Discover Enchanting Bali and Flores

There’s plenty to do in ever popular Bali and up-and-coming Flores, just a hop away, says Karishma Upadhyay

- Karishma Upadhyay

On my first morning in Bali, I see a slender feminine figure, dressed in a bright batik sarong. She lays a basket brimming with frangipani blossoms, a few grains of rice and a coin in a carved niche by the entrance to her home. The small palm-leaf basket, or the canang sari as it’s called, also contains a gambier, a betel nut and lime to represent the Holy Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, respectively; a few seconds of intricate hand gestures before she lights an incense stick and glides away. The Balinese make canang sari offerings on a daily basis, very often multiple times in a day. It’s not uncommon to see canang sari on street intersections, in front of homes and shops.

For many, Bali is all about kaleidoscopic sunsets, verdant rice terraces, monster waves and a rollicking nightlife, especially the strip along Kuta beach where beerswilling gap-year backpackers rule. Bali is all this and a lot more. Religion is not just an integral part of Balinese life; it is life itself. Bali is the only Hindu enclave in the predominantly Muslim Indonesian archipelago of over 17,000 islands and she wears this identity prominently and proudly. Beginning from the airport in Denpasar, there are statues, draped with black and white checked material, at every street corner.

It’s often said that there are more temples per square kilometre in Bali than anywhere else in the world, and it could well be true. “Every home has a temple and then there are family and village temples. Each village has three temples dedicated to the holy trinity,” explains my guide Made. There’s a good reason why Bali is called the Island of a Thousand Temples.