Reinventing the Eco Lodge: Durian Arak and 50 Different Butterflies
Horticultural Garden in the Rainforest
Traveling down a twisting road choked with disheveled carving workshops we turned in at the big “Swiss Restaurant” sign, a bit out of place in the deep-forested hills of Bali. Just as incongruous perhaps as the man I was about to meet. The Bali Eco Lodge is the spiritual and inspirational domain of Peter Studer. Growing up between the Matterhorn and Jungfrau mountains of Switzerland, believing that in a past life he was a tree, Peter feels perfectly at home amidst the majesty of nature. After studying marketing at Cambridge University, Peter dabbled in various careers including managing cigarette companies, sponsoring international racing events, and importing Swiss products into the Philippines.
Ever since he saw a short film on Bali in the window display of a travel agency in 1952, Peter had always been intrigued with Bali but didn’t visit the island until 1989. Eventually, he settled in south Bali and started painting again after a break of 35 years. In 1995, Peter resolved to establish a completely self-sustainable and self-contained retreat, complete with its own power supply, food crops, spices and medical herbs. Sitting down with him in the open-air restaurant, I asked him if he had yet achieved his goal. “Give me another year,” he replied.
Most of Peter’s time is taken up indulging his true passion – painting (www.suryasuryata.com). As a sideline, he serves as a consultant at the Bali Eco Resort while pursuing his hobby of distilling healthy and invigorating 80% pure alcoholic beverages, which he calls snaps, made from rambutan, papaya and other exotic fruits. The extensive gardens provide him with all the ingredients he needs. This Swiss alchemist can even make snaps out of durian, a fruit which is supposed to make you deathly sick if you mix it with alcohol. The staff led my wife and I up and down the steep paths and stairways cut into the side of a steep forested river valley. Eight villas, laid out at different levels, are each given the name of a different tropical fruit. We were assigned Villa Salak just off the kitchen, named after prickly salak plants planted right outside our window.
News junkie as I am, I looked around for the TV remote control, then noticed there was no TV. And no radio, telephone or intercom. “This is an eco resort!” my wife reminded me. Situated 600 meters above sea level, the air turned cool later that evening as we snuggled into bed, falling asleep to the song of insects. The next morning we breakfasted on mushroom omelets, pancakes and thick potent Robusta coffee served in a delightful tall teapot. Both the mushrooms and the coffee beans were grown right on the premises. I read the New York Times via a wireless Internet connection in the restaurant, half-filled with European guests. A short time later, at 9 a.m., we started on the three-hour 5 km tour led by Pak Ketut, the Bali Eco Resort’s very capable manager (kelian) who serves as a bridge between the bule (foreign) visitors and the 24 local farmers and villagers who co-own the 24-hectare property.
The Bali Eco Resort’s lush botanical garden is a living apothecary. In the herb garden Pak Ketut pointed out in rapid fire succession a dozen plants and the cures, treatments and uses each are good for. Forty-two different spices were arrayed for sale (Rp40,000 per packet) in the restaurant. We walked along a path that led over bamboo bridges and through extensive pineapple, sirzak, rambutan, salak, clove, cocoa, cashew nut, vanilla and nutmeg gardens – an astounding 719 plants and counting. At the mid-way point, we took a rest under a gazebo. A crinkled-face farmer gave us cold facecloths and cold water. Higher up we climbed through a dark aren forest, the thick trunks tapped to make palm wine. At the top were rice paddies and lolling tethered cows. Wooden bells were tied to their necks to give the alarm if a thief were to take them.
Pak Ketut pointed to an opening in the shrubbery, handed out flashlights and we entered a dark hole in the side of a hill. Goa Maya, a 1000 foot-long tunnel-like cave, had been disused for years until it was dug out recently by 70 people in two months. The spooky labyrinth was once the refuge of guerillas fighting the Dutch, then 20 years later the hiding place for those fleeing the hunting down and killing of 50,000 “communists” on Bali.
We crept half-stooped through the darkness, some sections inundated with shallow water. The Balinese claim that there are still “unfinished souls” present which helped explain the supernatural atmosphere. I could imagine my light beam falling upon a long line of crouching wide-eyed terrified beings huddled silently along the wet walls. Pak Ketut left offerings and burned incense before statues of Ganesha, Brahma and Shiva set in dark niches deep in the cave. We each uttered a prayer.
Practicalities
Bali Eco Adventure, Bayad village, Gianyar, tel. 0361-787-3603/901874, fax: 0361-901873, email: info@baliecoadventure.com, homepage: www.baliecoadventure.com. Specialties are roesti and geschnetzeltes (minced beef on cream sauce), oyster mushroom soup (Rp24,000) and fried oyster mushrooms (Rp45,000) made with freshly harvested mushrooms. The visitor may choose between a 4 km, 2 km or 1.5 km escorted tour (3 -5 hours). Prices for transport USD49 from Nusa Dua, Kuta, Sanur or Ubud; USD25 without transport. Tariff for the bungalows range from USD45 to 62 including breakfast. Seminar center rents for USD 98.-/day for up to 35 persons. All rates include taxes and can be paid in any currency, by traveler’s check and most credit cards (3% surcharge). Bring walking shoes, hat, sunscreen.
