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Balinese calendars, with exemplifications for each day signaling what activities that day is favorable for, are popular souvenirs. Apart from the everyday Western calendar, the Balinese also use two local calendars, the saka and the wuku calendar. The wuku calendar is used to fix festival dates. The calendar uses 10 different weeks, each by one to 10 days and all running at the same time.

The Galungan festival, Bali's major fete, is held throughout the island and is an annual event in the wuku year. During this ten day historic period all the gods, including the sovereign deity Sanghyang Widi, come down to earth for the celebrations. Barongs prance from temple to temple and village to village. The last and most important day of the ten day fete is called Kuningan.

Hindu saka calendar is a lunar cycle that more intimately follows our own year in terms of the length of the year. Nyepi is a major festival of the saka year, it's the last day of the year, the day after the new moon on the ninth month.

The Nyepi jubilations start on the day of the Dead Moon, when "Tawur Agung Kesanga" (Great Sacrificial Ceremony) rituals' are held in welcoming the "Nyepi" holiday. The ritual will be followed by procession of "Ogoh-Ogoh" (huge monster dolls) representing evil spirits along the village and city roads in the eventide.

"Nyepi" Day is a Holiday and a day of absolute silence through out the island when no activity takes place, no traffic is seen anyplace, no fire is lit. It's the day of self-introspection for Hindhu followers - the evil feelings are tricked into thinking that the entire island is deserted and therefore go away. On this day you will not be permitted to leave your hotel - most hotels and hangouts will operate with reduced staff and some services may be affected such as room service, limited restaurant hours. The airport is also officially came together.

Nyepi Day comparable certain major temples festivals are ascertained by the saka rather than the wuku calendar. This causes the actual date difficult to influence from our calendar since the lunar saka does not follow a fixed number of days like the wuku calendar. The full moons around the end of September to the commencing of October or from early to mid-April are often the times for authoritative temple festivals.

Posted by Adith Dith Thursday, April 2, 2009

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