Let Kuta Karnival 2005 spice up your holiday

Let Kuta Karnival 2005 spice up your holiday

The Jakarta Post, Kuta

The annual Kuta Karnival returns this year encouraging everyone in the Balinese community as well as visitors to get ready to enjoy a summer of fun with family and friends.

Bearing the extravagant title "A Celebration of Life, Tat Twam Asi, Kuta Karnival", the fun starts on June 25 and goes through until July 3, and is being held to coincide with national school holidays as well as the peak season for tourists from around the world.

This will be the third year of the Kuta Karnival, which was established and organized as a response to the Oct 12, 2002 Bali bombings that claimed more than 200 lives.

The Karnival aims to commemorate the lives that were tragically lost and to be a light of hope for the future.

For 2005 the timing of activities for Kuta Karnival has been changed from October to June and July. This decision was made after lengthy discussions by the organizing committee in consideration of the fact that the Galungan Hindu holidays will fall this year on Oct. 3, 4, and 5. In addition, the Ramadhan fasting month for the Muslim community also starts on Oct. 3.

The new timing will actually allow more domestic and foreign visitors to attend the Karnival as June and July are school holidays.

In the context of Bali's tourism agenda, June/July and December/January are the peak months for tourists.

This year's carnival will reach its peak on July 3 with a spectacular street parade that will involve floats, dancers, gamelan, Big Bikes, Scooters and motorcycle clubs, decorated dokar (horse carts) and other contributions by local businesses and Balinese community groups.

Participants of the parade will circle the route around Kuta Beach to Melasti, then Jl. Legian through to Ground Zero (Bali Bombing Monument) where they will stop for a minute of silence before moving onward to Jl. Bakung Sari and finishing in front of the Bali Anggrek Hotel, along Jl. Pantai Kuta.

The parade will be flagged off at 3 p.m and will take about three hours to complete the route.

"A vibrant parade will be a measure of the success of Bali's annual Kuta Karnival, therefore, we hope this year that everyone in the community will actively participate and get more and more involved," said Made Morgan, Parade Coordinator for Kuta Karnival 2005.

One highlight of the Kuta Karnival Parade will certainly be the two hundred traditional Balinese dancers dressed in colorful and glittering outfits dancing to live gamelan music. After the procession, the group of Balinese dancers from Sekar Jagat will hold a colossal dance performance entertaining thousands of spectators.

"The whole world recognizes Bali as a place where traditional arts is still alive and kicking," commented Raka Bawa, a member of the organizing committee and a noted puppet master.

On the final two days, the weekend of July 2 and July 3, approximately 60 of Bali's best restaurants will present their specialities in a spectacular setting along the beach road in Legian.

Organized as a family fun weekend, the event will feature food stalls and a children's arena with entertainment, balloons, clowns, face paintings and games as well as a horse riding exhibition on the beach.

While experiencing a culinary journey across 12 different countries, visitors will be entertained with various attractions on a beach stage including live music, DJ chill out sessions, fashion shows, a world champion bartenders performance, among others. Around 10,000 people attended last year's festival and certainly there will be many more this year.

For water sports fans, numerous competitions and contests are being organized in conjunction with the Kuta Karnival, including beach volleyball and soccer, surfing and body boarding.

Attended by national and international participants, these will be the highlights of the week.

A special skate park will be built on the beach, and skateboarders will be able to compete with international skaters.

Surfing

Kuta has never been far away from its great waves, and this year's Karnival will see a series of surfing competitions involving surfers of diverse ages and nationalities.

The surfing competitions, offering millions of Rupiah in prizes, are being held in conjunction with the nine-day Karnival.

Confirmed events include Kuta Lines Open, Rip Curl Grommet, MOD Legend & Retro, Surfer Girl Ladies and Body Board, Reef and Surfer Girl Open (6 stars), Quick Airshow and Billabong Teams Challenge.

"Several surfing events are open to public, and international surfers are welcomed. However, for the Billabong Teams Challenge and the Reef and Surfer Girl Open (6 stars), only Indonesian surfers can enter," stated Paul Anderson, the event's surf and skate coordinator.

MOD Om Pro Legend has become one of the most attractive events on the surfing calendar, enlivening Bali's record as a world surfing haven. Surf legends from the l970s and 1980s including Peter McCabe, Terry Richardson, Andrew McKinnon, Mitchel Ray and Terry Fitzgerald will attend this event at Uluwatu's waves, so together they can reminisce when the OM Bali Pro was the first international surfing competition ever initiated in Indonesia some 20 years back.

For more Information:
Kuta Karnival Public Relations:
Ketut Nugra (0811 385385653), Retha Dungga (0818 567425), Gilda Sagrado (0855 3708888), or contact the Media Center of Kuta Karnival at Alam Kul-Kul Resort, Kuta.