Melasti

Whatever about the rest of us, I was pretty dam sure that the duck was not going to make it out alive.
I woke early this morning, well 9ish, i'm paranoid now because the dude comes and meekly knocks on my door anytime between 9.30 and 10.30 to clean my room, and I think he is afraid of me. I would be afraid of me also, haven't had a good hair day in a long while. I look like a Gorgon first thing in the morning my hair is everywhere, I eyes are bleary, my skin dehydrated.
In our hotel, in the lobby, which is just an extension of the car park, there is a sign saying that the beach was closed to swimming on the 4th due to the Melasti ceremony. Whatever, so after I had watched Anderson Cooper on CNN (Clinton and Obama should just shag and get it over and done with, they'd make such a sweet couple).
I put on my long trousers (dress respectfully the sign said), and I headed to the beach. They're combats I got made in Vietnam, they are made of military grade material, warm and durable. They have been great, but not beach attire.
I got what i had been looking for all over Vietnam, Thailand and here, a little bit of peace and quiet, to be able to sit on a deserted beach and stare out at the ocean, to watch the waves rise up to their crest and then crash onto the sand. There were a couple of other people around but not too many. I must have sat there for about 2 hours, just thinking. Not about anything in particular. Maybe about how really beautiful this planet of ours really is, and the long journey I have taken and the places i have been and the fabulous people that i have met, too many to mention. The types of people who come into your life for only maybe 2 minutes or 2 days or 2 weeks make an impression, do or say something sweet and then disappear. The Steppes of Russia, the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Gobi Desert, the killing Fields of Cambodia, the Temple of Angkor and the heat and angst of Bangkok, the sun setting on the Mekong and getting to hug a panda in China.
I left the beach and decided to have some lunch and head back to my hotel, i reckoned that i had missed the ceremony. It was probably in the morning. For some reason, there was a little bar across the street from the beach, and I decided to have my lunch there. I keep making these decisions and going against myself, it's worrying, but at least I haven't resorted to having stand up arguments with myself yet, well in public anyway.
Sitting there with my head stuck in my book, I'm trying not to read too fast, I have been devouring books at an alarming rate, I only have one left, and btw I didn't like the Kite Runner, but I gave it to Giday back in Lovina as a parting gift, it'll probably make him cry, it made me cringe. I was sipping a diet coke having finished yet another Chicken Curry with steamed rice, when I heard little bells jingling and a humming noise. I thought at first it was my Menieres acting up, but my tinnitus is never quite what one would call melodic. I lifted my head and immediately started flailing around looking for my waiter, i had to pay, get out of there and get to the beach. ASAP.A procession of people was filing down the beach, the men dressed in white tunics and different coloured sarongs, the women is brightly coloured dresses and sarongs carrying baskets of flowers and fruit on their heads. The beach was decorated into sections, marked out by spears in the sand, as the procession went by there was a constant hum of low tonal chanting against the shooshnig of the waves behind. As one procession ended little bells would ring and drums would be banged. This went on for about an hour. Each group going to one of the sectioned off areas on the beach. Of course like any big party of parade the children were making the most of it, laughing and joking and posing for photos.

At last when everyone had arrived, the security guards, dressed in dark tunics and grey sarongs, and carrying large swords ushered all of the tourists over the the right hand end of the cordoned off section, it stank, it smelt of body odour and sunscreen, and it was hot. The sun came out in all it's blazing glory and the tide continued to come in, encroaching on the already tight space all the whities were cramped into trying and jostling to take photos of this extraordinary event. In my combats and my trainer the tide was not being nice to me, it was so so so warm, and the waves had destroyed my shoes and made my already heavy trousers feel oppressive.
It was then that i saw the duck. I just knew that it wasn't going to end well for the poor thing sitting there on the sand surrounded by flowers and garlands and fruits. Every so often a lady would walk down to the waters edge and leave an offering, all the time through the loud speaker the priest chanted. It didn't sound like christian monk chant more like the Islamic call to prayer. This continued for about 2 hours, many of the tourist who at first had been excitedly dashing around like gormless fools (I was one) got either bored or too sun burnt and wandered off, but I was sticking around I wanted to see what happened to the duck.
As the parades had been coming in earlier I noticed that there was one group of girls in gold and orange sarongs, with highly stylized make-up and head dresses. They came forward with insense burning from their headdresses and stood in two groups and started a synchronised dance, all the time the chanting continued and all the time this one man, dressed like a demon or a monster danced amongst the girls with a burning dish of incense in his hands. And all the time the chanting continued. The locals sat down the sides of the area and asked that the tourists also sit. I mentioned the tide. Well the priest may have been able to control the weather, but not the tide, one big wave and about half of the sitting tourists were drenched. The dance continued and the devil was joined by a man in a white cloak who also danced around the girls. Eventually this ended with the girls throwing their headdresses into the sea and the demon falling to the ground.
There then was a type of a blessing ceremony where the participants where sprinkled with what I think was water and given rice, some of which they ate and some of which they rubbed into their foreheads. At this point the largest garlands were brought out and duck was dragged across the sand and placed beside a man with a big spear, he chanted and then the priests got up and danced in a circle around the duck, chanting got louder and louder and the dancing faster and faster, the tourist broke the security line and pushed forward, everyone wanted to see what would happen to the duck. The high priest lifted the duck and took a large knife from his belt, the ladies gathered behind him and with the duck hanging upside down and the ladies holding bowls of fruit and flowers they walked to the waters edge, it was getting dark by now, the priest lifted his knife and brought it down toward the duck, slicing the rope that bound it's feet together and tossing it free into the crashing waves.