160 minute read
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get it”, the rest of the newspaper provides some first rate long form and investigative journalism covering life in general , beyond the financial. Since the FT content is behind a pay wall and I have no interest in the weekday newspaper itself, it’s not worth my stumping up for a subscription. Fortunately for me the weekend print edition is usually on sale at Periplus bookshops around Bali.
On one occasion, seated at a table on the deck of the Starbucks in Renon Plaza, engrossed in a good read trying to control the flyaway pages of my newspaper I was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. I was partly aware that a dapper Indonesian man in his early thirties had arrived and sat down at an adjoining table, put down his coffee, opened his lap top, and positioned his handphone together with some other device alongside. Preparing to be irked and ready to rustle the pages of my broadsheet ostentatiously enough to attract attention for a warm-up death glare, I realised that the smoke didn’t actually reek of tobacco, as I had automatically assumed it would. As I was registering this, the man raised a small expensive-looking rectangular black and silver object to his mouth and took a toke. Upon exhale an astonishingly copious cloud of vapour billowed forth, was taken by the wind toward and past myself, on to envelop other tables nearby, only dissipating on the far side of the deck. Impressive in its way. What kind of a storm cloud, I wondered, would a party of half-a-dozen such tokers emit? What about the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms be like? Would they be able to see other? It wasn’t that I was completely unaware. I knew smoking had evolved and that the tobacco barons had developed new ways to attract and addict a younger clientele in the delivery of nicotine, while extending their questionable business ethics into other less lethal areas of business. In fact, I had even read about just that very thing in a previous issue of the FT, to the effect that the big tobacco majors were now concentrating on e-cigarettes and vaping, sales of which now stood at some US$16 billion and expected to treble to over $40 billion in four years. The only clouds on that horizon being a growing international movement to regulate the sale of these products. James 1st of England (1603-25) not only fulminated against the noxious weed but cut off the head of the man who brought it back from the Americas. It was the introduction of cigarettes, which really kicked tobacco industry into the big league, on a par with oil, coal and transportation. By the 1930s smoking cigarettes was the social norm. It was permitted and catered to almost everywhere. The whole world stank of it. We did, so did our clothes and our homes. We just didn’t realise it. In hindsight one has has to wonder how a non-smoker managed to get through life in such a tobacco-ridden environment. Think of the allure of a beautiful and elegant woman smoking a cigarette, a not uncommon and powerful image back then. As a redblooded non-smoking man how in reality, if your dreams came true, would you be able to make love to that woman? And don’t let’s be gender specific here – it works everywhich way. By 1950 the British Medical Association( BMA)sounded the death knell for tobacco’s glory days, announcing conclusive evidence to show that cigarettes caused lung cancer. To prove the point King George VI of England died of lung cancer in 1952 at the age of 56. Not long after his daughter made a point of revoking the Royal Seal of Approval carried by Benson & Hedges and other British brands. She had good cause to believe the BMA. Nonetheless there followed a vicious 50-year campaign of huge mendacity waged by Big Tobacco to deny the reality, that cigrette smoking was the second greatest killer in the world after road accidents.
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people are eating. The more expensive the cigar, the more it stank. Since my late 40s I’ve smoked very little and not at One of the more solitary small pleasures I enjoy all in the past decade.
with the Weekend FT in a café serving half decent Whatever the case, the whole paraphenalia in and around coffee. Apart from the cringingly ghastly “How to smoking affected us. When I first started smoking I went Spend it”, the magazine supplement written by FT hacks with leaden wit and obvious contempt for their up-market, Benson & Hedges in their red and gold tin, readers - by definition themselves possessing no Balkan Sobranie Black Russian or enticingly foreign like style of their own and in need of being told “where to Gauloises and Gitanes. Then settling down to get it”, the rest of the newspaper provides some first Senior Service or Players and a spell rolling my rate long form and investigative journalism covering own in 60s. By the mid 70’s I had pretty much life in general , beyond the financial. Since the FT settled down to Benson & Hedges gold or Marlboro content is behind a pay wall and I have no interest in Light, which was when I finally graduated to tipped the weekday newspaper itself, it’s not worth my stumping up for a subscription. Fortunately for me the cigarettes. Like publishing, the British and weekend print edition is usually on sale at Periplus American tobacco barons exercised dual dominion bookshops around Bali. over the world when it came to international brands, so I never really got into American On one occasion, seated at a table on the deck cigarettes, but somewhat familiar with the ‘jetof the Starbucks in Renon Plaza, engrossed in plane’ brands of the 50s and 60s (Rothmans, a good read trying to control the flyaway pages Stuyvesant, Pall Mall, etc.), until the advent of of my newspaper I was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. I was partly aware that a dapper Marlboro Man that is. One phase I observed with Indonesian man in his early thirties had arrived interest and faint contempt was the early 70s and sat down at an adjoining table, put down fashion branding of cigarettes in huge packs by his coffee, opened his lap top, and positioned Cartier, Dunhill, Davidoff and the like, inevitably his handphone together with some other accompanied by a gold or silver bric lighter from device alongside. Preparing to be irked and Dupont or other purveyor of cadet luxe. ready to rustle the pages of my broadsheet ostentatiously enough to attract attention for a warm-up death glare, I realised that the smoke For most of us I suspect, looking back at the golden age of didn’t actually reek of tobacco, as I had tobacco, now that the stench is gone, is a pleasant exercise automatically assumed it would. in nostalgia. We grew up and matured alongside it all - the packaging, the accoutrements, the advertisements, the As I was registering this, the man raised a sponsorships – all designed to entice. small expensive-looking rectangular black and silver object to his mouth and took a toke. Upon exhale an astonishingly copious cloud of vapour billowed forth, was By the time I looked up the man with the laptop and his taken by the wind toward and past myself, on to envelop vape had gone. You know what? E-cigarettes etc. kill only other tables nearby, only dissipating on the far side of the a handfull of people a year, so on the scale of lethality I deck. Impressive in its way. What kind of a storm cloud, I reckon folks can be left in peace to take a small toke of wondered, would a party of half-a-dozen such tokers emit? nicotine in the great outdoors, without the heavy hand of What about the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms be like? the law being invoked. That said, I do wonder a bit about Would they be able to see other? the involuntary sharing airborne particles lung to lung. It wasn’t that I was completely unaware. I knew smoking had evolved and that the tobacco barons had developed new ways to attract and addict a younger clientele in the delivery of nicotine, while extending their questionable business ethics into other less lethal areas of business. In ParacelsusAsia fact, I had even read about just that very thing in a previous Comments or queries ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com issue of the FT, to the effect that the big tobacco majors were now concentrating on e-cigarettes and vaping, sales Copyright © 2019 ParacelsusAsia of which now stood at some US$16 billion and expected to treble to over $40 billion in four years. The only clouds on You can read all past articles of Alternative Voice at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz that horizon being a growing international movement to regulate the sale of these products. In this instance, I just adjusted my chair so I had my back to the man and instead of resuming my reading, forgot about the vapours and fell into a reverie upon life and tobacco over past decades. One way or another, smoker or not, tobacco affected us all. Its aroma and its advertisement, an ever-present factor in our lives. The habit has been around a long time. King James 1st of England (1603-25) not only fulminated against the noxious weed but cut off the head of the man who brought it back from the Americas. It was the introduction of cigarettes, which really kicked tobacco industry into the big league, on a par with oil, coal and transportation. By the 1930s smoking cigarettes was the social norm. It was permitted and catered to almost everywhere. The whole world stank of it. We did, so did our clothes and our homes. We just didn’t realise it. In hindsight one has has to wonder how a non-smoker managed to get through life in such a tobacco-ridden environment. Think of the allure of a beautiful and elegant woman smoking a cigarette, a not uncommon and powerful image back then. As a redblooded non-smoking man how in reality, if your dreams came true, would you be able to make love to that woman? And don’t let’s be gender specific here – it works everywhich way. By 1950 the British Medical Association( BMA)sounded the death knell for tobacco’s glory days, announcing conclusive evidence to show that cigarettes caused lung cancer. To prove the point King George VI of England died of lung cancer in 1952 at the age of 56. Not long after his daughter made a point of revoking the Royal Seal of Approval carried by Benson & Hedges and other British brands. She had good cause to believe the BMA. Nonetheless there followed a vicious 50-year campaign of huge mendacity waged by Big Tobacco to deny the reality, that cigrette smoking was the second greatest killer in the world after road accidents.
Goodbye Holly Golightly, Goodbye Marlboro Man...
