Festivals - Indonesia
Being a diverse country of origins and religions, Indonesia has a good mix of cultural events, ceremonies and festivals. Come and experience the Indonesian festivals all year round, as you can see you will never be short of choices.
Having population of more than 230 million people, even the ‘minorities’ of people will have large enough celebrations. Here you can find for religious events from Muslims, and then Buddhist, Christians and the rest of more local festivals, ceremonies or arts and cultural events, some celebrated by the nation while most unique to local areas or regions.
Ramadan: – Having a large percentage of people who are Muslim, approximately 86% of its population, Ramadan is celebrated widely here all across Indonesia. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar where the Muslims will fast during the day for an entire month. The month of celebration is base on the Islamic calendar, therefore changes every year.
Id-al-Fitr - Follow from the fasting, the Muslims will end it with a huge celebration for three days following it.
Eid al-Fitr – This is when the Muslims commemorate birth of Prophet Muhammad, with week-long festival of gamelan performances and parade of floats.
Independence / National day - The Indonesians will celebrate their Independence Day on 17th of August, and this is their biggest national festival. Usually there will be a grand parade before the President in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
Christmas - Despite being only 8% of the population who are Christian, it is still a significant amount of people with it being a popular festival and a national holiday in December. Here you will find usual Christmas celebrations of markets and shops selling gifts and accessories while many places organized party and celebrations.
Nyepi - Nyepi literally means “Day of Silence is the day of the Balinese New Year, commemorated every Isaawarsa (Saka New Year) base on Balinese calendar, and therefore changes every year but generally in March. On this day you will find everything is closed in Bali as it is a day of fasting and meditation. But on days proceeding to it, you will see people of Bali scrubbing clean the status on Gods, pray, hold ceremonies and various other rituals. Read more on Nephi in Bali Festivals.
Toraja Funeral Ceremony - At Tana Toraja, you may observe their famous Toraja Funeral Ceremony. The Toraja people, who lives in the highlands of South Sulawesi, does elaborate and fascination funeral rites to send the spirit of the dead to the after-world in order to prevent misfortune on the deceased family. Usually between July to September, Toraja from all over Indonesia will return to celebrate these annual funeral rituals.