Bali Stock Photos

The Ubud Royal palace is one of the few royal families in Bali who executes this majestic cremation ceremony. During the ceremony, Precisely at noon, the crowds surged and parted as a several dozen sarung-clad men in white t-shirt appeared, carrying a bamboo-pole platform on which was mounted a twenty-five meter, eleven-tiered, ornately decorated, and vividly colored tower, teetering precariously as it was spun around at intervals during a journey from the Ubud royal palace to a nearby field.

At the field, the tower, a naga banda, a sarcophagus in the shape of a dragon, and many similar structures, all the result of prodigious labor, were set alight, flames shooting skyward to carry the soul of a Balinese royal family member to heaven.