Shhhhhh.......

As I've written before, Indonesia is anything but a homogenous country - one of the ways in which this is very evident is religion. Although Indonesia boasts the world's largest Muslim population, there are relatively few Muslims on Flores, where the population is predominately Roman Catholic.The figures from the 2000 census show the following breakdown :  86% Muslim, 6% Protestant, 3% Roman Catholic, 2% Hindu, 3% Buddhist and other. The geographical distribution of these different religious groups is quite marked,as this map from Wikipedia shows :

As you can see, Flores (the pink island towards the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago), and Bali (the red one a few islands further west) are almost the only centres of their respective religions.

  

This week (tomorrow, in fact) is a national holiday as the Hindu population marks Nyepi, which they usually translate as the Day of Silence. In Flores, we just get a day off work but in Bali, the whole island will be completely silent - with the force of law behind it to make sure. From 6 am on Tuesday until 6 am on Wednesday, the streets, beaches, restaurants, shops and bars will be deserted. Even the normally bustling international airport at Denpasar closes for the day. Everyone will stay at home with minimal use of fires, lighting and entertainment. There's an article describing the whole day on Wikipedia, to read more click HERE.

The Bali Times also has an editorial extolling the virtues of a day or reflection forall, regardless of religious beliefs.