The embarrassingly common thing in Bali most tourists know nothing about
I’ve been to Bali many times, and many times stumbled over or around the little woven baskets left on footpaths, piled with decapitated flowers and reeking of incense that curls in the air like the Cheshire cat’s grin.
The baskets sit outside shops and bars. They’re tucked into temple niches, and balance on shelves at the doors of private houses. In my luxe resort, they lie where paths meet the beach, and at other thresholds and intersections.
The temple onsite at Jimbaran Puri.
These baskets are everywhere in Bali, and I’ve never paid them much attention. How is it that something so ubiquitous isn’t really seen? How embarrassing is it that I know nothing about this daily part of the Balinese culture I appreciate?
And so, I’m up at dawn at Jimbaran Puri for a first-light ceremony with a quiet lady named Ari Dewi, and I’m determined to learn something new. The first thing I learn is that these household offerings are called canang sari. They give thanks to Hindu deities and appease whatever demons might be lurking.
Ari from the Jimbaran Resort with one of the offerings.
Demons are few at Jimbaran Puri, a resort of exquisite tranquillity shaded by frangipani and giant bamboo and lapped by the sea. Though true, it tempts me to sloth around the perfectly mirrored swimming pool, and gluttony over another dish of Balinese chicken at the restaurant, whose tables sink into sand and sunsets.
Balinese women make multiple canang sari twice a day. Small baskets are folded like origami from palm or banana leaves and filled with flowers and other offerings such as rice, banana, oil, salt and small change. Sometimes unlit cigarettes or store-bought sweets are added. Ari frowns upon such modernity but adds a tiny paper cup of freshly brewed coffee.
The resort’s breakfast buffet supplies a rolled pandan crepe stuffed with jackfruit, grated coconut and palm sugar. I can see why the gods like that: I’ve overindulged every morning myself. Each component and its colour has meaning. A sliver of lime and blue flowers such as hydrangea represent Shiva. Betel nuts are for Vishnu, anything coloured red for Brahma. Everything is carefully arranged in the compass directions.
When we’re done arranging, the canang sari are sprinkled with a frangipani flower dipped in water. Incense sticks are the finishing flourish. We recite a prayer or wish and deposit the offerings at one of the resort’s small altars, and on the path’s edge.
You shouldn’t step over canang sari as long as the incense continues to burn, I learn. After that, the offering no longer wafts prayers heavenwards, and you needn’t worry. Canang sari are beautiful things but soon shrivel in the sun, or are nibbled by birds and squirrels. Expired canang sari are swept away without ado. Such is the world’s impermanence.
The wheel of life rumbles on, and the next morning they’ll be replaced. What I learn is that you don’t have to be Hindu to get something out of the business of preparing canang sari. The point is to take a little time out of your busy day to concentrate on something other than yourself, and to derive meditative comfort from a repeated ritual.
For some this may be a way to thank the gods, to others a way of developing a vaguely directed but thankful spirit. Now, for me, canang sari are no longer part of Bali’s background blur. Their incense wafts me around the streets. I notice the colourful splash of impatiens and marigold and lotus flowers that erupt from the baskets.
Every morning at my resort I notice fresh examples left beside the Ganesh statue, near the swimming pool and along the paths, and they remind me that contemplating things to be thankful for is a good way to start any day.
The details
Stay
Rooms at Jimbaran Puri start from $550 a night including breakfast. The Temple Experience is complimentary and one of several cultural experiences at the Belmond resort, such as Balinese egg painting, basic Bahasa lesson or a herbal remedies workshop. See belmond.com
The writer was a guest of Belmond Hotels.
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