came ready-packaged in a mystical doctrine that was In the days when I smoked it was only two or three widely welcomed across Java. Though widespread cigarettes day, unless I was drinking. Then I chain-smoked. conversion from the Hindu-Buddhist faith to Islam was When they banned smoking inflight by the early 1980s I complete by the 1600s, the old belief systems did not disappear. Buddhism and Hinduism had a presence on Java for 1000 years and their influence still survived in was happy. I could stop smoking for years at a time. Trouble was - easy to quit, easy to start. I never liked many rites, symbols, customs and traditions such as smoking in and around food so lighting-up after a meal was the wayang theater forms and architectural features like no big loss in restaurants. In fact I reserve a special place the split gate that reflect Java’s ancient past. in hell for the affected swine who light a cigar when other people are eating. The more expensive the cigar, the more it stank. Since my late 40s I’ve smoked very little and not at all in the past decade. Whatever the case, the whole paraphenalia in and around smoking affected us. When I first started smoking I went up-market, Benson & Hedges in their red and gold tin, Balkan Sobranie Black Russian or enticingly foreign like Gauloises and Gitanes. Then settling down to Senior Service or Players and a spell rolling my own in 60s. By the mid 70’s I had pretty much settled down to Benson & Hedges gold or Marlboro Light, which was when I finally graduated to tipped cigarettes. Like publishing, the British and American tobacco barons exercised dual dominion over the world when it came to international brands, so I never really got into American cigarettes, but somewhat familiar with the ‘jetplane’ brands of the 50s and 60s (Rothmans, Stuyvesant, Pall Mall, etc.), until the advent of Marlboro Man that is. One phase I observed with interest and faint contempt was the early 70s fashion branding of cigarettes in huge packs by Cartier, Dunhill, Davidoff and the like, inevitably accompanied by a gold or silver bric lighter from Dupont or other purveyor of cadet luxe. For most of us I suspect, looking back at the golden age of tobacco, now that the stench is gone, is a pleasant exercise in nostalgia. We grew up and matured alongside it all - the Researchers who today struggle to trace the dynamics of packaging, the accoutrements, the advertisements, the religious change in modern Java are unanimous in one thing: sponsorships – all designed to entice. syncretic Javanized Islam has been on the run, pushed hard by conservative, orthodox forces since the 1980s. Javanese have now largely abandoned their pre Muslim beliefs that were intermixed with animist, Hindu and Buddhist leanings By the time I looked up the man with the laptop and his vape had gone. You know what? E-cigarettes etc. kill only and avalanched over to observant conservatism. This a handfull of people a year, so on the scale of lethality I imported hard-edged guise of pious Islam is hostile to the reckon folks can be left in peace to take a small toke of veneration of any image or object that might tempt believers nicotine in the great outdoors, without the heavy hand of away from the single-minded worship of the one God, Allah. the law being invoked. That said, I do wonder a bit about the involuntary sharing airborne particles lung to lung.Bandit Saints of Java is a challenge to that perception which can only hold water if one assumes that Java’s unique religious heritage and Indonesia‘s pre-national history have died out or are irrelevant in the present. This unusual work of nonfiction dives deep under the surface of modern Indonesia, exploring personalities, legends and lore in the ParacelsusAsia wacky, teeming world of local pilgrimages that is largely Comments or queries ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com invisible to journalists, scholars and tourists. The book convincingly illuminates how a brash, new, energetic religion Copyright © 2019 ParacelsusAsia changed but not wholly supplanted the old Buddhist/Hindu You can read all past articles of Alternative Voice at belief systems. www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
The religion of Java lives on in the venerable mausoleums of legendary saints and spirit guardians who represent local, traditionalist native faith with all its mysticism and magic and obsession with holy places and the dead. For modern Indonesians, saint veneration and local pilgrimages are central to their Islamic identity and the practice of their religion that adopts a tolerant, understanding and humanistic approach. The author argues that many Javanese are able to stay strong in Islam while honoring their semi-divine ancestors who are known as the Nine Saints (Wali Songo). The pilgrimage sites, which Quinn calls the new heathen landscape of Indonesia, are not your usual shrines but fusions of holy ground, the focus of memorable stories and objects of religious devotion. Hundreds of these places of worship, big and small, sprawl across Java as well as Indonesia’s outer Islands. Visiting them has become normal in modern Java and serve to assuage those who face an interminable wait - now averaging 17 years - to go on the haj to Mecca. The saint’s graves are havens of refuge and respite embedded solidly in the practices of everyday life for scores of millions of people. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism reported that 12.2 million people visited the tombs of the Nine Saints in 2014. A few of the sites, like that of Sunan Bonang in Tuban, host up to a million visitors a year. In the final months of the Ramadan fasting month, 20,000 pilgrims a day visit the tomb of Sunan Ampel in Surabaya. The popularity of local pilgrimages has given rise to a highly profitable services sector called wisata ziarah (pilgrimage tourism) in which pilgrims are whisked around by chartered bus to as many as 9 tombs in 6 days. Run on a shoestring, the tours are composed mostly of women who wear like-colored t-shirts, sleep in the bus, mosque or rest pavilions, eat takeaway food and shop for religious souvenirs. So relentlessly popular are the tours that most participants don’t even get close to the small, inner burial chamber but have to sit in dense ranks on tiled patio floors all around the vicinity. Most are off the beaten track and don’t appear on modern maps or make it into the pages of a Lonely Planet guidebook. These landmarks inherited from the distance past are buried under the new geography of cities, highways, ports, railroads, factories, plantations, administrative boundaries and tourist attractions. They roost at the top of staircases on steep hillsides, lie in the darkness of caves, shelter in the tiny scraps of forests still left on Java, crouch under the arbors of trees in quiet villages, hidden in the cluttered old quarters of the island’s major cities or in district level towns like Blora, Tuban, Kediri, Demak, Tegal, Karawang, Sumedang, Banten, Kudus, Magelang, Jombang, Mojoagung and Gresik. Often the temples lie besides or opposite the high-rise domes, shiny halls and Middle Eastern-style minarets of flamboyant modern mosques whose straight-laced parishioners view the local pilgrimage sites as nests of idolatry and backwardness. George Quinn is a one-of-a-kind scholar of Indonesian studies. Possessing a native speaker level command of Indonesian and Javanese, this Australian specialist holds a BA from Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University and for many years headed the Southeast Center at the Australian National University. As an Indonesianist - or more precisely, a Javanist - of the first rank, he is adept at writing in a number of genres - fiction, literary criticism, lexiography, history. He
Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn
has published countless papers and articles reflecting his decades-long travel and research in Java. Have you noticed? The Balinese don’t like rain, they don’t Quinn didn’t write this brilliant discussion of Java’s pilgrimage drink rainwater and they certainly don’t like it on their culture from the sterile confines of a university office under heads. It is something to do with picking up evil spirits on towering bookcases but actually lived the experiences reported in his book. Only a man on the spot would be able it’s way from the sky. Which reminds me, I picked up an to describe in such rich detail the packed, fetid atmosphere evil spirit the other day, it was supposed to be gin and tonic of tombs and the details of architecture. Though not a Muslim but I suspect it was a particularly evil batch of Arak. “Arak himself, he is as informed about the nuances of Javanese Islam as any practicing Indonesian ulama. Often Quinn was attack” is of course the name of a condition not a drink. the only tall, fair-skinned outsider granted as a matter of Arak does have it’s uses though - it is very good for courtesy a priority place in the inner sanctum. Key-keepers cleaning carburettors. without exception made him feel welcome and were lavish in their responses to his innumerable and sometimes provocative questions. His respect (dare I say reverence?) Have you also noticed, the Balinese don’t have gutters. for the old Sufi saints are equal in ardor to any devout The logic is, in fact, sound. Get the water off the roof Javanese worshipper. straight onto the ground and organise for it to run away The writer’s marvelous, tactile description of the venerable somewhere out of the way. This is also good because 15th C. Demak mosque 25 km east of Semarang, is a case much of it ends up back in the water table. in point. There are myriad, priceless scenes of devoted pilgrims - a milling hubbub of murmuring prayer and singing in crowded incense-filled chambers. The text is populated It is a bit of a pain though isn’t it. It starts peeing down, cats by strange supernatural characters like Gatholoco, the “walking human penis;” a guardian of a holy mountain who and dogs turn into elephants and whales and as Mr became an icon of male vigor at 79; a Muslim saint who Murphy would predict you are just about to leave for work was gay and an atheist Sufi saint who took his dogs into with papers clutched under your arm. You wait with a the mosque. Others were outright tricksters like the wise pre-Islamic jester Semar.sheet of water running off the roof in front of you, it doesn’t slow so you make a dash for the car. Damn, where is the All the esteemed personages are echoes of Java’s ancient key on the key ring? Then the key just won’t go into the tantric heritage that fused Hindu-Buddhist tantra and yoga with Sufism. The majority of the saints were opponents of lock. You flop, wet through, on the car seat and you stare followers of austere Arab-style Islamic orthodoxy with their out through the windscreen as the rain eases off. The pretentions of Middle Eastern dress, their faux-pious soggy papers clutched under you arm are starting to run mannerisms and claim to religious piety and learning. ink onto your shirt. The worst bit was that initial drenching Bandit Saints of Java paints an astonishing portrait of Islam as you plunged through the sheet of water coming off the as it’s actually practiced today by many of Java’s 130 million roof. people. The author is a superb, witty and entertaining writer who vividly records what he saw and felt close-up on the ground. Though some of the material is almost impossibly A gutter can be a good idea. esoteric, the book’s most vital contribution in my mind is that it gives one faith that Indonesia’s lovely, animist native kajawen beliefs will endure in the end under the onslaught You can get plastic gutters and downpipes here in Bali of the harsh tenets of hardline Islamist Wahhabism imported with all the fittings (apart from good brackets but we’ll from Saudi Arabia. This erudite and well-researched study come to that). Prices are very reasonable and installation gives us the hope that Java will continue to hold dear its own soft, Sufi-inspired interpretation of Islam.is not difficult but does need to be planned. Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn, Monsoon Books Be careful because most Indonesian people know very 2018, ISBN 978-191-204-9448, paperback, 448 pages, dimensions 20 cm x 13 cm. little about gutters. Unfortunately the fact that water does not flow uphill has never been pointed out to Indonesians. Have you noticed how much time and effort goes into building those drainage channels along the sides of the Review by Bill Dalton roads, and have you also noticed how the bottoms of the For any publishers interested in having one of their books channels don’t always flow downhill, they go up and down considered for review in Toko Buku, please contact: pakbill2003@yahoo.com. with the surface of the road? Copyright © 2019 You can read all past articles of Toko Buku at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
I can’t count the number of times I have climbed on a roof to find out why water is coming in to find a valley gutter between two roofs which is lower in the middle than at the end where the water is supposed to run out. Gutters come in a round semi circular section and square box gutters. Two sizes are available in both the round and square section and the size you chose is dependent on the roof area that will flow into it. Don’t underestimate how many cats and dogs will fall out of the sky in a particularly fertile wet season. You should also make sure the downpipe can take a full sized cat. A technical point. Round gutters and round pipes such as sewers are known as “self cleaning”. It works like this - as the amount of water flowing decreases it falls to a lower level and is concentrated in a smaller width in the pipe, the cross section of flow reduces so the speed of flow down the pipe or gutter is maintained thereby helping to wash things away. In a flat bottomed gutter this is not the case. As the amount of water flowing falls it still has to fill the same width of gutter so the speed of flow drops and anything being washed down falls to the bottom and is left. The Victorians understood this principle well when building sewerage systems in Britain. Having said this I would always recommend the square box section gutter for use in Bali. Why? Because you can get good brackets for them. The brackets for box section gutters are good solid plastic that hold the gutter firmly in place and can take a reasonable load. The brackets for round gutters, on the other hand, are flimsy sheet steel. They rust immediately so they quickly look a mess. Worse they bend very easily so one dose of cats and dogs and your gutters sag in the middle and the water doesn’t drain away properly. You may be interested to know that round gutters are being heavily promoted by the “Denpasar Save The Mosquito Society”. You also need enough brackets. The Indonesian habit of “saving a bit of money for my poor old mum” means that local contractors will agree to put up a gutter but leave out most of the brackets only putting enough brackets up to hold the thing in dry weather. Cats and dogs, and water for
The Acne Guide To Removing Cats and Dogs From Your Roof It’s been a bit wet. that matter, are very heavy. You must insist that brackets are placed as close as 60 cms apart (ok, ok, two feet to In fact it has been so wet that the ducks have all had new seals fitted to their nether regions. A leaky duck is a very you imperialists, why don’t you get a life, a metric one that unhappy duck you know. is, join the real world....... I do like the inch though. It is such well proportioned thing isn’t it. Even it’s name has a My next door neighbour has started behaving quite odd. rather nice ring to it. I don’t really like centimetres very He has suddenly started collecting animals. Two horses, two cows, two dogs, two cats - strange really they are all much, in fact I hate the horrible little things but we must in pairs. It has been a bit of a bother though, their amorous move on. I stopped using a bone to bang in a nail a long behaviour is keeping me awake all night. He got two time ago.) rabbits a couple of weeks ago and now he has 3,726 of them hopping around all over the place. You must plan the slope of a gutter along with the An enterprising bloke down our street has a new sign up placement of downpipes. A slope of 1% to 2% is fine (as outside his shop: long as you have enough brackets to keep it firmly in “Arks made to order, new models always in stock” place) and again enough downpipes to suit the area of It is, of course, LRT (leaky roof time) again in South East roof being drained. Asia and the time when you remember that last year you promised you would repair that leak in the roof “when the You might consider doing the island a favour by not putting dry weather comes”. The dry weather has come…and your rainwater into the drains but instead returning it to gone and the roof is still leaking. the water table either through a soak pit or an old well. It There are a lot of leaky roofs at the moment. is clean, fresh, sterile water after all. Believe it or not if development continues at it’s present pace Bali will have I was talking to an insurance salesman last wet season. a water shortage in the not too distant future. He had his head in his hands. “Merry Christmas” I said. “Get stuffed” he said. A final word of advice, paint your plastic gutters, brackets A week later I saw him again. and downpipes. Ultra violet light from the sun damages “Happy New Year” I said. the plastic. You may see that old pipes can become faded “Where can I buy razor blades?” he said “my gas oven has run out of gas.” and the plastic brittle when exposed continually to “You can’t bake a cake with a razor blade” I responded. sunlight. The grey plastic has a pigment in it to protect it “Get stuffed” he said. from UV but the sun is intense here and you will extend the life of the plastic if you paint it. For some who have lived in Bali for a while a leaky roof is just part of the wonderful texture that makes life in Bali what it is. Now where did I put that evil spirit? For others, however, leaking roofs drive them mad and Phil Wilson drips anonymous is picking up new members again. You may hear them from time to time mumbling the drips anonymous prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the drips I cannot fix, the strength to fix the drips I can and the wisdom to know where to put the bucket.” Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions Why do so many roofs leak? expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or Well there are a number of reasons: 08123 847 852. 1. Most houses have roof tiles that are handmade and so Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
vary slightly and don’t lock together quite as well as they should. 2. When installing roof tiles the spacing of the lathes that support the tiles is often not as accurate is it should be and as a result some designs of roof tiles won’t seat properly. 3. Standard practice on houses in Bali does not include the use of sarking or underfelt as a waterproof membrane under the tiles. 4. Standard practice is for ridges to be heavily concreted into place, only small amounts of movement in the house will crack the concrete. 5. Poor waterproofing of end walls where the roof meets the wall. 6. Insufficient slope on roofs which results in wind driving rain up the tiles and into the roof. 7. A bizarre lack of understanding of the mysterious ways of water. 8. Unfortunately many tukangs don’t understand about roofs. Last week I went to see a man with water pouring into a bedroom. When we came to inspect the roof it was surprisingly well made and one of the few roofs in a “standard” house I have seen with a full membrane installed under the roof tiles. Unfortunately small leaks where the end walls meet the roof had been “repaired” by people who, instead of repairing the roof properly from the outside, tore out parts of the membrane from inside and in fact made the problem much, much worse. For information about flat concrete roofs go to https://www. mrfixitbali.com/roofs-and-gutters/flat-concrete-roofs-235. html Be careful who you let onto your roof. Waterproofing is a bit of an artform really. It is surprising how only a very small crack in concrete combined with that insidious capillary action can produce a significant drip underneath and a substantial loss of demeanour for a house dweller. The results of a leaking roof can be devastating and Bangli has a special wing to care for leaking roof victims. Leaking roofs can also damage your house and contents.
