10 fascinating facts about Bali that will surprise you

Most visitors know Bali for beaches, temples and rice terraces. Spend a little time with the people who live here and you find an island that runs on its own calendar, its own names and its own rules. Here are ten facts that tend to surprise first-time visitors.

1. Once a year the whole island goes silent

Nyepi, the Balinese day of silence, marks the new year in the Saka calendar. For 24 hours nobody works, travels or lights a fire. Shops close, streets are empty, and even the airport shuts.

2. Bali uses a calendar with 210 days

Alongside the Saka lunar calendar, the Balinese follow the Pawukon, a cycle of 210 days. Temple anniversaries and holidays such as Galungan and Kuningan follow it, which is why they often come around twice in one ordinary year.

3. Most Balinese share one of four first names

Children are traditionally named by birth order: Wayan (or Putu) for the first, Made (or Kadek) for the second, Nyoman (or Komang) for the third and Ketut for the fourth. A fifth child starts again with Wayan.

4. Babies do not touch the ground for their first months

In Balinese Hindu tradition a newborn is considered close to the divine, and is carried everywhere until a ceremony held at 105 days, when the baby's feet touch the earth for the first time.

5. The religion is found almost nowhere else

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, but most people in Bali follow Balinese Hinduism, which blends Hindu belief with ancestor worship and older local traditions.

6. The rice terraces are a UNESCO World Heritage site

The terraces are watered through subak, a cooperative irrigation system managed by farmers and water temples that goes back about a thousand years. UNESCO listed it as a cultural landscape in 2012.

7. Offerings are made every single day

The small palm-leaf baskets of flowers, rice and incense you see on pavements, shop counters and car dashboards are called canang sari. They are made fresh and set out each day as a gesture of thanks.

8. The highest point is an active volcano

Mount Agung, in the east of the island, rises to a little over 3,000 metres and is the most sacred mountain in Bali. Besakih, the island's most important temple, sits on its slopes, and the Telaga Waja River, where we raft, runs through the countryside below it.

9. An invisible line separates Bali from its neighbour

The Wallace Line runs through the narrow strait between Bali and Lombok. West of it the wildlife is Asian; east of it the animals begin to resemble those of Australia. The naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace noticed the divide in the nineteenth century.

10. Bali has more temples than you can count

Every village has at least three temples, and nearly every family compound has its own shrine, which is how Bali earned the nickname "Island of a Thousand Temples". The real number runs well into the thousands.

See the east of the island for yourself

Karangasem, where Mount Agung stands, is the quieter side of Bali. If you are heading this way, a morning on the Telaga Waja River fits well with a visit to Besakih or the rice terraces of Sidemen.