In this post I begin to take you through the journey of building our resort. I am including several photographs of the site and the surrounding views that we will enjoy as we sit on our veranda or that you might enjoy as you sit on the veranda.  I have also included photographs of the first Hindu ceremony performed before the building could begin.  As mentioned in a previous post, the mountain top was home to a few Bali cows and also some old Hindu temples where offerings could be left.

For the uninitiated, Bali is predominately Hindu.  It is unique among the Indonesian islands in this respect.  Indonesia as a whole consists of over 13,000 islands spread over 3,000 miles of ocean.  Most of Indonesia in modern times has become Islamic, but Bali has maintained it’s Hindu cultural traditions.

The top of our mountain has been considered sacred land by the surrounding village for a very long time; hence the small temples.  Wayan, our general manager, is devotedly Hindu.  It is believed that spirits inhabit the top of the mountain and before we could build, a ceremony had to be performed in order to request permission to build on the land and to also move the old temples.  Wayan arranged for a priest to come and perform the ceremony along with some of the residents of the nearby village.  Many offerings were used in order to show respect for the spirits and to appease them in order to gain permission to use the land for building.

After the ceremony was performed, we were then free to begin our project. The first thing to be built was a small shelter for the workers to rest.  Because there were no inhabitants on top of the mountain, there was no road all the way to the top.  There was a rudimentary road going as far as the village, but the rest of the way up to the top there was just a walking path or a path that could be navigated by motorcycle.  The first order of business after the shelter for the workers was the building of the road.  We had to have a road all the way to the top in order for the supply trucks to bring building materials. In the next blog I will begin to document the arduous task of building a road without any heavy equipment.

Enjoy the photos and I will get back to you soon.