How to avoid your roof leaking
Leaking Roofs
honest people who are building their dream home only to find that the builder has scarpered, the money has run out and there is a distinct dearth of windows If you are building a new house put a waterproof membrane under the roof tiles and make sure the roof is and doors, electrical wiring is nowhere to be seen and properly installed.
roof should be. If you have a leaking roof make a note of where the drips are. If they are next to a wall or in the ridge then you may Enquiries follow only to reveal that the 8 teams of workers have to wait for dry weather before they can be properly that came and went over the 14 months the project dragged on for left because they hadn’t been paid. Sadly sealed. If leaks are in the centre of the roof moving tiles pleonexia is alive and well in the construction industry and around may be sufficient BUT be very careful who gets contractors know that the average owner builder, Mr and onto your roof. Mrs Nicefriendlypeople, are easy prey for their games. Lambs to the slaughter comes to mind. Many roof tiles in Bali are very fragile because the has clay been fired at low temperatures using wood (often Such cases are common in Bali and inevitably the “builder” has been paid more than the work he has completed. He less than 800 degrees). To get effective fusion of silica will have worked out that by running off now he will end up ideally you need to get up over 1,000 degrees. As a result with more profit than if he finishes the project and he will tiles break easily and someone climbing around on your avoid the most difficult period when he is doing the roof can do a lot more damage than you can imagine. finishing work and trying to get final payment. I recently met a very poor Indonesian family who had Sometimes he may add insult to injury by demanding even more money, his argument being that the money paid is less than the amount of work completed. saved hard and recently had their roof upgraded replacing bamboo beams with timber. The upgrade was a nightmare with badly placed and broken tiles everywhere. As a result When a contractor walks away from a half finished job it the house was flooded and one room remains unusable. leaves all sorts of problems. The project is likely to be They cannot afford to have the roof repaired. A tragic story considerably delayed and it may be difficult to find a new but unfortunately all too common in a country lacking in contractor willing to take on the mess that someone else standards, training and understanding.has left. Unfortunately the sort of contractor who perhaps had planned all along to walk away from a half finished job may well be the sort of person that will have also cut If your roof is badly leaking it might be a good idea to corners in the work. simply start again. The tiles can be removed, a waterproof membrane installed and the existing tiles replaced. This is So how do we protect ourselves? a comprehensive waterproofing job, the tiles will not be damaged because they have not been walked on and the We use standardised systems that; if well set up, properly thought out and a rigidly applied; minimise the risks cost is not too high because the existing tiles can reused. involved and keeps contractors in check. These systems Any broken tiles can be replaced and the tiles can be use a Bill Of Quantities and a Schedule of Payments. painted to seal them. A good Project Manager can set up and manage these There are other options such as replacing your tiles with systems for you. “Colourbond” but we’ll talk about that another day. Bill Of Quantities Of course if it carries on raining at this rate the roof leaks A Bill of Quantities (or BoQ) is a detailed list of all the tasks will become somewhat irrelevant and an ark might that have to be completed to construct the project. Each become a sound investment. part of the work is fully described and costed so everyone knows exactly what is to be done and how much it will cost. Let us look at a typical Bill Of Quantities and see Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject what information and the level of detail you should indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions expect. On the website at www.mrfixitbali.com/images/ expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted sampleprogressreport.pdf you will see a sample report from a database designed for managing project progress and payments. through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or 08123 847 852. The Bill Of Quantities is broken down into headings for Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson each section of the work such as: You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
• Site clearing and project setup • Foundations • Structure • Floor slabs • Walls • Roof and ceilings • Windows and doors • Electrical Installation • Plumbing Installation • Ceramic wall and floor tiling • Painting • Drainage • Water Supply We also need to add on: • Architect’s Fees (10%?) • Structural Engineers Fees • Construction Tax (10%) • Legal costs (IMB, contract fee, etc) Under each of these headings will be a breakdown of the tasks within that heading with the estimated costs. The tasks should describe the work to be done, the type or level of quality of the materials to be used and a quantity such as cubic meters (excavation, fill or concrete), square meters (tiling, roofing and painting) or per item (washbasins, toilets, doorhandles, stress pills, etc.). The price for a single unit and the total price for the totals needed for the project is also given. The description also should, where relevant cross refer back to the drawings in order to tie the specifications stated on the drawings as part of this document. This provides legal protection. The costs are totalled up to give us the TOTAL cost of the project. Alright so we now have our Bill of Quantities and this should become a part of the legal documentation that becomes part of the building contract. The builder must sign up to agree to construct according to this document. You might want to add a penalty clause should he not complete the contract, if he refuses such a clause this might ring warning bells.
The Schedule of Payments
Now we come to the important part, we have to determine a schedule of payments. We start by saying we’ll give you so much to get started. This gives the contractor some cash to pay for some materials and start up costs. Next we have to work out how we will carry on paying as the project proceeds. We have to make sure the contractor has enough money to carry on working but also make sure that if he heads for the hills we are not out of pocket. This might sound difficult but remember there is a profit margin for the contractor in each part of the project and we can use the profit margin on the work he has already completed as the advance for the cost he will incur on the next part. This means that after each payment is made you and the contractor are square, you have the work completed and he has his profit so far. It is advisable to avoid paying large amounts. If you have only 3 or 4 payments for the whole project the amount paid
Are You Planning To Build? - Take Great Care A building permit has to be obtained before construction of and the amount of project completion will vary to a far any building in Indonesia begins. The building permit is greater degree than if you use smaller, more frequent also known as an IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan, it payments. specifies the approved initial design of the building but it Construction companies tend to use a more rigid also continues through the buildings life stating what the approach. They will set milestones and pay only when the building can be used for. Here we look at what the IMB is, milestone is achieved. For example they may only pay for how you apply for one, the documents you will need and the roof when every part of the roof is completed and has some notes about compliance with building regulations. been inspected and passed. The IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan Ok now the final stage is to manage the Payment Process. Before any payment is made the project is inspected and payment made according to the actual work done. You will IMB stands for Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan which literally need an engineer to go through the bill of quantities and means “permit to establish a building” commonly known check each line item to assess the percentage of as a “Building Permit”.It is an approval from the government completion. This is totalled up to give you the total financial to build a building. value of the construction that has been completed. If you look at the sample file you will see that there is a IMBs are important, very important. column second from the right with the percentage complete entered which is then calculated into a monetary Make no mistake, after the land certificate the IMB is value for the amount of work completed in the right hand probably the most important document regarding column. Armed with this information, some common properties in Indonesia. The building permit is not only a sense and a healthy dose of assertiveness, you can now permit to carry out the initial building but it also continues make sure you are not paying more than you should. through the building’s life as a registration document. The A good contractor will understand all this. He/she will give permit defines (through a pile of associated documents you a detailed Bill of Quantities and will respect your that are lodged with the application) the specification of desire to get progress inspections carried out before you the building that is or has been built and the purpose the release money. building can be used for. If you know you are not a very assertive person beware All buildings in Bali should have an IMB that the contractor may sense this and feel that he can exploit you. It might be best to find someone to represent you in dealing with making payments but make sure it is Unfortunately many don’t. someone you trust. The IMB is the responsibility of the owner of the building. Look out for tell tale signs of dodgy dealings. Don’t let If you are the owner then it will be your responsibility, if you emotions take over, be methodical and never assume the rent or lease a building it is your landlord’s responsibility. contractor is your best friend and is going to be benevolent to you. Keep an eye out for vagueness or lack of detail in Do not buy or lease a building that does not have an IMB the Bill of Quantities. Excuses should ring alarm bells. If or you may have problems. If you lease a building that has he cannot keep his workers this suggests there is a an IMB and wish to use it for a different purpose than is problem. If the staff walk off find out why and if they have stated on the IMB (say you want to use your building for not been paid you can bet your life the contractor will be keeping elephants or perhaps for night time activities dishonest with you. It is also well to remember that happy involving “social networking” when it is currently registered workers will do better work than unhappy workers. as a private house) then the IMB must be changed. If a Protection comes from having aclear definition of what is villa is to be rented out rather than used as a private to be done, what has been done and accurate costings for residence you also probably need to be careful. the two. Balinese people often do not bother getting an IMB but take note - they can get away with it. Don’t assume that Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject you will be able to. Once a government official smells a indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions walking ATM with a foreign passport you will (or will not) be expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted surprised just how quickly compliance with the law can be through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or officially urged. This may happen even more quickly 08123 847 852. should your neighbour not like elephants or does not appreciate the more subtle aspects of “social networking”. Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode How to get an IMB or Building Permit at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
Obtaining an IMB is really a part of the town planning process. Permits are issued by the Dinas Tata Ruang Kota dan Pemukiman which means the Department of Town Planning and Settlements. With the IMB certificate comes a metal plate rather like a car number plate to be mounted at the front of the building.
