Balinese Culture and Etiquette: Hindu Ceremonies, Customs and Rules

Balinese Hinduism, Agama Hindu Dharma, came from Java and absorbed older animist and ancestral practice, so the gods of India share the island with mountain spirits, ancestors and demons. The holy mountain is Mount Agung, home of the gods and the direction (kaja) that every temple and house compound faces; the sea (kelod) is the realm of lower spirits. The philosophy of Tri Hita Karana, harmony between people and God, people and people, and people and nature, is quoted everywhere from the UNESCO listing of the rice terraces to hotel brochures, and it is a fair summary of how village life is organised.

The most visible expression is the canang sari, the small square of palm leaf filled with flowers, rice, a biscuit or a sweet and a smouldering incense stick that women place every morning at house gates, shop entrances, shrines, crossroads, on the dashboard of the family car and at the base of big trees. They are gifts to the gods and appeasement for the demons, left to decompose where they lie. Step around them, never over or on them, and do not photograph the woman making her offering without asking. Around Galungan you will also see penjor, tall arched bamboo poles hung with coconut leaves, rice and cakes, outside every house.

Each compound has a family temple, each village at least three, and the island some 20,000 public temples. All of it is run by the banjar, the neighbourhood association every married man belongs to: it owns the gamelan, sets the ceremony calendar, builds the cremation towers and provides the pecalang, the guards in black-and-white checked cloth who close roads for processions and enforce Nyepi. When a street is shut for a ceremony, the pecalang are in charge, not the police.

Every temple celebrates its anniversary every 210 days and life-cycle rites happen constantly, so you will almost certainly meet a ceremony:

• Odalan: a temple’s anniversary festival, lasting one to three days, with gamelan, offerings carried on women’s heads, dance performances and a night market outside the gate. Visitors in sarong and sash are generally welcome in the outer courtyards; stay behind the worshippers and do not sit in front of the priest.
• Ngaben (cremation): the most important rite, releasing the soul for reincarnation. The body rides in a tall bamboo tower (bade), spun at crossroads to confuse evil spirits, then burns inside a bull-shaped sarcophagus. Ngaben are public and respectful onlookers are welcome: keep back from the family, dress as for a temple and never use a drone. Royal cremations in Ubud draw thousands. The Bali Aga village of Trunyan on Lake Batur is the exception: its dead are laid out under a sacred tree instead of being cremated.
• Metatah (tooth filing): a coming-of-age rite in which the upper canines are filed smooth to curb the six human vices. It is a family affair; you will only attend if invited.
• Melasti: three or four days before Nyepi, every village carries its temple icons to the sea or a lake for purification. Thousands in white fill the beaches at Kuta, Sanur and Padangbai; wear a sarong if you get close.
• Nyepi: the Saka New Year day of silence (19 March 2026, 8 March 2027). After the ogoh-ogoh demon parades of the evening before, the island shuts for 24 hours: no travel, no lights, no noise, no leaving your hotel. Hotels remain open for guests. The pecalang patrol and will send you back indoors.
• Galungan and Kuningan: Galungan (17 June 2026, 13 January 2027) celebrates the victory of dharma over adharma and the return of ancestral spirits; Kuningan ten days later sees them off. Families spend the days at temples in full dress and many drivers and warungs take time off.

Temples are places of worship first, and the rules are the same island-wide:

• Wear a sarong and a sash (selendang) tied at the waist, men and women alike, and cover your shoulders. Most paying temples (Tanah Lot, Uluwatu, Tirta Empul, Besakih) include a sarong in the ticket or lend one; village temples will not, so carry your own.
• Menstruating women may not enter, nor may anyone with an open wound, anyone who has had a death in the family recently, or mothers within 42 days of childbirth. The rule is about ritual purity (sebel), not hygiene, and it is taken seriously; a sign at the gate will say so.
• Never climb onto shrines, walls, gates or the stone steps of a meru tower, and never sit on a pelinggih (shrine) for a photo. The famous “Gates of Heaven” photo at Lempuyang is taken from the ground for a reason.
• Do not stand higher than the priest or the offerings during a ceremony, do not walk in front of people praying, and do not use flash.
• Ask before photographing worshippers, and never photograph a cremation up close or from above.
• No public displays of affection inside the walls, no loud voices, no entering the inner courtyard (jeroan) unless invited.
• Do not take or move offerings, even ones that look abandoned.

Away from temples, Bali is relaxed about dress on the beaches and in Seminyak and Canggu, but a bikini top on a scooter through a village or in a warung is seen as disrespectful, and shirtless men off the beach are a constant local complaint. Cover up in Ubud and any town.

Since February 2024 every foreign visitor pays the Bali tourist levy of 150,000 IDR (about 9 USD) per entry, payable online in advance via the official Love Bali site or at the airport. Officers spot-check the QR code at temples and attractions. The province’s published visitor obligations run alongside it: respect sacred places, dress modestly, pay the levy, use licensed guides, accommodation and money changers, pay in rupiah and obey traffic law.

On scooters you legally need a motorcycle licence from home plus an International Driving Permit, helmets for rider and passenger, and the registration (STNK) on board. Checkpoints in Kuta, Canggu and Ubud fine foreigners on the spot (officially around 250,000 IDR for no licence), and in 2023 the governor threatened to ban tourist rentals after viral videos of shirtless, helmetless riders. Rental shops rarely check documents; your insurer will.

Balinese dance began as temple offering and the best place to see it is still an odalan. The tourist shows are shortened and nightly, but the same village troupes perform them. For the stories, music and crafts behind them, see the Balinese arts and crafts guide.

