which the participants went from house to house collecting offerings, and then went to a temple to watch the blessing ceremony, where we met Putu's mother and talked to her about where we were staying and how great Putu was. After that we went to Putu's family compound, which was a vivid sight. The area was very colorful (because of the holiday decorations). His uncle climbed up a coconut tree and got us some coconuts, which we ate and drank. I didn't like them very much, but Dad gobbled them up. We then met the rest of his family and explored the compound. The family temple was very nice and decorated in yellow for the occasion. Putu told us that the dragon in front was like a Christmas tree, and the yellow drapes etc. where like decorations that where left out for 1 day (unlike that reindeer that remains in front of our house to this very day) After that, we went on the long drive home, yelled at Dad as he drank some more of those horrendous drinks, then we went to bed.

WillCoconut4 Originally uploaded by DonnaM123.