Documents you will need
To get an IMB it is necessary to submit a pile of documents that will include the following: • A land certificate including the relevant survey plan. • An ijing Kavling (permit to subdivide) if one is needed. • Correct land zoning for the building that is planned. • Drawings of the buildings that comply with local building regulations. • Structural and services drawings to make sure that the buildings have been properly designed and specified. • Signed permission from all owners of directly neigbouring properties. A common pitfall for unwary property buyers in Bali is the fact that, while there are many professional developers that do the right thing, there are quite a number that start building before they have obtained an IMB. This is illegal. I recently came upon what is, sadly, an all too common occurrence, a very expensive villa nearing completion which we were able to determine had no IMB. I suggest that if someone is going to spend perhaps a million dollars building a villa it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that a building permit is obtained beforehand. In fact it is hard to understand why developers or builders so often proceed without an IMB. If they comply with the regulations and obtain the permit at the start they will avoid problems and increased expense later on.
Keep everything legal
Many assume that financial lubrication will achieve anything but bear in mind three things: 1. The further the building process progresses, the larger the dose of lubricant that will be required. 2. The fact that someone (perhaps your developer) does not wish to seek an IMB before starting the building process is a sign to you, it immediately suggests a lack of integrity and further that something is probably not right – perhaps the design is not acceptable or there is not a full set of drawings.. 3. Times are changing, government is being cleaned up and lubricant is becoming a dirty concept, it may be that an IMB is obtained now but, beware, if the building doesn’t comply you could well have a problem later on.
Building Permits The deserted streets, empty hotels and closed businesses have become a familiar sight in Bali and other places around the world that rely heavily on tourism for survival. It appears that many IMB applications in Bali are Initially there was disbelief, then for a short time, hope that “arranged” and “eased” through the system. This is not a the pandemic would be short-lived. But soon reality set in good idea because the staff in government departments and many despaired that this situation could go on forever. have a tendency to move on and a holder of an arranged But now there is real hope that the nightmare is coming to IMB may suddenly find new staff have arrived and start to end. For sure it is; it is just a matter of how soon. What has check the records. changed is the rapid production of highly successful vaccines in sufficient numbers in countries like the US and the Remember that the drawings and specifications of your UK to meet their entire populations. This means that more building submitted for the IMB remain on file and at any supplies can now be directed to countries like Indonesia time in the future they may be pulled out and compared to which have lagged the more advanced nations. the building. This is what has been happening in and around Singaraja in recent months where local authorities have been carrying out checks to make sure that houses have IMBs, that the building usage matches the IMB and also that the building taxes have been paid. Do not doubt the government’s resolve, a bad outcome can lead to demolition and several expatriates in that area have been warned, if they cannot resolve their issues they may well find themselves in trouble.
Compliance with building regulations
Indonesia has been slow to start a vaccination programme Compliance with building regulations is checked in the but it is now well underway and accelerating. Given the IMB process. For example it is policy that buildings should challenge of geography and the spread of the population it be no higher than the palm trees. How high is a palm tree, will still take a while before sufficient people have been well, for implementation purposes, it is defined as five vaccinated to eradicate the disease but the journey has be- floors or 15 metres. There is, of course, one famous gun. exception to this rule – the Grand Bali Beach Hotel which was built by the government in the 1960s before the “palm This means that everyone should be making their plans on tree” rule was established. how best to emerge from the pandemic and readjust to a world that is getting back to normal. Building design must have elements of Balinese
design We can all learn from the experience
The design of buildings is also checked in the IMB The pandemic has impacted people in many different ways. process. It is stated government policy enshrined in Some big companies have actually profited from the pan- legislation that buildings are to have elements of traditional demic, in particular those that have provided essential ser- Balinese design in them. vices to populations in lockdowns and working from home. Examples would be home delivery services like Amazon, Internet providers like Google, entertainment services like Netflix, communication services like Apple, Samsung etc. Those who had the foresight to invest in the shares of any of these companies or funds that invest in them would have seen their values increase exponentially. Although millions of people have lost their jobs throughout the world many more have been able to hold on to theirs, even if it has meant forced working from home. Without the ability to shop freely, go out to restaurants or take holidays they have been able to save a considerable amount of money. In fact, personal savings during the pandemic have amounted globally to the tune of billions of dollars.
Planning a Financial Recovery From Covid-19 This may be actually good news to an extent for those who small fortunes for those who invested in them at the right lost their jobs and whose businesses have suffered since time. They may well continue to prosper and I would recthere is a huge amount of pent-up demand for goods, ser- ommend them to a long term investor, but for someone vices and holiday travel to be satisfied. It may be hard to starting from scratch the risks of short term losses are too envisage right now, but this could translate into a renewed high. Best to build up cash reserves in boring bank acboom for Bali and other popular destinations in the next counts before taking on risk. Once adequate reserves are
One of the more solitary small pleasures I enjoy couple of years. in place you can turn to investing again.
with the Weekend FT in a café serving half decent It’s not too soon to plan for the recovery! Another danger is that of investments offering ‘guaranteed’ coffee. Apart from the cringingly ghastly “How to returns of 10% per annum or more. These are often in the
Spend it”, the magazine supplement written by FT As a prelude to the planning it would be well worth reviewing form of bonds or structured notes backed by building projhacks with leaden wit and obvious contempt for their any mistakes of the past relating to either one’s work, pro- ects. The danger of them failing and your losing your capireaders - by definition themselves possessing no fession or business. We would never learn if we didn’t make tal are too high. Worse still are the many scams you will find style of their own and in need of being told “where to mistakes so it would be helpful to identify these before fac- on the Internet. Beware of cold calls. They are now illegal get it”, the rest of the newspaper provides some first ing a pandemic-free world. Typical mistakes that might have in many countries but they are impossible to control due to rate long form and investigative journalism covering made include: the ease today of making international calls. Literally thoulife in general , beyond the financial. Since the FT • Keeping inadequate cash reserves sands of people in the UK have lost their savings or pencontent is behind a pay wall and I have no interest in • Not having longer term financial investments that can be sions before and during this pandemic through succumbing the weekday newspaper itself, it’s not worth my liquidated in an emergency if cash runs out to such calls. Many were fortunate in that they could claim stumping up for a subscription. Fortunately for me the • Investing in assets that are difficult to liquidate in a hurry compensation from an industry-sponsored lifeboat scheme weekend print edition is usually on sale at Periplus or during an economic crisis (eg property other than one’s but no such protection exists for expatriates overseas. bookshops around Bali. personal residence) • Borrowing too heavily So where can you invest in complete safety?
On one occasion, seated at a table on the deck • Choosing the wrong location for a businessof the Starbucks in Renon Plaza, engrossed in • Putting all or most eggs into one basket The answer is that no investment is 100% safe. And that a good read trying to control the flyaway pages • Not developing alternative skills includes keeping money under the mattress! Banks are ob-of my newspaper I was enveloped in a cloud of • Being personally under-insured (a pandemic is not a viously very safe but even they can fail, although you will smoke. I was partly aware that a dapper good time to have a personal emergency) normally have government protection schemes up to a
Indonesian man in his early thirties had arrived limit. But a bank deposit can hardly be called an investment and sat down at an adjoining table, put down Identifying previous mistakes will help in developing future as the effective interest rate is zero in USD or other major his coffee, opened his lap top, and positioned plans. currencies. One of the accepted ‘safest’ havens is the US his handphone together with some other Treasury bond. That’s why even sovereign countries invest device alongside. Preparing to be irked and ready to rustle the pages of my broadsheet ostentatiously enough to attract attention for a warm-up death glare, I realised that the smoke didn’t actually reek of tobacco, as I had automatically assumed it would. Points for consideration moving forward Everyone will be faced with personal challenges in finding new work, restarting a closed business or starting a new one. A glance at the list in the previous paragraph should give a few hints on what to avoid. But no matter how hard trillions of dollars in them. How much interest would you get? Right now you would get close to 1.5% per annum on a 10-year bond. You would get your money back at the end, guaranteed by the US government but there is no guarantee as to its purchasing power in ten years!
As I was registering this, the man raised a you try it is impossible to avoid all risks and this must be ac- This is why we need to invest in the capital markets. There small expensive-looking rectangular black and cepted as part of the deal if you wish to remain independent. is short term risk to be sure, but history has shown they will silver object to his mouth and took a toke. Upon exhale an maintain and often enhance the real value of your investastonishingly copious cloud of vapour billowed forth, was Be wary of high return investments ment over the long term. taken by the wind toward and past myself, on to envelop other tables nearby, only dissipating on the far side of the If you have been unemployed but find a new job when the But right now many people are focused on the short term deck. Impressive in its way. What kind of a storm cloud, I pandemic ends then your priority may be to rebuild your sav- and how best to recover from a once-in-a-hundred-years’ wondered, would a party of half-a-dozen such tokers emit? ings. If these were heavily depleted you may be tempted to pandemic event. It may take time but we will have all
What about the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms be like? look for ways to replace them quickly. But great care must learned something from it.
Would they be able to see other? be taken not to be tempted by investments offering high returns. This includes legitimate ones such as daily traded
It wasn’t that I was completely unaware. I knew smoking shares, even the likes of Amazon or Apple that have made had evolved and that the tobacco barons had developed new ways to attract and addict a younger clientele in the delivery of nicotine, while extending their questionable Colin Bloodworth, Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment (UK), has spent over 20 years in Indonesia. He You can read all past articles of business ethics into other less lethal areas of business. In is based in Jakarta but visits Bali regularly in normal times! If you have Money Matters at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz fact, I had even read about just that very thing in a previous any questions on this article or related topics or would like to receive a Copyright © 2021 Colin Bloodworth issue of the FT, to the effect that the big tobacco majors free monthly newsletter on financial matters you can contact him at were now concentrating on e-cigarettes and vaping, sales colin.bloodworth@ppi-advisory.com of which now stood at some US$16 billion and expected to treble to over $40 billion in four years. The only clouds on that horizon being a growing international movement to regulate the sale of these products. In this instance, I just adjusted my chair so I had my back to the man and instead of resuming my reading, forgot about the vapours and fell into a reverie upon life and tobacco over past decades. One way or another, smoker or not, tobacco affected us all. Its aroma and its advertisement, an ever-present factor in our lives. The habit has been around a long time. King James 1st of England (1603-25) not only fulminated against the noxious weed but cut off the head of the man who brought it back from the Americas. It was the introduction of cigarettes, which really kicked tobacco industry into the big league, on a par with oil, coal and transportation. By the 1930s smoking cigarettes was the social norm. It was permitted and catered to almost everywhere. The whole world stank of it. We did, so did our clothes and our homes. We just didn’t realise it. In hindsight one has has to wonder how a non-smoker managed to get through life in such a tobacco-ridden environment. Think of the allure of a beautiful and elegant woman smoking a cigarette, a not uncommon and powerful image back then. As a redblooded non-smoking man how in reality, if your dreams came true, would you be able to make love to that woman? And don’t let’s be gender specific here – it works everywhich way. By 1950 the British Medical Association( BMA)sounded the death knell for tobacco’s glory days, announcing conclusive evidence to show that cigarettes caused lung cancer. To prove the point King George VI of England died of lung cancer in 1952 at the age of 56. Not long after his daughter made a point of revoking the Royal Seal of Approval carried by Benson & Hedges and other British brands. She had good cause to believe the BMA. Nonetheless there followed a vicious 50-year campaign of huge mendacity waged by Big Tobacco to deny the reality, that cigrette smoking was the second greatest killer in the world after road accidents.