• Legong, the refined court dance performed by young women with impossibly fast eye and finger movements, is on most nights at Ubud Palace at 7:30pm (around 100,000 IDR), alongside rotating programmes at Pura Taman Saraswati and the Ubud Water Palace. The palace courtyard setting is the most atmospheric in town.
• Barong and Kris, a battle between the lion-like Barong and the witch Rangda in which entranced men turn their daggers on themselves, runs every morning at 9:30am in Batubulan on the road from Denpasar to Ubud (about 100,000 IDR). It is a shortened tourist version, but the costumes and trance sequence are real.
• Kecak, the chanting “monkey dance” with a hundred men circling a fire, is performed daily at sunset at Uluwatu Temple (150,000 IDR, 6pm, arrive by 5pm in high season). The Ubud version at Pura Dalem Taman Kaja is smaller and cheaper; the one at Garuda Wisnu Kencana is a stage show.
• Gamelan, the bronze percussion orchestra that accompanies everything, can be heard rehearsing in bale banjar halls across Ubud most evenings; you are welcome to stand at the gate. The Bali Arts Festival at Taman Werdhi Budaya in Denpasar (mid-June to mid-July) has daily free performances by the island’s best troupes.
• Wayang kulit shadow puppetry, a four-hour all-night epic in a village, is condensed to an hour for visitors a few nights a week in Ubud; ask at the tourist information office on Jalan Raya Ubud.

The 1930s meeting of Balinese painters with the Europeans Walter Spies and Rudolf Bonnet in Ubud produced the Pita Maha movement and the Ubud style of painting; the Young Artists school of Penestanan followed in the 1960s with brighter, naive scenes. See the originals at the Puri Lukisan Museum, the Neka Art Museum and the Agung Rai Museum of Art in Ubud, and the older Kamasan wayang-style paintings on the ceiling of the Kertha Gosa pavilion at Klungkung Palace in Semarapura. Lempad’s House on Jalan Raya Ubud and the Seniwati Gallery of women artists are both free.

The villages along the Denpasar to Ubud road each specialise: Batubulan for stone carving and the Barong dance, Celuk for silver and gold filigree (prices are fixed in the showrooms, negotiable in the workshops behind), Batuan for the dense, dark Batuan painting style, Mas for woodcarving, from sandalwood Buddhas to the demonic masks used in dance, and Sukawati for the art market and the island’s puppet-makers. Kapal on the road to Mengwi turns out the sandstone temple gates and shrines you see at every house. For textiles, Threads of Life in Ubud works with weavers across Indonesia and Tenganan in the east still weaves double-ikat geringsing. The Bali Museum in Denpasar puts it all in context.

Bali’s rice terraces are a thousand-year-old religious water-management system called subak, inscribed by UNESCO in 2012. Each subak is a cooperative of farmers sharing one water source, with its own temple to the water goddess Dewi Danu, and planting and irrigation are coordinated through a hierarchy of water temples that reaches up to Pura Ulun Danu Batur on the crater rim. The listed sites include Jatiluwih on the slopes of Batukaru, the royal temple of Taman Ayun and the Lake Batur catchment; Tegallalang near Ubud is prettier but far more commercial. Rice is sacred, with a shrine to Dewi Sri in every field, and leaving rice on your plate is quietly noted.

The food is distinct from the rest of Indonesia above all because pork is eaten: babi guling (spit-roasted suckling pig, 35,000-60,000 IDR a plate at a warung), lawar (minced meat, coconut and vegetables, sometimes with fresh blood) and sate lilit (minced fish pressed on lemongrass stalks). Bebek betutu, duck slow-cooked in banana leaf, needs ordering a day ahead. Balinese eat quickly and often alone; the leisurely shared dinner is a tourist habit. Eat and pass things with the right hand, as the left is considered unclean.

The head is sacred and the feet are low: do not touch anyone’s head, children included, and do not point your feet at people or shrines. Point with your right thumb rather than a finger, pass and receive with the right hand, and remove shoes before entering a home. Raised voices make everyone lose face; a smile gets far more done. Jam karet (“rubber time”) applies to social events; drivers and tours are generally punctual.

Bargaining at markets is expected and treated as a friendly game: open at about half the asking price, settle around 60-70%, and smile throughout. Do not haggle in shops with price tags, for food, or over 5,000 IDR. Tipping is not traditional but has become normal in tourist areas: 5-10% in restaurants that do not already add a service charge (most mid-range places add 10% service plus 11% tax), 10,000-20,000 IDR for porters and spa staff, and 50,000-100,000 IDR a day for a private driver.

Tourists get into trouble over the same few things. Nudity or lewd poses at sacred sites (an influencer naked on a 700-year-old banyan tree in 2022, others posing on the Besakih steps and on Mount Batur) have led to deportation and entry bans. Drones are banned at temples, over ceremonies and within 15 km of the airport, and staff confiscate them at Uluwatu and Tanah Lot. Drugs carry some of the harshest penalties in the world: possession means four to twelve years, trafficking can mean death, and cannabis vapes count.

LGBTQ+ travellers find Bali more relaxed than most of Indonesia: same-sex relationships are legal, Seminyak has a gay bar strip along Jalan Camplung Tanduk, and hotels do not question same-sex couples. Public affection is frowned on for everyone, straight couples included.

Everyone speaks Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) and most people in tourist areas speak good English; Balinese is spoken at home and in ceremonies, and even a word of it earns a huge smile.

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