The art of travel is in the timing

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It's been one of those days. You know, the ones where you accidentally find yourself invited to a Balinese royal funeral ceremony.

Someone in Tulamben said I should go to Ubud and see some Balinese dancing, which would be interesting even if it is pretty much just laid on for tourists. Instead I stopped off for what was meant to be a quick bite to eat and a mooch round the royal palace in Amlapura en route to modern communication facilities in Kuta. It turned out they were preparing for a funeral, and being friendly types they suggested I stay the night in a hotel so I could watch the procession in the street the next day.

On my way to find the hotel I stumbled across more preparations in the form of a team in the street building a lavish structure for carrying the body. Being friendly types they showed me into a normally closed part of the palace grounds to see the rest of the things they'd been building, including a couple of large red lions.

So this morning I got up to find a ceremony in progress outside my window (the hotel was handily only about 100 yards from the palace), with a priest blessing offerings and casting flower petals about. I walked up to the palace and got talking to one of the family who, being a friendly type, told me what was going on and invited me into the palace to see the preparations.

Inside, I felt totally underdressed, having completely neglected to pack my Balinese ceremonial garb for this trip. But since I wasn't going to stay this wasn't important. Then the son of the deceased, who I'd been talking to the day before without realising who he was, came over and welcomed me, said they were happy for me to stay throughout and gave me his email address to send photos I took.

Being resourceful, I managed to scare up the necessary sarong and headgear (from the hotel and the palace door staff respectively) so I'd stand out less, and spent most of the day with a local man, three Dutch visitors and a Czech photographer who were all there together.

It was a long (verrryyyy lonnnngggg) and slightly chaotic ceremony, culminating in the cremation of the body in the cemetary along with the re-cremation of the ashes of the previous deceased, as is the custom, both placed inside the red lions I'd seen before. The previous deceased was the son of the last Raj of Karangasem, the newly deceased was his nephew.

This kind of surprise you can't plan for. It's why I love travelling.

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