Day of Silence
Source: Photo by Wikimedia Commons user MagdaLena7 used under CC BY-SA 4.0
Bali’s Day of Silence, or Nyepi, as they call it, is a holiday celebrated with fasting as well as meditation. It is basically New Year in Balinese calendar. The whole island shuts off all sounds, lights, and all other activities, so there is peace all around. Days before the actual celebration, Balinese people really take their time to make the ogoh-ogoh (demon) statues that will be used and paraded through the streets during the ceremony of Pengrupukan, which is celebrated the day before Nyepi. The statues are then usually burnt after supposedly attracting demons and evil spirits so as to rid the place of the negative entities. Because of its intriguing nature, tourists even come to Bali specifically to witness Nyepi and the festivities that take place before it.