Kecak dance, Uluwatu Temple

Bali, Indonesia

The Kecak dance is especially intense, involving chants, yelling, fire (can’t help but hear Beavis and Butthead say that word), and a hypnotic ambience. The setting for the dance couldn’t be more perfect: atop a cliff 250 feet above the crashing ocean below, with a backdrop of the most dramatic Balinese Hindu temple in Bali. All of this happening as the sun dips below the horizon; one flame extinguished, another is born.

It’s all very raw, natural, and passionate. You just have to forget the fact that there’s 300 other tourists sitting around you taking pics of the same scene.