For one day each year, the island of Bali falls completely silent — no lights, no traffic, no flights — for Nyepi, the Balinese Hindu New Year, after a night of demon effigies paraded through the villages and burned.
Photo: Wiaskara, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Indonesia’s entry in this atlas is Nyepi, the Day of Silence, which marks the New Year of the Saka calendar for the Hindus of Bali and is a national public holiday across Indonesia. Its date follows the Balinese calendar, so it moves each year; the government publishes it in the official list of national holidays, and in 2027 it falls on Monday 8 March.
On the Balinese New Year the whole island stops for 24 hours — no fire or lights, no work, no travel, no entertainment, and even the airport closes — after a night in which villages parade giant demon figures, the ogoh-ogoh, through the streets to drive evil away.
March 8, 2027Officially announced