Ohana Retreat Bali
It is presumptuous of me to make a claim about the entire country of Indonesia, when I have visited just a small percentage of its over 17,000 islands. The best book on Indonesia that I’ve come across is Indonesia Etc by Elisabeth Pasani: Declaring independence in 1945, Indonesia said it would “work out the details […]
This article from the New York Times sums up the practices of hotel tipping, primarily in the USA, but there additional practices internationally that can summed up here. Pushing a heavy cart of cleaning and room supplies, lifting mattresses and bending over tubs and toilets is probably the most physically demanding job in the hotel. […]
Here in Bali there is one day per year where we don’t have a choice about whether to quiet oneself or not. It is forced upon us, due to the unique way that the Balinese celebrate their New Year. They first purify the island through prayer and then rid the island of evil spirits by […]
The Balinese go to great efforts to treat their ancestors with utmost respect, as they believe that their spirits, in a very real sense, come back to their homes and the home temples that are a part of each piece of property for a Balinese family. See #1: Family Temple. The house temple called Sanggah […]
Each time I arrive on the building site I get a hello and a wave from at least one of the many workers. Usually from quite a few. And when I raise my camera phone I tend to get a thumbs-up reaction, as a friendly imitation of my daily thumbs-up to the workers. Today one […]