Nature Enclave on the Rugged Bukit
The call came in the middle of the night. “Do you know who this is?” Recognizing the army colonel’s voice, Alan said “Yes.” The man then said “Get out!” and hung up the phone. In the open lounge of the Udayana Kingfisher Lodge in Jimbaran, Alan Wilson was retelling his hair-raising escape from the murderous military dictatorship of Idi Amin of Uganda in 1972. The Wilson family was about to be expelled (or worse) from their veterinary business in Tororo in eastern Uganda and their property expropriated.
Over a 45 day period, with his wife Meryl and their two small children, this undaunted Irishman flew a small Cessna 175 illegally from east Africa via Adis Ababa, Jeddah, Bahrain and Karachi to Townsville in northern Queensland to begin new lives in Australia. Alan and his wife’s first visit to Indonesia were in 1981. They’ve been here ever since. Fourteen years ago the Wilson family, took out a long-term lease, and began managing the Udayana Kingfisher Lodge on the grounds of Bali’s Udayana University. As I drove through the giant intersection and entered the road to Udayana University between the big glitzy MacDonald and KFC fast food outlets, there was no way to prepare for what lay ahead.
After one kilometer at the clock tower I turned right past a Udayana Lodge sign and drove another 1.3 km up a hill with a housing estate on my right until I came across another sign on my left, pulling into a small winding drive leading down to the lodge buried deep in a shady forest. The complex consists of several villas and a two-floor building with a row of rooms on the ground floor and a restaurant, lounge and offices on the first floor. The secluded swimming pool, glimpsed enticingly through a bushy opening, is completely surrounded by bamboo thickets, wild shrubbery and tropical flowers with sweeping views over Benoa Harbor. It was gratifying to find conservation measures actually practiced. In my room there were receptacles for plastic recyclables and food scraps, and notes urging guests to recycle, minimize waste, and conserve water by taking short showers. The kitchen serves vegetable dishes with flair in keeping with the lodge’s low impact small footprint philosophy.
“We recycle our entire sewer and have 200,000 liters of rain water stored in six big subterranean storage tanks,” Alan explained. “We haven’t used anything but rain water in our house for over two years. Each of our guests uses on average around 130 liters per day as opposed to some of the big hotels whose guests use over 1000 liters per day. One good storm fills all of our tanks.”
“The Wallace Line actually begins not in Lombok but at Bali’s airport,” Alan went on. “As soon as you enter the Bukit peninsula, you’re in the dry tropics. Rainfall is infrequent, water in critically short supply, the people are tougher, living in coral-walled villages and eking out a living from fishing, raising cattle and growing maize, beans and cassava on the poor rocky soil.”
Meryl Wilson, who was in Flores putting the finishing touches on the new Keli Mutu Crater Lakes Ecolodge, is a butterfly expert and has written a keystone book, Butterflies of Lowland Indonesia, much of it researched on the grounds of the lodge which has over 50 species of butterflies. A physiotherapist by training. Meryl is best known for her eco design principles which are immediately apparent in the remarkable exterior rain catchment system visible all over the lodge’s main building. Located on university land, the lodge has a strong relationship with the university’s conservation department. Because of their affordable corporate rates, family reunions, workshops, and Australian government and research organizations seminars can sometimes take over the place. Papers on conservation, sustainable tourism and alternative energy sources are often presented here.
The lodge, being relatively close to the airport, is also popular with tourists who make it their base and return for the last few days of their visit before flying home. It is particularly well suited to families because the environment is safe and kids can swim, play giant chess, rummage in the toy box, or watch international TV channels in the lounge. The open bar is on the honor system. The lodge is one of five eco lodges belonging to Ecolodges Indonesia, an association which follows strict eco principles: employing local staff, conserving rainwater, recycling sewage, utilizing solar hot water and composting systems as well as instituting proper rubbish disposal and transparent accounting.
Marked by green and red markers, the 20-minute Bulbul Walk and the more strenuous 40-minute Valley Walk will acquaint guests with the bush around the lodge which is full of birds, butterflies, lizards, snakes, snails, small mammals and many species of trees and plants. White-rumped deer-like wild Bali cattle (Bos sondiacus), nervous but not usually aggressive, may also be encountered. All this only a stone’s throw of bustling noisy Jimbaran. “We’re the last holdout,” Alan told me. “This 35-hectare property is one of only two protected areas in all of Nusa Dua, and the last wildlife sanctuary for birds and other wildlife. We’re besieged on all sides.”
Practicalities
Udayana Kingfisher Lodge, tel. 0361-747-4204, www.ecolodgesindonesia.com, email: reservation@ecolodgesindonesia.com. Eleven rooms plus two annexes with four rooms each. Tarifs: USD75 per double room, including breakfast (served before 10:30 am). Extra bed $10. Children under two years free. One night in seven is free. If you join the INIRADEF Foundation (Rp350,000), you get a 10% discount on all five member eco lodges. Transfers, activities and well-trained local guides can all be arranged. For stays longer than three nights, free transfers. Dinner is a set menu for Rp150,000 per person including tea or coffee. This lodge is one of five eco lodges in wild areas of Indonesia (Tanjung Puting, Komodo, Way Kambas, Keli Mutu and Udayana) belonging to Eco Lodges Indonesia. Make all bookings through Udayana.
