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otorcyclists in their finest traditional Balinese attire were seen on the Ngurah Rai artery on Saturday morning, all headed in one direction to celebrate the Kuningan festival: Serangan Island.

Arriving at the island, they made their way to a spacious field crammed with hundreds of cars and motorcycles and a long narrow road lined up on both sides with vendors selling various items, from traditional delicacies to cheap plastic toys.

The savory smell of suckling pigs, pork sate and chicken meatballs ambushed the newly arrived adherents as they made their way along the narrow corridor to reach Sakenan Temple.

For most Balinese, the island's Sakenan Temple is their chosen favorite to celebrate the festivity, which marks the end of a series of ceremonies to celebrate the victory of dharma (virtue) over adharma (vice). Two major festivals, Galungan and Kuningan, highlight the series. Galungan fell on March 18.

Kuningan derives from the word kuning (yellow), referring to the specially cooked yellow rice that has became the signature fare of the festival. On the morning of the festival, Balinese housewives cook yellow rice, which is eaten by their respective families after conducting a morning prayer.

"However, Kuningan also derives from the words uning *to know* and nguningang *to announce*," says respected Balinese scholar Ketut Sumarta.

He added Balinese Hindus celebrated the victory of dharma on Galungan, while on Kuningan they announced their commitment to defend dharma and live by its principles.

On this Kuningan morning, thousands of people arrived at Sakenan Temple bearing a variety of offerings.

A big tarpaulin tent was set up outside the holy temple as a waiting place for devotees to patiently wait their turn to pray.

According to the ancient Balinese text of Usana Bali, one of Bali's most respected spiritual figures, the legendary Mpu Kuturan, built Sakenan Temple in the 12th century.

Three centuries later, another sage, Danghyang Nirartha, who was on a pilgrimage from Java to Bali, stayed for a very long time at the island and built another temple, Dalem Sakenan, on the western tip of the island.

The charming old way of crossing the island by traditional jukung boats during the festivity became the stuff of legends, after the completion of a road construction project connecting mainland Bali with the island, once dubbed Turtle Island for its huge sea turtle population.

Meanwhile, residents of Munggu village in Badung regency carried out a unique tradition called makotek during the Kuningan celebration.

Some 500 people, mostly young men, carried long wooden sticks and paraded them on the village streets in the afternoon, followed by around a thousand other people wearing traditional Balinese outfits.

After being sprinkled with holy water, the men made three stops - at the village's Y- and T-junctions and in front of Puseh Temple - where dozens of foreign tourists and hundreds of local people eagerly awaited the ritual.

Split into two or three groups, the men began uniting their sticks to make solid pyramid-like forms and began to push each other until one group overwhelmed the other and broke the stick formation.

The solid pyramid forms attracted some courageous boys to try to scale them. The excitement reached its peak when the boys reached the top and managed to hold on while their friends clutching the sticks at the outer ring began to circle clockwise.

"This is a tradition that must be done during the Kuningan celebration. My father, grandfather and great grandfather all partook in the tradition during their times, and I participated in it when I was young," said local resident Mangku Kamar.