August 4, 2025
For me, the day’s highlight was being able to witness the most important life cycle passage in Balinese culture: cremation. It’s considered a deeply spiritual ritual to prepare the soul for its journey into the afterlife—and reincarnation. Cremations in Bali are celebratory, even joyful occasions, seen as the last step before the deceased person’s return to God.
How a cremation occurs depends on the wealth of the family. Cremations are expensive and only the wealthiest families can afford an immediate cremation. In many villages, the dead are temporarily buried in the ground and then their bones are dug up, sometimes years later, for large mass village-wide cremation. The soul will not be free for reincarnation until the full ritual is completed.
This cremation was for a higher caste mother and daughter from a well-to-do family. It was going to be a public event, attracting people from all over the island.
I’ve had the honor of attended cremations before in Bali. When we’re in the middle of one of our tours and Surya hears that a cremation is taking place, we always try to find a way to shift things around so we can witness part of the ceremony. I’ve found these experiences spellbinding, but my prior experiences have all been curtailed by the need for the group to be somewhere else. I’ve gotten a taste of the ceremony, but I’ve never been able to stay as long as I wanted.
I was learning—this was one of the benefits of traveling alone! Yesterday, I didn’t have to confer with anyone. If this is what I wanted to do with my day, I got to do it and do it fully until I didn’t want to anymore.
When I arrived, the main road in Sidemen was alive with energy and anticipation for the cremation to come. People lined both sides of the street waiting for the procession to the cremation field to begin.
(As you read this post, turn up your sound. You’ll hear the music and the celebratory chatter throughout.)
As I walked up and down the street, I heard music coming from inside a temple. I was dressed in proper attire—a sarong and a temple scarf, my shoulders covered. The man in front signaled that I was welcome to go in, and so I entered the huge open air temple. Around the room were signs announcing the names of the woman who were being cremated and the hall was decorated in purple and white bunting. Costumed men danced to they rhythms of three drummers.
I wondered about taking pictures. But then I looked around. EVERYONE was taking pictures and videos, so it didn’t seem I was breaking any cultural taboos by doing the same. There was even a drone taking photos from the air.
Back out on the street, people cheered as the giant cremation tower made its way down the street, powered only by people power—it had been carefully built on a huge bamboo platform carried on the shoulders of many men. But the street was narrow and a van was parked in the way, blocking forward momentum. There was lots of shouting and pointing and people running up and down the street trying to find the vehicle’s owner.
Twenty minutes later, when the car’s owner was finally found, a huge roar went up from the crowd. Finally, the procession could begin.
Anyone trying to drive through Sidemen was being turned away. There was no way around this procession. They’d have to find another route or just wait.
In front of the procession was a sign with the names of the women whose souls would be released by fire and returned to the sea later today. Two young women followed the banner, carrying photographs of the dead.
They were followed by the cremation tower, paraded down the street.
This is what was happening on the tower:
After the tower came the sarcophagus, built in the shape of an animal such as a bull, cow, lion, deer or elephant, depending on the caste, gender and status of the deceased. The sarcophagus is built from scratch for each cremation and the body (in this case bodies) are burned inside it. Hindus believe that this sarcophagus is used by the spirits of the dead as a vehicle from heaven. In this instance, the sarcophagus was in the shape of a giant cow:
When I’ve been at cremations in the past, they’ve all been different, but they have all been joyous and lighthearted. And in each past instance, I’ve been accompanied by Surya or Judy, our guides in Bali, so I’ve always had someone there, whispering in my ear, explaining the significance of what I was seeing. In this instance, I just had to drink it all in, like these women carrying offerings to the cremation grounds.
When we reached the cremation grounds, it was two in the afternoon and hot. People sat on bleachers and on the grass and under the shade of one big tree. Women came around selling water in plastic bottles, small bags of flavored peanuts and other Balinese sweets. It reminded me of hawkers at the circus. I bought a bag of peanuts and some water for 10,000 rupiah (I’m certain I paid tourist price). That was the equivalent of 67 cents.
There was a lot of sitting around waiting and watching. Then, from the cremation tower, the bodies were carefully lowered down, wrapped in white cloth.
These young girls took the wrapped bodies on their heads and held them off the ground for a very long time, until the preparations and prayers over the cow sarcophagus were complete. The process took well over an hour.
It took a long time to get the sarcophagus in place. Then the saddle was temporarily removed, revealing a hollow inside. That inside was filled with offerings that just kept coming, a seeming endless stream. I couldn’t believe all that would fit inside—and the bodies were coming, too.
These were also passed down, many of them from the tower to the cow. I’m not sure if they carried sacred prayers, fuel or both.
While all this was going on, so was life—like this boy playing with his toy kite.
Finally, all the prayers had been said, the preparations completed. This was the moment when the match was lit.
First smoke.
Once the fire took hold, fuel was added to fire in a steady stream from a canister of gas or propane. Then it really started blazing.
Now it was really started blazing. I couldn’t take my eyes off this.
It was my earlier experiences in Bali and the sacredness of their cremation ritual that led me and my brother to watch our mother’s cremation back in the US, eleven years ago. It was not what the mortuary expected us to ask, and certainly not part of their normal protocol, but we insisted, and had the powerful, profound experience of watching her burn together. This cremation brought me back to that moment of release.
Once the ashes were cool enough and the bones and ashes could be removed, the family would carry them to the nearest body of water, where the ritual would be complete, the soul released for its next reincarnation. But I’d seen enough. I returned to a little restaurant I’d spotted near my hotel for an apple flavored hookah and some delicious gado gado with the best creamy peanut sauce.
Later this afternoon—I signed up for a vegan Balinese cooking class. Stay tuned.
PS. Bad news from Joanie:
It’s not looking good for tomorrow.
You know that the agency handling this rush renewal of my passport (which I chose specifically because of their affiliation with FedEx) told me that the deadline to get it out the door on Monday at FedEx Hilo was 3 PM, but they were wrong. I delivered it at 12:20 PM and the plane had left at noon.
I was told that the plane left at noon every day. But tracking indicates that my package did not leave Hilo until 5 PM on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, it landed in Memphis, the FedEx Central distribution facility.
On Thursday it left Memphis for Washington DC.
The package was logged in as received in Washington DC on Friday morning. This was FedEx priority overnight mail by the way.
The application as of Friday afternoon 12:38 pm was at the state department. It has not left the state department yet.
If it takes as much time to get back to San Jose as it took to get to Washington DC, then I am screwed.
It would be a miracle if they got it out of Washington today and got it in my hands tomorrow. Right now it’s 8:15 PM in California, which means 11:15 PM in Washington DC and the tracking shows no movement since Friday afternoon.
I’m disgusted.
—Joanie
I’m sad! I’m enjoying my time alone, but I hope she makes it.