Lunatic Weblog

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.

So my Blackberry had been hospitalized in Blackberry City Denpasar since beginning of January. And since I am a man of one phone, I had no backup phone and I was reduced to my old phone when it was hospitalized.

The day the berry got admitted, the staff said that “The repairman’s not in, so we can’t process this immediately. He will come in on Monday“. I said okay and they took my berry. Naturally, I called on Monday to ask if there was any news of it.

“The repairman extended his holiday and he’s not here yet.”

“When will he be HERE?”

“We will call you as soon as he’s here and check your berry, sir.”

“… okay.”

By that time I sensed something weird, do they have only ONE repairman and he could extend his holiday as delicious as his belly button?
And then three days go by, I called again.

“The repairman is still checking your phone, we still can’t tell if it’s still repairable or not.”

“Okay, when will you be able to tell if it can be repaired or not?”

“We’re not sure, we’ll call you as soon as we have a clue.”

And of course, a week went by and they never called back. How come it took THAT long just to check if the phone can be repaired or not? Hardware gurus, help me out here. I started to get impatient when they still haven’t called in a week, so I called them again. This time they told me to call back in 3 days, said nothing about any progress.

After 3 days, I called back again and the response I got was pretty standard, “We will let you know when we have news on it, it’s in process right now“. But when I asked what process, repairing or just checking if it can be saved, no answer. I started regretting why on earth did I go here to repair the berry. Yes there are other service centers but this was the biggest one around. Apparently biggest doesn’t mean best.

When I bought the Hero to replace to berry, I cut them some slack. I wanted to know how long would it take for them to call me back. One full month after the admission day, still no phone call, I even checked the receipt if they got my number right, which they did. Day by day went by, still no effing phone call. Now it was more than a month already without a single fucking phone call.

So this was my limit, and I was ready to go there to drop the bomb on them. I wanted to know why it took almost 2 months just to diagnose if my phone was repairable or not.. and they still haven’t figured it out. Either the repairman was dumb or he hadn’t even touched my phone, I suspected the both. I went there, and before I could say anything I was told that my phone was beyond repair.

Bummer.

“And why did it take almost 2 months just to come up with this?”, I asked.

No answer. My blackberry spent almost 2 months in their hands, and the only thing they could diagnose was that it’s beyond repair. Just that, no other information. The customer service girl looked so dumb I couldnt even begin to utter any words to protest, afraid that she wouldn’t understand anything I said. So I took my berry and just left.

Perhaps it’s better off if I fix it in Jakarta tomorrow. No, definitely.

BaliBlogger Community’s 2 years old now, I’ve been with them from the very beginning. Apparently 2 years isn’t enough to make a bond between me and the community, I keep passing on the their events. Yeah I’m bad at communities, I suck at gatherings and on events like Kuta Carnival and the such I’m unusable.

But hey, happy birthday!

Photo taken from 15june’s archive.

You know what day today is? It’s the kite competition day in the village where I live in. You know what that means?

Yep, hundreds of people coming swarming the street, arrogantly blocking the street both sides to walk and carry their kite. I wrote once about how arrogant Balinese can be.

I bet there’s an easier way to transport that damned humongous-sized kites, USE TRUCKS. No commotion, easy as that. Fuckers.

This is happening as I type this, right now. They’re sitting on the road for no obvious reason, yelling like monkeys, blocking roads causing a traffic deadlock. This is Jalan Raya Tanah Lot they’re blocking, the main road that goes to the Tanah Lot beach, pretty huge one if you must ask.

I’ve been out taking these pictures and trying to figure out what they do other than causing problems, I’m curious what’s on their mind. Maybe this is what they call having fun?

For the last time, USE TRUCKS TO CARRY YOUR KITES!

Update: oh yeah Life Failed People is the right sign for ya.

Life Failed People caption, suits 'em

That, my friend, is a tough question if you ask me. I hardly hang out in Denpasar anymore since I prefer just go get the hell home and come online. Let’s stop there before I sound like a guy in despair.

If you’re a guy like me (read: don’t like crowd, can’t stand heat and can’t stand to live without the internet) then I have a suggestion for you. Hang out at Dunkin Donuts Simpang Enam Denpasar! I’ve written several posts about this place here and there.

Where is it?

Here’s a map, you geek!

View Larger Map

Why is it cool?

This place has a cool temperature, a wide indoor smoking area and it has free wifi. It gets a bit crowded sometimes, if you don’t like the noise then plug your in-ear headset and shuffle your iTunes loud. No problem. In this place you also get to see people! Yeah, REAL PEOPLE dude!

On weekends this place opens 24 hours and there are some bands performing. After midnight if you feel like it, you can also jump to the stage and sing along. Cool anot?

Any downsides?

Well, yes. The thing is, you have to order food and drinks from them (Dunkin Donuts, Doh). I gotta say they don’t have the best donut in town but at least the Sandwiches are bearable.

If you’re short on cash you can always just buy a cup of Iced Lemon Tea and drink it really really slowly. Don’t worry, nobody’s kicking you out if your glass is empty.

So whaddya say, good deal eh?