came ready-packaged in a mystical doctrine that was In the days when I smoked it was only two or three widely welcomed across Java. Though widespread cigarettes day, unless I was drinking. Then I chain-smoked. conversion from the Hindu-Buddhist faith to Islam was When they banned smoking inflight by the early 1980s I complete by the 1600s, the old belief systems did not disappear. Buddhism and Hinduism had a presence on Java for 1000 years and their influence still survived in was happy. I could stop smoking for years at a time. Trouble was - easy to quit, easy to start. I never liked many rites, symbols, customs and traditions such as smoking in and around food so lighting-up after a meal was the wayang theater forms and architectural features like no big loss in restaurants. In fact I reserve a special place the split gate that reflect Java’s ancient past. in hell for the affected swine who light a cigar when other people are eating. The more expensive the cigar, the more it stank. Since my late 40s I’ve smoked very little and not at all in the past decade. Whatever the case, the whole paraphenalia in and around smoking affected us. When I first started smoking I went up-market, Benson & Hedges in their red and gold tin, Balkan Sobranie Black Russian or enticingly foreign like Gauloises and Gitanes. Then settling down to Senior Service or Players and a spell rolling my own in 60s. By the mid 70’s I had pretty much settled down to Benson & Hedges gold or Marlboro Light, which was when I finally graduated to tipped cigarettes. Like publishing, the British and American tobacco barons exercised dual dominion over the world when it came to international brands, so I never really got into American cigarettes, but somewhat familiar with the ‘jetplane’ brands of the 50s and 60s (Rothmans, Stuyvesant, Pall Mall, etc.), until the advent of Marlboro Man that is. One phase I observed with interest and faint contempt was the early 70s fashion branding of cigarettes in huge packs by Cartier, Dunhill, Davidoff and the like, inevitably accompanied by a gold or silver bric lighter from Dupont or other purveyor of cadet luxe. For most of us I suspect, looking back at the golden age of tobacco, now that the stench is gone, is a pleasant exercise in nostalgia. We grew up and matured alongside it all - the Researchers who today struggle to trace the dynamics of packaging, the accoutrements, the advertisements, the religious change in modern Java are unanimous in one thing: sponsorships – all designed to entice. syncretic Javanized Islam has been on the run, pushed hard by conservative, orthodox forces since the 1980s. Javanese have now largely abandoned their pre Muslim beliefs that were intermixed with animist, Hindu and Buddhist leanings By the time I looked up the man with the laptop and his vape had gone. You know what? E-cigarettes etc. kill only and avalanched over to observant conservatism. This a handfull of people a year, so on the scale of lethality I imported hard-edged guise of pious Islam is hostile to the reckon folks can be left in peace to take a small toke of veneration of any image or object that might tempt believers nicotine in the great outdoors, without the heavy hand of away from the single-minded worship of the one God, Allah. the law being invoked. That said, I do wonder a bit about the involuntary sharing airborne particles lung to lung.Bandit Saints of Java is a challenge to that perception which can only hold water if one assumes that Java’s unique religious heritage and Indonesia‘s pre-national history have died out or are irrelevant in the present. This unusual work of nonfiction dives deep under the surface of modern Indonesia, exploring personalities, legends and lore in the ParacelsusAsia wacky, teeming world of local pilgrimages that is largely Comments or queries ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com invisible to journalists, scholars and tourists. The book convincingly illuminates how a brash, new, energetic religion Copyright © 2019 ParacelsusAsia changed but not wholly supplanted the old Buddhist/Hindu You can read all past articles of Alternative Voice at belief systems. www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
TOKO BUKU
Reviews of English language books on Indonesia Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn The religion of Java lives on in the venerable mausoleums of has published countless papers and articles reflecting his legendary saints and spirit guardians who represent local, decades-long travel and research in Java. traditionalist native faith with all its mysticism and magic and Have you noticed? The Balinese don’t like rain, they don’t obsession with holy places and the dead. For modern Quinn didn’t write this brilliant discussion of Java’s pilgrimage drink rainwater and they certainly don’t like it on their Indonesians, saint veneration and local pilgrimages are culture from the sterile confines of a university office under heads. It is something to do with picking up evil spirits on central to their Islamic identity and the practice of their religion that adopts a tolerant, understanding and humanistic towering bookcases but actually lived the experiences reported in his book. Only a man on the spot would be able it’s way from the sky. Which reminds me, I picked up an approach. The author argues that many Javanese are able to describe in such rich detail the packed, fetid atmosphere evil spirit the other day, it was supposed to be gin and tonic to stay strong in Islam while honoring their semi-divine of tombs and the details of architecture. Though not a Muslim but I suspect it was a particularly evil batch of Arak. “Arak ancestors who are known as the Nine Saints (Wali Songo). himself, he is as informed about the nuances of Javanese Islam as any practicing Indonesian ulama. Often Quinn was attack” is of course the name of a condition not a drink. The pilgrimage sites, which Quinn calls the new heathen the only tall, fair-skinned outsider granted as a matter of Arak does have it’s uses though - it is very good for landscape of Indonesia, are not your usual shrines but fusions courtesy a priority place in the inner sanctum. Key-keepers cleaning carburettors. of holy ground, the focus of memorable stories and objects of religious devotion. Hundreds of these places of worship, without exception made him feel welcome and were lavish in their responses to his innumerable and sometimes big and small, sprawl across Java as well as Indonesia’s outer provocative questions. His respect (dare I say reverence?) Have you also noticed, the Balinese don’t have gutters. Islands. Visiting them has become normal in modern Java for the old Sufi saints are equal in ardor to any devout The logic is, in fact, sound. Get the water off the roof and serve to assuage those who face an interminable wait - now averaging 17 years - to go on the haj to Mecca. The Javanese worshipper. straight onto the ground and organise for it to run away saint’s graves are havens of refuge and respite embedded The writer’s marvelous, tactile description of the venerable somewhere out of the way. This is also good because solidly in the practices of everyday life for scores of millions 15th C. Demak mosque 25 km east of Semarang, is a case much of it ends up back in the water table. of people. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism reported that 12.2 million people visited the tombs of the Nine Saints in in point. There are myriad, priceless scenes of devoted pilgrims - a milling hubbub of murmuring prayer and singing 2014. in crowded incense-filled chambers. The text is populated It is a bit of a pain though isn’t it. It starts peeing down, cats by strange supernatural characters like Gatholoco, the A few of the sites, like that of Sunan Bonang in Tuban, host “walking human penis;” a guardian of a holy mountain who and dogs turn into elephants and whales and as Mr up to a million visitors a year. In the final months of the became an icon of male vigor at 79; a Muslim saint who Murphy would predict you are just about to leave for work Ramadan fasting month, 20,000 pilgrims a day visit the tomb was gay and an atheist Sufi saint who took his dogs into with papers clutched under your arm. You wait with a of Sunan Ampel in Surabaya. The popularity of local the mosque. Others were outright tricksters like the wise pilgrimages has given rise to a highly profitable services sector pre-Islamic jester Semar.sheet of water running off the roof in front of you, it doesn’t called wisata ziarah (pilgrimage tourism) in which pilgrims slow so you make a dash for the car. Damn, where is the are whisked around by chartered bus to as many as 9 tombs All the esteemed personages are echoes of Java’s ancient key on the key ring? Then the key just won’t go into the in 6 days. Run on a shoestring, the tours are composed mostly tantric heritage that fused Hindu-Buddhist tantra and yoga of women who wear like-colored t-shirts, sleep in the bus, with Sufism. The majority of the saints were opponents of lock. You flop, wet through, on the car seat and you stare mosque or rest pavilions, eat takeaway food and shop for followers of austere Arab-style Islamic orthodoxy with their out through the windscreen as the rain eases off. The religious souvenirs. So relentlessly popular are the tours that pretentions of Middle Eastern dress, their faux-pious soggy papers clutched under you arm are starting to run most participants don’t even get close to the small, inner burial mannerisms and claim to religious piety and learning. chamber but have to sit in dense ranks on tiled patio floors ink onto your shirt. The worst bit was that initial drenching all around the vicinity. Bandit Saints of Java paints an astonishing portrait of Islam as you plunged through the sheet of water coming off the as it’s actually practiced today by many of Java’s 130 million roof. Most are off the beaten track and don’t appear on modern people. The author is a superb, witty and entertaining writer maps or make it into the pages of a Lonely Planet guidebook. who vividly records what he saw and felt close-up on the These landmarks inherited from the distance past are buried ground. Though some of the material is almost impossibly A gutter can be a good idea. under the new geography of cities, highways, ports, railroads, esoteric, the book’s most vital contribution in my mind is that factories, plantations, administrative boundaries and tourist it gives one faith that Indonesia’s lovely, animist native attractions. They roost at the top of staircases on steep kajawen beliefs will endure in the end under the onslaught You can get plastic gutters and downpipes here in Bali hillsides, lie in the darkness of caves, shelter in the tiny scraps of the harsh tenets of hardline Islamist Wahhabism imported with all the fittings (apart from good brackets but we’ll of forests still left on Java, crouch under the arbors of trees from Saudi Arabia. This erudite and well-researched study come to that). Prices are very reasonable and installation in quiet villages, hidden in the cluttered old quarters of the gives us the hope that Java will continue to hold dear its own island’s major cities or in district level towns like Blora, Tuban, soft, Sufi-inspired interpretation of Islam.is not difficult but does need to be planned. Kediri, Demak, Tegal, Karawang, Sumedang, Banten, Kudus, Magelang, Jombang, Mojoagung and Gresik. Often the Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn, Monsoon Books Be careful because most Indonesian people know very temples lie besides or opposite the high-rise domes, shiny 2018, ISBN 978-191-204-9448, paperback, 448 pages, halls and Middle Eastern-style minarets of flamboyant modern dimensions 20 cm x 13 cm. little about gutters. Unfortunately the fact that water does mosques whose straight-laced parishioners view the local not flow uphill has never been pointed out to Indonesians. pilgrimage sites as nests of idolatry and backwardness. Have you noticed how much time and effort goes into George Quinn is a one-of-a-kind scholar of Indonesian building those drainage channels along the sides of the studies. Possessing a native speaker level command of Review by Bill Dalton roads, and have you also noticed how the bottoms of the Indonesian and Javanese, this Australian specialist holds a For any publishers interested in having one of their books channels don’t always flow downhill, they go up and down BA from Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University and for many years headed the Southeast Center at the Australian considered for review in Toko Buku, please contact: pakbill2003@yahoo.com. with the surface of the road? National University. As an Indonesianist - or more precisely, Copyright © 2019a Javanist - of the first rank, he is adept at writing in a number You can read all past articles of of genres - fiction, literary criticism, lexiography, history. He Toko Buku at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
