Nyepi

So if you needed year-round spookiness and you just missed Halloween, you've always got the Ooga Ooga Festival in Bali, which is coming up in March, and that is where – You see monsters, these massive monster floats paraded through the streets to scare off the evil spirits.

And then, of course, the following day is Nyepi, which is the day of silence.

And the idea, as it was explained to me anyway, was that, you know, because you've got these evil spirits loose at the time, you know, draw no attention.

So stay quiet.

Does that mean then in the modern landscape we've built for ourselves that silence only works if it's shared? Compare that to the quiet of simpler times, when farmers could hear the earth as they tended their crops, when philosophers would ponder the universe at length in solitude, or when monks would take vows of silence designed to help them cultivate their character.

Nowadays, do we still know who we are in the absence of all that noise? Nyepi isn't really about scaring away evil spirits.

It's a time for people to take an honest look at themselves and inside themselves, to clean out the mental toll, start the new year fresh, and restore the balance between nature, humans, and the divine.

At the end of the day in Bali, lights turn on, planes take off, phones power up.

It legally sets Nyepi 2027 as Monday the 8th of March.

OK, so March 8th.

But here is the trap we uncovered.

If you do a quick search online right now, at least one major travel site is currently publishing that Napy is on Tuesday, the 9th of March.

Which is just catastrophic for a traveler relying on that site's aggregation.

And then comes the service charge.

The service charge is entirely separate from the government tax and usually sits between 5% and 10%.

Here is the trap that catches travelers off guard.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we've got Nyepi coming up, which I'm really intrigued for.

Although we're gonna do it our own way because we're just gonna be silent here.

[laughs]

Are we being told to shush? No, I don't believe so.

So we're recording these on Nyepi, which is the Balinese New Year.

It's a day of silence.

We can talk in our homes.