The young men from Sumbawa who were stopped for casually riding a motorbike in Kua during Nyepi say they had no idea they were breaking any rules.
The two men were stopped by pecalang on Kuta’s Jl. Kartika Plaza on the Balinese, Day of Silence, March 28, around 9 am. Tradition holds that everyone must stay inside during the Balinese Hindu holiday and the pecalang, traditional neighborhood security guards, are there to enforce the rules.
The Sumbawa men had been on their way from Kuta to a friend’s house in Kedonganan when they were caught riding a motorbike on the holiday.
“They had been staying at a friend’s house at Kartika Plaza and they wanted to go to another friend’s house in Kedonganan,” said Wayan Sirna, head of the Kuta Pecalang Task Force that stopped the men.
Sirna says the Sumbawa men were made to clean the area, by way of punishment, and were also sanctioned. Reports didn’t go into detail what those sanctions were exactly, but they were likely fines.
“We had them clean for the day and also gave them food,” Sirna told Tribun Bali.
There were two other reports of foreign tourists violating the rules of Nyepi and going out on the street in Kuta this year. One of the foreigners was a tourist from Taiwan, while the other’s nationality was not identified.
The foreign violators were not directly sanctioned, but the hotels they were staying at were the ones in trouble instead, says Kuta village elder, I Wayan Suarsa.
During the lead up to Nyepi, the rules for the day of silence was socialized heavily amongst hotels in Kuta, Suarsa explained, so hotels should not have allowed their guests to go out.