I can’t count the number of times I have climbed on a roof to find out why water is coming in to find a valley gutter between two roofs which is lower in the middle than at the end where the water is supposed to run out. Gutters come in a round semi circular section and square box gutters. Two sizes are available in both the round and square section and the size you chose is dependent on the roof area that will flow into it. Don’t underestimate how many cats and dogs will fall out of the sky in a particularly fertile wet season. You should also make sure the downpipe can take a full sized cat. A technical point. Round gutters and round pipes such as sewers are known as “self cleaning”. It works like this - as the amount of water flowing decreases it falls to a lower level and is concentrated in a smaller width in the pipe, the cross section of flow reduces so the speed of flow down the pipe or gutter is maintained thereby helping to wash things away. In a flat bottomed gutter this is not the case. As the amount of water flowing falls it still has to fill the same width of gutter so the speed of flow drops and anything being washed down falls to the bottom and is left. The Victorians understood this principle well when building sewerage systems in Britain. Having said this I would always recommend the square box section gutter for use in Bali. Why? Because you can get good brackets for them. The brackets for box section gutters are good solid plastic that hold the gutter firmly in place and can take a reasonable load. The brackets for round gutters, on the other hand, are flimsy sheet steel. They rust immediately so they quickly look a mess. Worse they bend very easily so one dose of cats and dogs and your gutters sag in the middle and the water doesn’t drain away properly. You may be interested to know that round gutters are being heavily promoted by the “Denpasar Save The Mosquito Society”. You also need enough brackets. The Indonesian habit of “saving a bit of money for my poor old mum” means that local contractors will agree to put up a gutter but leave out most of the brackets only putting enough brackets up to hold the thing in dry weather. Cats and dogs, and water for
The Acne Guide To Removing Cats and Dogs From Your Roof It’s been a bit wet. that matter, are very heavy. You must insist that brackets are placed as close as 60 cms apart (ok, ok, two feet to In fact it has been so wet that the ducks have all had new seals fitted to their nether regions. A leaky duck is a very you imperialists, why don’t you get a life, a metric one that unhappy duck you know. is, join the real world....... I do like the inch though. It is such well proportioned thing isn’t it. Even it’s name has a My next door neighbour has started behaving quite odd. rather nice ring to it. I don’t really like centimetres very He has suddenly started collecting animals. Two horses, two cows, two dogs, two cats - strange really they are all much, in fact I hate the horrible little things but we must in pairs. It has been a bit of a bother though, their amorous move on. I stopped using a bone to bang in a nail a long behaviour is keeping me awake all night. He got two time ago.) rabbits a couple of weeks ago and now he has 3,726 of them hopping around all over the place. You must plan the slope of a gutter along with the An enterprising bloke down our street has a new sign up placement of downpipes. A slope of 1% to 2% is fine (as outside his shop: long as you have enough brackets to keep it firmly in “Arks made to order, new models always in stock” place) and again enough downpipes to suit the area of It is, of course, LRT (leaky roof time) again in South East roof being drained. Asia and the time when you remember that last year you promised you would repair that leak in the roof “when the You might consider doing the island a favour by not putting dry weather comes”. The dry weather has come…and your rainwater into the drains but instead returning it to gone and the roof is still leaking. the water table either through a soak pit or an old well. It There are a lot of leaky roofs at the moment. is clean, fresh, sterile water after all. Believe it or not if development continues at it’s present pace Bali will have I was talking to an insurance salesman last wet season. a water shortage in the not too distant future. He had his head in his hands. “Merry Christmas” I said. “Get stuffed” he said. A final word of advice, paint your plastic gutters, brackets A week later I saw him again. and downpipes. Ultra violet light from the sun damages “Happy New Year” I said. the plastic. You may see that old pipes can become faded “Where can I buy razor blades?” he said “my gas oven has run out of gas.” and the plastic brittle when exposed continually to “You can’t bake a cake with a razor blade” I responded. sunlight. The grey plastic has a pigment in it to protect it “Get stuffed” he said. from UV but the sun is intense here and you will extend the life of the plastic if you paint it. For some who have lived in Bali for a while a leaky roof is just part of the wonderful texture that makes life in Bali what it is. Now where did I put that evil spirit? For others, however, leaking roofs drive them mad and Phil Wilson drips anonymous is picking up new members again. You may hear them from time to time mumbling the drips anonymous prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the drips I cannot fix, the strength to fix the drips I can and the wisdom to know where to put the bucket.” Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions Why do so many roofs leak? expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or Well there are a number of reasons: 08123 847 852. 1. Most houses have roof tiles that are handmade and so Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
vary slightly and don’t lock together quite as well as they should. 2. When installing roof tiles the spacing of the lathes that support the tiles is often not as accurate is it should be and as a result some designs of roof tiles won’t seat properly. 3. Standard practice on houses in Bali does not include the use of sarking or underfelt as a waterproof membrane under the tiles. 4. Standard practice is for ridges to be heavily concreted into place, only small amounts of movement in the house will crack the concrete. 5. Poor waterproofing of end walls where the roof meets the wall. 6. Insufficient slope on roofs which results in wind driving rain up the tiles and into the roof. 7. A bizarre lack of understanding of the mysterious ways of water. 8. Unfortunately many tukangs don’t understand about roofs. Last week I went to see a man with water pouring into a bedroom. When we came to inspect the roof it was surprisingly well made and one of the few roofs in a “standard” house I have seen with a full membrane installed under the roof tiles. Unfortunately small leaks where the end walls meet the roof had been “repaired” by people who, instead of repairing the roof properly from the outside, tore out parts of the membrane from inside and in fact made the problem much, much worse. For information about flat concrete roofs go to https://www. mrfixitbali.com/roofs-and-gutters/flat-concrete-roofs-235. html Be careful who you let onto your roof. Waterproofing is a bit of an artform really. It is surprising how only a very small crack in concrete combined with that insidious capillary action can produce a significant drip underneath and a substantial loss of demeanour for a house dweller. The results of a leaking roof can be devastating and Bangli has a special wing to care for leaking roof victims. Leaking roofs can also damage your house and contents.
How to avoid your roof leaking
Leaking Roofs
honest people who are building their dream home only to find that the builder has scarpered, the money has run out and there is a distinct dearth of windows If you are building a new house put a waterproof membrane under the roof tiles and make sure the roof is and doors, electrical wiring is nowhere to be seen and properly installed.
roof should be. If you have a leaking roof make a note of where the drips are. If they are next to a wall or in the ridge then you may Enquiries follow only to reveal that the 8 teams of workers have to wait for dry weather before they can be properly that came and went over the 14 months the project dragged on for left because they hadn’t been paid. Sadly sealed. If leaks are in the centre of the roof moving tiles pleonexia is alive and well in the construction industry and around may be sufficient BUT be very careful who gets contractors know that the average owner builder, Mr and onto your roof. Mrs Nicefriendlypeople, are easy prey for their games. Lambs to the slaughter comes to mind. Many roof tiles in Bali are very fragile because the has clay been fired at low temperatures using wood (often Such cases are common in Bali and inevitably the “builder” has been paid more than the work he has completed. He less than 800 degrees). To get effective fusion of silica will have worked out that by running off now he will end up ideally you need to get up over 1,000 degrees. As a result with more profit than if he finishes the project and he will tiles break easily and someone climbing around on your avoid the most difficult period when he is doing the roof can do a lot more damage than you can imagine. finishing work and trying to get final payment. I recently met a very poor Indonesian family who had Sometimes he may add insult to injury by demanding even more money, his argument being that the money paid is less than the amount of work completed. saved hard and recently had their roof upgraded replacing bamboo beams with timber. The upgrade was a nightmare with badly placed and broken tiles everywhere. As a result When a contractor walks away from a half finished job it the house was flooded and one room remains unusable. leaves all sorts of problems. The project is likely to be They cannot afford to have the roof repaired. A tragic story considerably delayed and it may be difficult to find a new but unfortunately all too common in a country lacking in contractor willing to take on the mess that someone else standards, training and understanding.has left. Unfortunately the sort of contractor who perhaps had planned all along to walk away from a half finished job may well be the sort of person that will have also cut If your roof is badly leaking it might be a good idea to corners in the work. simply start again. The tiles can be removed, a waterproof membrane installed and the existing tiles replaced. This is So how do we protect ourselves? a comprehensive waterproofing job, the tiles will not be damaged because they have not been walked on and the We use standardised systems that; if well set up, properly thought out and a rigidly applied; minimise the risks cost is not too high because the existing tiles can reused. involved and keeps contractors in check. These systems Any broken tiles can be replaced and the tiles can be use a Bill Of Quantities and a Schedule of Payments. painted to seal them. A good Project Manager can set up and manage these There are other options such as replacing your tiles with systems for you. “Colourbond” but we’ll talk about that another day. Bill Of Quantities Of course if it carries on raining at this rate the roof leaks A Bill of Quantities (or BoQ) is a detailed list of all the tasks will become somewhat irrelevant and an ark might that have to be completed to construct the project. Each become a sound investment. part of the work is fully described and costed so everyone knows exactly what is to be done and how much it will cost. Let us look at a typical Bill Of Quantities and see Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject what information and the level of detail you should indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions expect. On the website at www.mrfixitbali.com/images/ expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted sampleprogressreport.pdf you will see a sample report from a database designed for managing project progress and payments. through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or 08123 847 852. The Bill Of Quantities is broken down into headings for Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson each section of the work such as: You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
• Site clearing and project setup • Foundations • Structure • Floor slabs • Walls • Roof and ceilings • Windows and doors • Electrical Installation • Plumbing Installation • Ceramic wall and floor tiling • Painting • Drainage • Water Supply We also need to add on: • Architect’s Fees (10%?) • Structural Engineers Fees • Construction Tax (10%) • Legal costs (IMB, contract fee, etc) Under each of these headings will be a breakdown of the tasks within that heading with the estimated costs. The tasks should describe the work to be done, the type or level of quality of the materials to be used and a quantity such as cubic meters (excavation, fill or concrete), square meters (tiling, roofing and painting) or per item (washbasins, toilets, doorhandles, stress pills, etc.). The price for a single unit and the total price for the totals needed for the project is also given. The description also should, where relevant cross refer back to the drawings in order to tie the specifications stated on the drawings as part of this document. This provides legal protection. The costs are totalled up to give us the TOTAL cost of the project. Alright so we now have our Bill of Quantities and this should become a part of the legal documentation that becomes part of the building contract. The builder must sign up to agree to construct according to this document. You might want to add a penalty clause should he not complete the contract, if he refuses such a clause this might ring warning bells.
