Balinese Wedding
Bali Blog Part Two:
Have you ever seen a traditional wedding in a different country?
In March of 2019, I was able to attend a friend's wedding in Bali. It was such an incredible experience to be able to travel back to one of my favorite places. I was able to save money in 2018 so I could travel overseas to see this beautiful wedding. Yes, I will admit, it was a last-minute decision to travel over to Bali to see my friend's wedding!
I met Gede back in 2015 while volunteering in Bali with Green Lion! I was volunteering in a kindergarten classroom for 6 weeks. During my first week in Bali, we had guides to help us around Ubud, the area I was staying at for the program. One of the guides was Gede and he showed us around Ubud taking us to the Monkey Forest, the Rice Fields, and The Water Temple during orientation week. While volunteering in Bali, I made some very close friends with some of the locals and other volunteers. In November of 2018, Gede messaged me on Facebook telling me about his wedding that it would be held in March 2019.
It was a long flight to Bali, but I made it and what a difference the island was once I got to the hotel! I was glad it was night time when I landed, that way I could go straight to bed and not be to jet lagged the next morning! I had a few days before the wedding to relax and explore the Canggu area. I was able to watch a lot of surfers, surf during the day while hanging in Canggu. I also decided to go down to the Uluwatu temple. It is a pretty temple but next time I would like to go down to watch the sunset and see the dancers perform! After the temple, I was able to go to the beach and relax before heading back to Canggu! One of the things that I did not get to do on my last trip to Bali was to visit Nusa Penida to see Kelingking Beach (meaning little finger). This time I took the ferry over to Nusa Penida so I could see Kelingking Beach, Crystal Bay Beach, Angel’s Billabong and Broken Beach. A few pictures of Canggu, Uluwatu, and Nusa Penida below.
Today is the day of the wedding. Now it was time to grab a taxi from Canggu to Tamban. The ride was about an hour and a half to Gede family house in the mountainous area of Tamban. The ride to the house was not bad, just long and a lot of things to see while driving, from rice fields to people riding on motor peds! Once I reached the house, I was greeted by Gede and his soon to be wife. When all the other guests had arrived the ceremony would start.
The wedding was held at Gede family's house where he grew up. The house is not what I had expected. It was a little run down and mud all around the place but this was his culture and the way of life for them. As the ceremony commenced there were a lot of rituals that I was not familiar with. It was really neat to witness this happened to my friend and his wife. The ceremony took about an hour or more until the groom and wife were finally married. When it was all over, it was time for the food and drink. The food was really good. They had bread, fruit, rice, and meat on a stick. When I was done eating, I started to talk to some of the other guests that had volunteered in Bali with Green Lion after I had and was able to learn more about them and where they were from. After all the excitement from the day I was tired and ready for the hour and a half ride back to the Canggu area so I could relax and catch the sunset.
It was a great day in Bali being able to capture landscapes and being a photographer for the wedding !