Indonesia Festivals

Festivals in Indonesia are representative of the diverse cultures and ethnicities found throughout the country's many islands. Experience the Balinese Galungan in January, or attend a Torajan funeral feast, which are famously stylized affairs. (Note: one must simply have lucky timing, as attendance cannot be guaranteed.)

For connoisseurs of the truly exotic there is the Pasola Festival in Sumba, held in February and March. Fundamentally animistic, it resembles a medieval jousting match in which warriors, who ride bareback on agile horses, whirl, charge and hurl blunt spears at each other. Those who are injured or killed during the Pasola are de facto guilty of offending the supernatural ancestral spirits. The wounded may atone with offerings of chickens and pigs, ensuring a bountiful crop in the coming year.