Silence Day or NYEPI Day in Bali is a once a year religious day for Hindu Balinese, but the whole island is forced to experience (and suffer for) this day. 8 Years living and working on this Sun,Sea,Surf island is enough for me to feel and see how uncomfortable not to have lights at my house, specially after dark, from 6.30pm till midnight.
Last Nyepi Day on Thurs,26 March 2009, I spent a very busy and productive day with Bart clean up the house, did some laundry, ironing, cooking, no napping in the afternoon (although I was so sleepy) to be able to go to bed early at 8pm so I wouldn’t have to spend the dark silent evening.
But it was a very hot, actually too hot night, no wind blew, I tried to sleep with windows open and saw nothing but total darkness. Yes, on this day, people cease from doing ANYTHING, to contemplate, meditate,only Pecalang (local securities) controlling the street and urgent hospital evacuation were allowed to circulate.
21.35, 23.25, 03.15, 05.22 – 4 times I was awake,with dust allergy I had, couldn’t breath, constant sneezing (I think my neighbors at the Pecalang could hear it clearly), and the fact that I could not switch on the air con added to the longest night in 2009 🙁
I’m aware of the Earth Hour 2009 where you should switch off all lights for one hour only, and probably more save energy campaigns and programs have been made and implemented, and I totally support the thoughts, idea, and effect for our beloved earth, and I love Nyepi Day even more in terms of the same purpose, it’s very effective for Bali who still needs big electricity supply from Java, and we often have a monthly schedule power outage. But try it for 24 hours, including the fear that the Pecalang might come to your house and turn off the electricity meter as they noticed you dare to switch on your TV or light even for only 1 minute-it happened to me couple years ago-then I will make sure next year Nyepi Day, I’ll be out of Bali or book one of those Nyepi Package in any nice hotels in the island…..
See also interesting blog on Earth Hour on my friend,Gita’s blog here and some pics of Earth Hour from my twitter buddy,@Macarne
I still think the world urgently needs to adopt NYEPI/Silence Day like in Bali, I wish they knew the 24 hours total darkness happened here once a year.
Related post :
– Bali lost its big project for Nyepi
Earth Hour really helps in promoting environmental awareness among the young generation*~.