stayed at ubud from monday to attend the cremation ceremony (ngaben) of ida dwagung of puri peliatan ubud. it was interesting—ubud, these days, while not as i remembered it was like few years ago when i used to visit as a child (and waaaay before the whole eat, pray, love explosion) still manages to give me a certain shiver. the ngaben event was on tuesday (yesterday), but the procession started nearly a month ago, from the king’s death on late august.
the night before (monday) we went over to puri peliatan ubud to see the last-hour preparation and final prayers and rituals. it was less strict than the procession of the death of the much celebrated tjokorda suyasa of puri agung ubud on 2008, and i sorta sneaked in with a borrowed sarong to document the preparation.













the final event consists of moving the mummified body to the top of the house tower (in his case, consisting of 11 levels to represent his own level), a parade of his family and the whole set of offerings and structures (a pair of statues representing the mystical spirits who helped them through the entire process, a long and golden dragon representing his earthly life, the white buffalo sarcophagus, and of course the house tower, all these in magnificently gigantic scale) and the final chapter, the insertion of the body to the buffalo and the cremation of the body alongside the entire structure and offerings.
i was there with my aunt and our two friends, and we were joined with a whole bunch of other friends (because at the end of the day, everyone just sorta knows everyone in this small island) and we waited by the street (actually sitting on one of those balinese brick gates) under the sun from 10 am to 3 pm when the parade finally passed. the entire length passed us for less than 10 minutes, and we followed them to their final place inside the royal cemetery where the cremation was held.

i tried taking pictures of yesterday’s event with my phone camera, purely for documentation (nothing artsy about these pics i took except for the objects), but the results were pretty shameful, and i wasn’t being humble:






you can check some more at my twitter but i will warn you, and this will be true for anyone posing as photographer yesterday—nothing, and i underline, nothing will do the actual show any justice.