It’s 1 am on a moonless night at the Pasar Agung temple, on the southern flank of the volcano, and the wind is howling. My plan is to climb to the rim of the crater, but Mount Agung has plans of its own. “Experience tells me if the wind is this strong down here, it will be much stronger at the top. So if you want to cancel, do it now. I won’t charge you if you do,” says Wayan Dartha, a local guide who has led tourists up the active strata-volcano that dominates Bali’s east since 2005. (He charges US$50 per person, or US$35 for people in groups, for single-day climbs.) There’s no talking me out of it, but before we start Wayan must appease Shiva, the most important of all Hindu gods, who is believed to dwell in the volcano. After sprinkling petals over a shrine below the Indonesian temple’s towering gateway, Wayan lights incense sticks and holds them in his palms while reciting a Hindu psalm in a deep, guttural voice. “My prayer was for our safety,” Wayan says, as we trudge up a damp watercourse that cuts a path through the thick pine forest at the rear of the temple. “I didn’t ask Shiva to stop the wind because that would be asking too much. I simply asked him for the best opportunity for our journey. Humans cannot tell the gods what to do. The gods decide what is best for us.”
Read More at https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3124212/views-bali-high-prayer-shiva-ensures-climb-mount-agung
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