Lumbung construction in Bali

The construction work at our two new Lumbungs is advancing rapidly. Within a matter of 3 weeks a huge progress can be seen!

Lumbung

These new Balinese houses will turn out beautifully.

A wooden staircase is leading to the 'top floor' where our guests will sleep. The 'ground floor' will be the living area, a private bathroom is attached to the back of the house.

Lumbung inside

We only use natural materials to construct the Lumbungs - wood and bamboo. The walls are made out of  braided stripes of bamboo.

Lumbung wall

Our guests will enjoy an authentic sleeping experience in the middle of nature.  You will fall asleep to the sounds of quacking frogs and geckos - a truly calming sound and a deeply relaxing environment.

One Balinese Lumbung will accommodate 2-3 persons.

Cremation ceremony in Bali

This  february 10th in Ubud we witnessed an important cremation ceremony. It was a king’s cremation. The body of each dead Balinese must be burned so that their souls can join the spirit’s world. This kind of event is very important for Balinese people .There are ceremonies for every stage of Balinese life but often the last ceremony-cremation-is the biggest. A Balinese cremation can be an amazing, spectacular, colorful, noisy and exciting event. In fact it often takes so long to organize a cremation that years have passed since the death.

Kings cremation

The funeral ceremony is generally led by a priest and punctuated by a lavish offering of gifts. For the occasion, a large bullock-shaped wooden structure is built . The tower is carried on the shoulders of a group of men, the size of the group depending on the importance of the deceased and hence the size of the tower.

King's cremation

At the cremation ground the body is transferred to a funeral sarcophagus. Finally it all goes up in flames - the funeral tower, sarcophagus, body and the lot.

Cremation king

Apart from being yet another occasion for Balinese noise and confusion it's a fine opportunity to observe the incredible energy the Balinese put into creating real works of art which are totally ephemeral.

Health Room at Jiwa Damai

After some weeks of work,  our Health room is finished and awaiting our guests. It turned out very beautiful.  You enter through a beautifully carved, Balinese wooden door.  This door was carefully refurbished and painted - it looks amazing!

Health room

The Health room features a bathtub, the walls are made out of green shimmering glass stones.

We offer holistic body therapies, individual therapy sessions as well as massages and body care.

Health room_new

Relax and enjoy your massage!

Massage

Health room

After the massage you can take a refreshing swim in our pool.

This is the perfect way to spend your day at Jiwa Damai....

New Lumbungs at Jiwa Damai

We are currently constructing two new Lumbungs in our organic garden. A Lumbung is a traditional Balinese house, made out of bamboo and wood. We build them in an elevated part of our garden, overlooking the pool, right next to the ceremonial garden.

View pool

We  offer these Balinese houses to guests, wanting to experience nature closely. These Lumbungs will  offer rural comfort and can accommodate two or threee people each. They are covered with mosquito nets and will have their own private bathroom.

This is our Lumbung Kunang-Kunang. Isn't that nice?

The two new Lumbungs will look similar to this one......

Lumbung

The construction started - phase one ......

Lumbung construction

Lumbung construction

We will keep you updated on the construction process !

Morning Yoga at Jiwa Damai

Greetings from Bali! I'm Simone & I work here at Jiwa Damai. I am responsible for the website and all our new Marketing initiatives. I mostly work from Germany but from time to time I will come to Bali for a nice change of scenery & to work on location. I love this place. I  enjoy starting my days with Yoga.

Yoga at Jiwa Damai

Look at our surroundings! It is so beautiful and peaceful here. The yoga takes about 45 minutes and it is the perfect way to kick off my morning. Currently there is a WWOOF couple that is at Jiwa Damai with me so I usually do my morning practice with Mark & Giulia. They enjoy it just as much as I do.

Yoga with Giulia & Margret

Every morning the yoga routine changes a bit. There is never one class that is exactly the same as the last one.

This place is quite special...

My Favorite Yoga Pose

Take a Tour of Jiwa Damai

jiwawalkfront

jiwawalkback

Cooking Balinese Organic Food with Astri

Astri at Work

Today I spent the morning cooking with Astri. She is the Balinese cook at Jiwa Damai. She is this beautiful lady who is always smiling and makes the most amazing food. So I thought it would be a fun way to spend my day by being her assistant in the kitchen. Oh. I'm Giulia by the way. I'm a WOOFer here at Jiwa Damai. I basically work 6 hour days, 5 days a week & in return I get to live at Jiwa Damai and get these delicious cooked meals for free. I'm very lucky if I may say so myelf.

On the menu for today was Balinese-Style chicken, butter & lemon tuna, curry-style tofu, green beans and red peppers & rice of course. We started working at 10:30 am. We kicked off by making the sauces. Everything is done by hand. There are no blenders, or fancy knives, just a little cutting board. Let's just say to chop up lemongrass, 3 cloves of garlic, 2 mini onions, 3 peppers it took me about an hour. I do have to give myself some credit though. It was so finely chopped that it almost looked like a paste. A good job indeed. While I was working on that, Astri was making a beautiful mix using our mortar & pestle. I want one of these things so bad to bring back to the States. Too bad it weighs like 15 lbs!

Curry Paste

After that I started cutting up the string beans. It sounds so easy, but since presentation is pretty big over here, it took me quite some time to make them perfect. I thought I was going to cut my finger off a couple of times, but hey, it was worth it. Look how pretty they came out!

Hands at Work

Astri & I had a lot of fun cooking together. It is so relaxing & rewarding at the same time. You learn to be very patient! Especially when we made the Balinese-Style chicken where we cooked it and then had to peel the chicken one little strip at a time. It took forever, but oh, does it look good.

Overall, it was an A+ morning. I don't know if I ever spent 3 hours making a single meal, but it sure was awesome to do so here in Bali. The pace of life is totally different here & that's what I love about this place.

Now...let's eat up!

Four-course meal

Jiwa Damai now on Flickr and Twitter

In addition to starting this blog, Jiwa Damai is now also on Flickr, the popular photo-sharing service, and Twitter. We will be continually posting pictures of life at Jiwa Damai at our Flickr account, so you can connect with us there. You can also always access our Flickr photos from our right sidebar here at this blog.

As for Twitter, the account will be run by a variety of people, including volunteers and staff, to hopefully share the depth of experiences available here.

We look forward to keeping in touch with the outside world about the relaxing and nourishing activity here at Jiwa Damai.

Welcome to the Jiwa Damai Blog!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Hello, and welcome to the Jiwa Damai Blog! Jiwa Damai is an organic garden and retreat center located in the heart of Bali. It is an amazing place for guests who are visiting Bali to get a hands-on experience at a socially responsible lodging. We offer a variety of accomodations that can all be found at our main website.

Thank you for checking out the Jiwa Damai blog, and we look forward to keeping you updated with what is happening here.