The Schedule of Payments
Now we come to the important part, we have to determine a schedule of payments. We start by saying we’ll give you so much to get started. This gives the contractor some cash to pay for some materials and start up costs. Next we have to work out how we will carry on paying as the project proceeds. We have to make sure the contractor has enough money to carry on working but also make sure that if he heads for the hills we are not out of pocket. This might sound difficult but remember there is a profit margin for the contractor in each part of the project and we can use the profit margin on the work he has already completed as the advance for the cost he will incur on the next part. This means that after each payment is made you and the contractor are square, you have the work completed and he has his profit so far. It is advisable to avoid paying large amounts. If you have only 3 or 4 payments for the whole project the amount paid
Are You Planning To Build? - Take Great Care A building permit has to be obtained before construction of and the amount of project completion will vary to a far any building in Indonesia begins. The building permit is greater degree than if you use smaller, more frequent also known as an IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan, it payments. specifies the approved initial design of the building but it Construction companies tend to use a more rigid also continues through the buildings life stating what the approach. They will set milestones and pay only when the building can be used for. Here we look at what the IMB is, milestone is achieved. For example they may only pay for how you apply for one, the documents you will need and the roof when every part of the roof is completed and has some notes about compliance with building regulations. been inspected and passed. The IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan Ok now the final stage is to manage the Payment Process. Before any payment is made the project is inspected and payment made according to the actual work done. You will IMB stands for Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan which literally need an engineer to go through the bill of quantities and means “permit to establish a building” commonly known check each line item to assess the percentage of as a “Building Permit”.It is an approval from the government completion. This is totalled up to give you the total financial to build a building. value of the construction that has been completed. If you look at the sample file you will see that there is a IMBs are important, very important. column second from the right with the percentage complete entered which is then calculated into a monetary Make no mistake, after the land certificate the IMB is value for the amount of work completed in the right hand probably the most important document regarding column. Armed with this information, some common properties in Indonesia. The building permit is not only a sense and a healthy dose of assertiveness, you can now permit to carry out the initial building but it also continues make sure you are not paying more than you should. through the building’s life as a registration document. The A good contractor will understand all this. He/she will give permit defines (through a pile of associated documents you a detailed Bill of Quantities and will respect your that are lodged with the application) the specification of desire to get progress inspections carried out before you the building that is or has been built and the purpose the release money. building can be used for. If you know you are not a very assertive person beware All buildings in Bali should have an IMB that the contractor may sense this and feel that he can exploit you. It might be best to find someone to represent you in dealing with making payments but make sure it is Unfortunately many don’t. someone you trust. The IMB is the responsibility of the owner of the building. Look out for tell tale signs of dodgy dealings. Don’t let If you are the owner then it will be your responsibility, if you emotions take over, be methodical and never assume the rent or lease a building it is your landlord’s responsibility. contractor is your best friend and is going to be benevolent to you. Keep an eye out for vagueness or lack of detail in Do not buy or lease a building that does not have an IMB the Bill of Quantities. Excuses should ring alarm bells. If or you may have problems. If you lease a building that has he cannot keep his workers this suggests there is a an IMB and wish to use it for a different purpose than is problem. If the staff walk off find out why and if they have stated on the IMB (say you want to use your building for not been paid you can bet your life the contractor will be keeping elephants or perhaps for night time activities dishonest with you. It is also well to remember that happy involving “social networking” when it is currently registered workers will do better work than unhappy workers. as a private house) then the IMB must be changed. If a Protection comes from having aclear definition of what is villa is to be rented out rather than used as a private to be done, what has been done and accurate costings for residence you also probably need to be careful. the two. Balinese people often do not bother getting an IMB but take note - they can get away with it. Don’t assume that Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject you will be able to. Once a government official smells a indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions walking ATM with a foreign passport you will (or will not) be expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted surprised just how quickly compliance with the law can be through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or officially urged. This may happen even more quickly 08123 847 852. should your neighbour not like elephants or does not appreciate the more subtle aspects of “social networking”. Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode How to get an IMB or Building Permit at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
Obtaining an IMB is really a part of the town planning process. Permits are issued by the Dinas Tata Ruang Kota dan Pemukiman which means the Department of Town Planning and Settlements. With the IMB certificate comes a metal plate rather like a car number plate to be mounted at the front of the building.
Documents you will need
To get an IMB it is necessary to submit a pile of documents that will include the following: • A land certificate including the relevant survey plan. • An ijing Kavling (permit to subdivide) if one is needed. • Correct land zoning for the building that is planned. • Drawings of the buildings that comply with local building regulations. • Structural and services drawings to make sure that the buildings have been properly designed and specified. • Signed permission from all owners of directly neigbouring properties. A common pitfall for unwary property buyers in Bali is the fact that, while there are many professional developers that do the right thing, there are quite a number that start building before they have obtained an IMB. This is illegal. I recently came upon what is, sadly, an all too common occurrence, a very expensive villa nearing completion which we were able to determine had no IMB. I suggest that if someone is going to spend perhaps a million dollars building a villa it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that a building permit is obtained beforehand. In fact it is hard to understand why developers or builders so often proceed without an IMB. If they comply with the regulations and obtain the permit at the start they will avoid problems and increased expense later on.
Keep everything legal
Many assume that financial lubrication will achieve anything but bear in mind three things: 1. The further the building process progresses, the larger the dose of lubricant that will be required. 2. The fact that someone (perhaps your developer) does not wish to seek an IMB before starting the building process is a sign to you, it immediately suggests a lack of integrity and further that something is probably not right – perhaps the design is not acceptable or there is not a full set of drawings.. 3. Times are changing, government is being cleaned up and lubricant is becoming a dirty concept, it may be that an IMB is obtained now but, beware, if the building doesn’t comply you could well have a problem later on.
Building Permits It appears that many IMB applications in Bali are “arranged” and “eased” through the system. This is not a good idea because the staff in government departments have a tendency to move on and a holder of an arranged IMB may suddenly find new staff have arrived and start to check the records. Remember that the drawings and specifications of your building submitted for the IMB remain on file and at any time in the future they may be pulled out and compared to the building. This is what has been happening in and around Singaraja in recent months where local authorities have been carrying out checks to make sure that houses have IMBs, that the building usage matches the IMB and also that the building taxes have been paid. Do not doubt the government’s resolve, a bad outcome can lead to demolition and several expatriates in that area have been warned, if they cannot resolve their issues they may well find themselves in trouble.
Compliance with building regulations
Compliance with building regulations is checked in the IMB process. For example it is policy that buildings should be no higher than the palm trees. How high is a palm tree, well, for implementation purposes, it is defined as five floors or 15 metres. There is, of course, one famous exception to this rule – the Grand Bali Beach Hotel which was built by the government in the 1960s before the “palm tree” rule was established.
* Ride in style! out well-known shoe/boot companies like Sagara, Jalan Sriwijaya, Winson, Txture, Junkard and Santalum make luxury Since airfares are triple what they were a year ago, buses foot ware that are quite popular in Japan and the U.S. among are now an attractive option. More accurately described as shoes enthusiasts. *Indonesian boots are interesting due to “luxury coaches,” buses traveling west out of Bali have toilets, the construction, shapes and styles. The skill required to make comfortable reclining airline-style seats and include snacks a sturdy boot by hand takes at least five years to learn and and meals. Every passenger is given a blanket and pillow. the process of making a boot takes 2-3 days. *Indonesians consider the Caterpillar the ultimate high-quality boot. *The most popular Santalum boot is the Service boot, very similar to the Viberg service boot. *Bandung Collection shops, found in every sizeable city in Bali, sells high quality shoe ware at local prices.
* Multipurpose cleaning tool
The sapu lidi is a broom made from middle dried ribs/veins (lidi) of either coconut or areca palm fronds (sapu) tied together to form a hard broom. Different lengths and thicknesses of this traditional Indonesian and S.E. Asian “coconut” broom are used for specific purposes. You can take the spines from These coaches take the toll roads on Java, so fares have a larger broom apart and then tie them together again in gone up from, for example, Rp250,000 from Bali to C. Java desired sizes/thicknesses to serve a number of unique uses. before the toll roads to now around Rp300,000. High volume music videos play non-stop, so sit as far away from the monitors as possible if you don’t like noise. Passengers’ phones take turns charging from multiple power outlets on or near the driver. The bus stops about half-way at a buffet restaurant for meals, water, ice tea or hot tea. *The fanciest buses from Bali to Yogya (Rp350,000), Bandung and Jakarta are operated by Pahala Kencana. Cheaper buses to all around Java are run by Gunung Harta, Sedyamulya, Safari Darma Raya and Restu Mulya; approximate fare: DenpasarYogya Rp270,000, Denpasar-Malang Rp200,000, DenpasarSurabaya Rp180,000. *If you stand on Jl. Bypass west of Denpasar’s Ubung Terminal in a place where it’s easy for a bus to stop, you are often able to bargain the official fare down considerably. (However, if the bus is inspected by a company employee, they might make you hide in the toilet.) *Trains are also more competitive now, about the same cost as buses because bus fares have risen because of toll road surcharges.
* Shoe Sense
There was a time when Indonesian shoes were popular in Europe and S.E. Asia until the Vietnamese took over the Different types of sapu lidi are usually not interchangeable. If market. Only China, India, Vietnam and Brazil are bigger a certain sapu lidi is used to sweep the floor, it’s not used for footwear exporters than Indonesia, although Indonesia the bed and vice versa. Younger, more flexible ones are used accounts for only 4.4% (US$4.85 billion in 2015) of global to clean mattresses, carpets, foam, kapok-stuffed pillows and market share. *Dutch colonizers brought with them a love of to craft dinner plates (ingke in Balinese); older bound spines durable leather footwear that resulted in an Asian boot are used more for outside cleaning; younger ones are used industry to swat and brush your bed (tebah kasur in Indonesian; ngibas centered in the in Balinese) to remove dust and other debris to the floor. A West Java sapu lidi can also be used as an insect swatter, for example capital of to chase away mosquitoes before lowering the kelambu Bandung. *For mosquito net. Smaller, thinly bound ones can reach into strong, tailor- corners and under furniture. Short stubby strong ones are m a d e , used for cleaning clogged grimy drains and gutters. Long Goodyear- flexible ones are used for sweeping dirt or paved yards, welted boots terraces, walkways and parking areas – a morning ritual that (without paying takes place across the whole archipelago. Attached to a long European pole, a coconut broom is also used to clean ceilings of dust, prices), check spider webs, ant and hornet nests (as well as evil spirits). The
The Frugal Balinist 20
strength of the tightly bound sapu lidi is also a symbol of national unity.
* Unsung heroes
Wardah cosmetic products are cheaper but just as good (and One of the more solitary small pleasures I enjoy safe) as more expensive brands like Caring Colours by throughout the week is settling down to a good read Martha Tilaar. *Teh Botol Less Sugar is not as sweet and is with the Weekend FT in a café serving half decent more refreshing than Teh Botol sweetened tea, sold coffee. Apart from the cringingly ghastly “How to everywhere, which is no longer bottled in glass but in plastic Spend it”, the magazine supplement written by FT which imparts an unnatural flavour. Teh Kotak, on the other hacks with leaden wit and obvious contempt for their hand, is packaged in paper, thus has a more natural taste readers - by definition themselves possessing no and is also more eco-friendly. The Pucuk is yet another style of their own and in need of being told “where to more pleasant alternative. *Bango brand kecap manis (sweet get it”, the rest of the newspaper provides some first soy sauce) is preferred by many over the ABC brand.
rate long form and investigative journalism covering life in general , beyond the financial. Since the FT content is behind a pay wall and I have no interest in the weekday newspaper itself, it’s not worth my stumping up for a subscription. Fortunately for me the weekend print edition is usually on sale at Periplus bookshops around Bali.
