Bali Kite Festival

We have left Ubud and are spending our last few days in Bali in Sanur Beach. The transition was a bit tough, going from an artisan hippie-expat enclave to resort-town Bali Style. We HAD to see the ocean if we’re going to Bali though, right? Well, the ocean is, indeed, beautiful and we have a great view of it right from our room, but the real reason we chose Sanur as opposed to any number of potentially more interesting beaches is the Bali Kite Festival. We found info about it by accident while researching Bali and figured we NEEDED to see it.

Once we arrived in Sanur, we asked folks at our hotel about the festival, the easiest way to ge there, the best time to go, etc. No one had ANY information and they looked at us blankly as if they’d never heard of it before. Uh oh…maybe this thing is not “all that.” So, we went with our expectations lowered considerably…what were we going to see? Probably not much.

Bali Kite Festival

WOOOHOOO! This is what we saw after walking up the rise from the parking lot, in a giant ocean-front field.

We got to the festival towards the end of the day, so a lot of the artistic kites had left already and they were doing competitions of skillful flying with one particular kind of kite. Each kite in this competition is represented by a team, usually put together from a neighborhood. There are about 20 people who get the kite up into the air and back down again. There is also a music and cheering group, made up of another 20+ people. One of the requirements of each of these teams is that they have a music or noisemaker group.

Taking the kite to the Flying grounds

Taking the kite to the flying grounds

Bali Kite Team

These teams are serious!

Team noisemakers

Team noisemakers

Bali Kite Festival Team Flags

Each team at the festival also needs a flag to represent them.

In the air, the kites look big. On the ground, they are massive!

Bali Kite Festival Team

A team of 20+ people work to bring a kite down.

Bali Kite Festival

The kite coming down.

If you are near one of these teams while they are working, get ready to run – fast – out of the way.

Bali Kite Festival Team

Bali Kite Festival Team

Working hard to get the kite up in the air

Peanut man at the Bali Kite Festival

You can’t have a festival without peanuts!

corn

…and corn!

Bali Kite Festival

The Bali Kite Festival was a great thing to see! I wish we could have seen more, but even this amount makes me excited to bring something like this to the NC coast – Get ready!

3 thoughts on “Bali Kite Festival

  1. Did you get the design for the kites? Did you buy or barter for one? Would be good to have a template and video to get the first team going on the NC beaches!!!

    • dint get a kite. They are HUGE – like REALLY REALLY HUGE, usually made with Bamboo poles that are also huge :-) Hoping I can find some sort of info online. We got the name. Aly wrote it all down, so hopefully we can figure it out somehow. Or else we will just have to invite some of them to come help us :-)

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