BALI DAY 2 - MEETING THE CELEBRITY OF THE ISLAND: PAK KETUT LIYER

When I asked our guide,Pak Dwi, whether he knew anybody by the name of Pak Ketut, he quickly told us about the star of Bali Island. Pak Ketut Liyer was one of the significant characters in Elizabeth Gilbert's book "Eat, Pray, Love". One thing Pak Ketut is capable of doing is to predict your future by looking at your palms. 

The book was later made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and Pak Ketut was said to make a real life appearance in the movie. I MUST get the DVD soon.

Read my book review HERE.

I was there just to have a look at the house but we must be lucky as Pak Ketut was there at the verandah talking to a village man. I braved myself to approach him and asked for his permission to take pictures of us with him. SURPRISINGLY, he agreed if it was "for a good cause," he told us. And he was such a FRIENDLY and WARM person, and was asking us to show him the images captured on the camera screen and then said, " I old, you young",  proving him to be a humourous person. And he spoke in English with us, not in Indonesian. The moral of the story: You can be very famous but still humble and likeable. No wonder he is loved by many.

There was a group of people coming when we were talking so had to make our move. Pak Ketut has become extremely famous and people come to see him to see their fortune (or misfortune) at a price that I could not remember how much. Pak Dwi told us the queue could sometimes get very long that people have to come early in the morning to get their numbers for the appointment with Pak Ketut.

If I were to ask him to see my future, I was quite sure he would say: "You will record songs and sing in your own concerts - and become very famous, like me."

Read an interesting piece of writing of a blogger visiting him HERE.

Pak Ketut also has a FB account just in case you want to befriend him.