A feng shui hotel in Bali

It was in February 1999 that the idea came to me to build a hotel in Bali. I had bought a piece of beachfront land the previous year, intending to keep it for a  while as an investment, and suddenly realized what a perfect opportunity it would be to walk my talk and put all my feng shui and space clearing skills into practice. I designed the hotel, built it (with Rai, my Balinese husband at the time), and we had a huge consecration ceremony in July 2000 to open it. It’s called Dancing Dragon Cottages, and at that stage it consisted of 5 individual thatched cottages, a restaurant, swimming pool, front office and staff rooms.

SUCCESS

It quickly became the most successful hotel and restaurant in the Amed area of East Bali, which is the newest tourist area to be developed, located at the opposite end of the island to Kuta. Even after the Bali bombs, the hotel never made a loss or had to put the staff on half-wages as most of the other hotels in Bali did. The interesting thing is that apart from placing a link to the hotel on the home page of my spaceclearing.com website and a regular ad in the local freebie newspaper in Bali, I've hardly done any other advertising or promotion because I've been too busy travelling and teaching to do it. Word of mouth recommendations, some great write-ups the hotel’s received in foreign travel guides, and curious passers-by intrigued by the look and feel of the hotel and its unusual signage (“unique feng shui boutique hotel”) have ensured a constant stream of guests.

Royalties from my books continued to arrive so over the next few years I bought more land and built another 5 rooms as well as a 2-storey 100-seat conference centre with every facility I have ever wished for in a meeting room and never been able to find… natural light, ocean views, marble floors, octagonal shape, a beautiful thatched ceiling rising to a 21-meter high pinnacle, and whisper-quiet air-conditioning with the option of doors opening to admit fresh sea breezes (a circulation of fresh air is vital for meditation and other forms of spiritual work). That’s the upper floor and the lower floor is designed to be used as a yoga space or converted at the drop of a hat to a restaurant, entertainment area or wedding venue.

Architects know very well how rarely the finished result fulfils every objective of a design but in this case it turned out to be all I hoped it would be. It's the best workshop space I’ve ever taught in anywhere in the world, and I've worked in some pretty expensive and exotic places in my time.

Not only that but I’ve discovered it’s the perfect venue for the hotel’s gong ensemble to give performances, ending with their famous surround-sound finale. In this, the audience moves to the centre of the room and sits with eyes closed while the 30-piece orchestra walks around the perimeter, playing their gongs, cymbals and drums as they go. It’s a sound that connects directly to the ancient spiritual powers of Bali, resonating through one’s entire body of energy (as you can tell, I love it – can never get enough of it, in fact!).

BUILDING IN BALI

The process of designing and building in Bali is quite an experience. The main building laws are that nothing can be built within a certain distance of the beach or be higher than the tallest coconut tree in the area. A few people have got round the last rule by planting a coconut tree on the top storey of their building but this is generally frowned upon and is not commonplace. Traditionally the Balinese only build their homes with one storey for the simple reason that the head is deemed to be the most sacred part of the body and the feet the most profane, so they don’t like having anyone walk above their head. This, incidentally, is also the reason why they carry offerings on their heads and leave their shoes outside their homes before entering.

The first time I hired builders in Bali was nearly my last. They were lazy, stupid and sloppy in their work, arrived late, left early, didn’t do anything right and demanded to be paid well for their non-efforts. All I had asked them to do was some minor repairs to a place I was renting. Fortunately Rai stepped in, told me to sack the lot of them, and sent me a new team from his village made up of people he had known since birth and grown up with. They were a pure delight to work with. Initially very shy of having dealings with a foreigner (I speak fluent Indonesian not one of them could speak English), they immediately impressed me with how much heart and they put into their work and what pride they took when I was happy with the results. They arrived on time, left on time and did a fair day’s work. We got on great. When I decided to build a hotel, they got the job.

Still, it was a steep learning curve for both me and them. They were surprised to learn that I preferred electric cables concealed inside the walls rather than tacked to the outside (having electricity was such a status symbol in their village that the wiring was always made as visible as possible). I quickly learnt that lunch hour was not a good time to visit the site because all I would find was 40 sprawled bodies fast asleep in the tropical midday heat. They discovered I liked my buildings with no sharp corners, and I quickly learnt the Indonesian word ‘bongkar’, meaning ‘knock it down and start again’ (which they cheerfully did quite a lot of in the early days).

And so it went on, until we pretty much understood each other perfectly. I always remember one day when I went on a shopping trip to town, returning to find them all standing around waiting for me to inspect their day’s plastering. They all hung back in a group, watching my reactions intently and letting the foreman step forward to meet me. As soon as they caught the first hint of the “What the heck have they done now?” expression on my face, they all fell about laughing, telling the foreman, “Told you so! Told you she’d want the corners rounded!”  They were never shy with me again and started thinking for themselves much more from that point on.