A lot of friends in Twitter asked me stuffs about Nyepi today, mostly the dos and donts. I’ve lived in Bali my whole life, so although I am not a local I get a pretty good sight of what’s going on in Nyepi days.
In theory there are four rules Hindu people must obey in Nyepi, this set of rules is called Tapa Brata Penyepian. They are amati geni: no fire/light, amati karya: no work, amati lelungan: no traveling and amati lelanguan: no fun/recreation (source). That said, you should get the point of Nyepi now, right? Basically just lay around doing nothing from 6am until 6am the next day, what an awesome way to celebrate new year.
But in reality, more or less this is what happens:
Several days before Nyepi, people are going on a shopping spree. They shop for food, DVD, games and the such because they’re paranoid of this one day when they can’t get out of the house all day long. Because of that paranoia, some richer people decide to stay in a hotel during Nyepi. This is because hotels get special permission to operate during Nyepi, limited to activities inside their premises tho. Poorer folks are stuck at home, exhibit A: me.
Nyepi – 1 is the peak of the shopping spree, people need to stock up while the stores want to close as early as possible because the roads are going to be close by night fall thanks to some Ogoh-ogoh parade going on in several parts of the cities.
Interesting fact: some people light bigass firecrackers and fireworks on this day. It is as if they’re saying “Fuck I’ll have to be silent all day tomorrow so I need to unleash all my noise today!“.
Super noisy. But hey, whatever makes them happy right?
And finally, Nyepi day comes. The road’s clear, there are no vehicles traveling at all. Shops are closed, people are inside their own house (or in a hotel, note the envious tone) waking up very late and wishing for the day to end soon. No activities at all except for some traditional authorities called pecalang patrolling around. You can tell pecalang by their outfit, they’re wearing black and white chessboard-like pattern sarong.
The morning in Nyepi day is the awesomest. The air is clean, and it’s very quiet everywhere.
But then afternoon comes, you start to see several kids running around the street. Then some of their friends come along, then their parents joining, then the grandparents joining.. next thing you know there are two sets of children football teams having an exhibition match on the empty protocol street with their friends and parents cheering. And where are the pecalangs when law needs to be strict? Somewhere in a closed fried rice stall that turns out to be open on the inside. Surprise surprise.
Seriously, no shit. I took some photos a couple of years ago but a pecalang and a police officer came to me and threatened to put me in jail if the photos got published. I promised them I won’t publish the photos, so yeah, sorry this blog post is a wall of text. Blame those gentlemen.
Come nightfall, people are returning to their house. This is probably the only rule that still stands from the tapa brata: no fire/light. At least nothing the pecalangs can see from outside your house. So yeah, you may turn on any lights inside of your house as long as the light doesn’t “leak” to the outside. From the outside my house looks pit black but inside my room I am playing Need For Speed Underground in a well lit room. The trick is: cover your windows with cardboards :p
Around the area I live in (Tabanan), the pecalangs have very little tolerance to foreigners and non Hindus. Meaning even if you’re not celebrating Nyepi, you must also respect the rules.
My advice is, you can do all your daily activities as long as it’s not noisy and it’s done inside of your house/building. If you want to listen to music, play video games or watch movies, use earphones/headphones. Only turn on important lights at night and make sure people can’t see it from the outside. And of course, stock food and beverage. You can cook as long as the process isn’t noisy and the food’s aroma not strong.
Simple as that, and the next thing you know Nyepi is over already :)
I’m actually pretty excited about this year’s Nyepi because I have work to do, and the silence will most definitely boost the mood for working. Let’s just hope my ISP stays up tomorrow.