On one occasion, seated at a table on the deck of the Starbucks in Renon Plaza, engrossed in a good read trying to control the flyaway pages of my newspaper I was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. I was partly aware that a dapper Indonesian man in his early thirties had arrived and sat down at an adjoining table, put down his coffee, opened his lap top, and positioned his handphone together with some other device alongside. Preparing to be irked and ready to rustle the pages of my broadsheet ostentatiously enough to attract attention for a warm-up death glare, I realised that the smoke didn’t actually reek of tobacco, as I had automatically assumed it would. As I was registering this, the man raised a small expensive-looking rectangular black and This less chemicalized sauce is used to cook many iconic silver object to his mouth and took a toke. Upon exhale an dishes like semur (Indonesian beef stew with potatoes and astonishingly copious cloud of vapour billowed forth, was tofu), nasi goreng (fried rice) and mie goreng (fried noodles). taken by the wind toward and past myself, on to envelop It also serves as an indispensable condiment for the classic other tables nearby, only dissipating on the far side of the rice dish telur orak arik (scrambled eggs). *High-quality Sedap deck. Impressive in its way. What kind of a storm cloud, I products are gaining in popularity among Indonesians wondered, would a party of half-a-dozen such tokers emit? because they are cheap and tasty. *Indonesian brands with What about the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms be like? foreign names are underrated because some people don’t Would they be able to see other? know they’re made in Indonesia. This goes for the famous Rockport shoe line and the Hoka-Hoka Bento Japanese It wasn’t that I was completely unaware. I knew smoking restaurant chain that is actually an Indonesian franchise. The had evolved and that the tobacco barons had developed clothing company, Executive, is also Indonesian, as is the new ways to attract and addict a younger clientele in the “cool” cafe Excelso. delivery of nicotine, while extending their questionable business ethics into other less lethal areas of business. In fact, I had even read about just that very thing in a previous issue of the FT, to the effect that the big tobacco majors Please send your budget ideas, bargain deals and money were now concentrating on e-cigarettes and vaping, sales saving tips to pakbill2003@yahoo.com of which now stood at some US$16 billion and expected to Copyright © 2020 Bill Dalton treble to over $40 billion in four years. The only clouds on You can read all past articles of that horizon being a growing international movement to The Frugal Balinist at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz regulate the sale of these products. In this instance, I just adjusted my chair so I had my back to the man and instead of resuming my reading, forgot about the vapours and fell into a reverie upon life and tobacco over past decades. One way or another, smoker or not, tobacco affected us all. Its aroma and its advertisement, an ever-present factor in our lives. The habit has been around a long time. King James 1st of England (1603-25) not only fulminated against the noxious weed but cut off the head of the man who brought it back from the Americas. It was the introduction of cigarettes, which really kicked tobacco industry into the big league, on a par with oil, coal and transportation. By the 1930s smoking cigarettes was the social norm. It was permitted and catered to almost everywhere. The whole world stank of it. We did, so did our clothes and our homes. We just didn’t realise it. In hindsight one has has to wonder how a non-smoker managed to get through life in such a tobacco-ridden environment. Think of the allure of a beautiful and elegant woman smoking a cigarette, a not uncommon and powerful image back then. As a redblooded non-smoking man how in reality, if your dreams came true, would you be able to make love to that woman? And don’t let’s be gender specific here – it works everywhich way. By 1950 the British Medical Association( BMA)sounded the death knell for tobacco’s glory days, announcing conclusive evidence to show that cigarettes caused lung cancer. To prove the point King George VI of England died of lung cancer in 1952 at the age of 56. Not long after his daughter made a point of revoking the Royal Seal of Approval carried by Benson & Hedges and other British brands. She had good cause to believe the BMA. Nonetheless there followed a vicious 50-year campaign of huge mendacity waged by Big Tobacco to deny the reality, that cigrette smoking was the second greatest killer in the world after road accidents.
came ready-packaged in a mystical doctrine that was In the days when I smoked it was only two or three widely welcomed across Java. Though widespread cigarettes day, unless I was drinking. Then I chain-smoked. conversion from the Hindu-Buddhist faith to Islam was When they banned smoking inflight by the early 1980s I complete by the 1600s, the old belief systems did not disappear. Buddhism and Hinduism had a presence on Java for 1000 years and their influence still survived in was happy. I could stop smoking for years at a time. Trouble was - easy to quit, easy to start. I never liked many rites, symbols, customs and traditions such as smoking in and around food so lighting-up after a meal was the wayang theater forms and architectural features like no big loss in restaurants. In fact I reserve a special place the split gate that reflect Java’s ancient past. in hell for the affected swine who light a cigar when other people are eating. The more expensive the cigar, the more it stank. Since my late 40s I’ve smoked very little and not at all in the past decade. Whatever the case, the whole paraphenalia in and around smoking affected us. When I first started smoking I went up-market, Benson & Hedges in their red and gold tin, Balkan Sobranie Black Russian or enticingly foreign like Gauloises and Gitanes. Then settling down to Senior Service or Players and a spell rolling my own in 60s. By the mid 70’s I had pretty much settled down to Benson & Hedges gold or Marlboro Light, which was when I finally graduated to tipped cigarettes. Like publishing, the British and American tobacco barons exercised dual dominion over the world when it came to international brands, so I never really got into American cigarettes, but somewhat familiar with the ‘jetplane’ brands of the 50s and 60s (Rothmans, Stuyvesant, Pall Mall, etc.), until the advent of Marlboro Man that is. One phase I observed with interest and faint contempt was the early 70s fashion branding of cigarettes in huge packs by Cartier, Dunhill, Davidoff and the like, inevitably accompanied by a gold or silver bric lighter from Dupont or other purveyor of cadet luxe. For most of us I suspect, looking back at the golden age of tobacco, now that the stench is gone, is a pleasant exercise in nostalgia. We grew up and matured alongside it all - the Researchers who today struggle to trace the dynamics of packaging, the accoutrements, the advertisements, the religious change in modern Java are unanimous in one thing: sponsorships – all designed to entice. syncretic Javanized Islam has been on the run, pushed hard by conservative, orthodox forces since the 1980s. Javanese have now largely abandoned their pre Muslim beliefs that were intermixed with animist, Hindu and Buddhist leanings By the time I looked up the man with the laptop and his vape had gone. You know what? E-cigarettes etc. kill only and avalanched over to observant conservatism. This a handfull of people a year, so on the scale of lethality I imported hard-edged guise of pious Islam is hostile to the reckon folks can be left in peace to take a small toke of veneration of any image or object that might tempt believers nicotine in the great outdoors, without the heavy hand of away from the single-minded worship of the one God, Allah. the law being invoked. That said, I do wonder a bit about the involuntary sharing airborne particles lung to lung.Bandit Saints of Java is a challenge to that perception which can only hold water if one assumes that Java’s unique religious heritage and Indonesia‘s pre-national history have died out or are irrelevant in the present. This unusual work of nonfiction dives deep under the surface of modern Indonesia, exploring personalities, legends and lore in the ParacelsusAsia wacky, teeming world of local pilgrimages that is largely Comments or queries ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com invisible to journalists, scholars and tourists. The book convincingly illuminates how a brash, new, energetic religion Copyright © 2019 ParacelsusAsia changed but not wholly supplanted the old Buddhist/Hindu You can read all past articles of Alternative Voice at belief systems. www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
TOKO BUKU
Reviews of English language books on Indonesia Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn The religion of Java lives on in the venerable mausoleums of has published countless papers and articles reflecting his legendary saints and spirit guardians who represent local, decades-long travel and research in Java. traditionalist native faith with all its mysticism and magic and Have you noticed? The Balinese don’t like rain, they don’t obsession with holy places and the dead. For modern Quinn didn’t write this brilliant discussion of Java’s pilgrimage drink rainwater and they certainly don’t like it on their Indonesians, saint veneration and local pilgrimages are culture from the sterile confines of a university office under heads. It is something to do with picking up evil spirits on central to their Islamic identity and the practice of their religion that adopts a tolerant, understanding and humanistic towering bookcases but actually lived the experiences reported in his book. Only a man on the spot would be able it’s way from the sky. Which reminds me, I picked up an approach. The author argues that many Javanese are able to describe in such rich detail the packed, fetid atmosphere evil spirit the other day, it was supposed to be gin and tonic to stay strong in Islam while honoring their semi-divine of tombs and the details of architecture. Though not a Muslim but I suspect it was a particularly evil batch of Arak. “Arak ancestors who are known as the Nine Saints (Wali Songo). himself, he is as informed about the nuances of Javanese Islam as any practicing Indonesian ulama. Often Quinn was attack” is of course the name of a condition not a drink. The pilgrimage sites, which Quinn calls the new heathen the only tall, fair-skinned outsider granted as a matter of Arak does have it’s uses though - it is very good for landscape of Indonesia, are not your usual shrines but fusions courtesy a priority place in the inner sanctum. Key-keepers cleaning carburettors. of holy ground, the focus of memorable stories and objects of religious devotion. Hundreds of these places of worship, without exception made him feel welcome and were lavish in their responses to his innumerable and sometimes big and small, sprawl across Java as well as Indonesia’s outer provocative questions. His respect (dare I say reverence?) Have you also noticed, the Balinese don’t have gutters. Islands. Visiting them has become normal in modern Java for the old Sufi saints are equal in ardor to any devout The logic is, in fact, sound. Get the water off the roof and serve to assuage those who face an interminable wait - now averaging 17 years - to go on the haj to Mecca. The Javanese worshipper. straight onto the ground and organise for it to run away saint’s graves are havens of refuge and respite embedded The writer’s marvelous, tactile description of the venerable somewhere out of the way. This is also good because solidly in the practices of everyday life for scores of millions 15th C. Demak mosque 25 km east of Semarang, is a case much of it ends up back in the water table. of people. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism reported that 12.2 million people visited the tombs of the Nine Saints in in point. There are myriad, priceless scenes of devoted pilgrims - a milling hubbub of murmuring prayer and singing 2014. in crowded incense-filled chambers. The text is populated It is a bit of a pain though isn’t it. It starts peeing down, cats by strange supernatural characters like Gatholoco, the A few of the sites, like that of Sunan Bonang in Tuban, host “walking human penis;” a guardian of a holy mountain who and dogs turn into elephants and whales and as Mr up to a million visitors a year. In the final months of the became an icon of male vigor at 79; a Muslim saint who Murphy would predict you are just about to leave for work Ramadan fasting month, 20,000 pilgrims a day visit the tomb was gay and an atheist Sufi saint who took his dogs into with papers clutched under your arm. You wait with a of Sunan Ampel in Surabaya. The popularity of local the mosque. Others were outright tricksters like the wise pilgrimages has given rise to a highly profitable services sector pre-Islamic jester Semar.sheet of water running off the roof in front of you, it doesn’t called wisata ziarah (pilgrimage tourism) in which pilgrims slow so you make a dash for the car. Damn, where is the are whisked around by chartered bus to as many as 9 tombs All the esteemed personages are echoes of Java’s ancient key on the key ring? Then the key just won’t go into the in 6 days. Run on a shoestring, the tours are composed mostly tantric heritage that fused Hindu-Buddhist tantra and yoga of women who wear like-colored t-shirts, sleep in the bus, with Sufism. The majority of the saints were opponents of lock. You flop, wet through, on the car seat and you stare mosque or rest pavilions, eat takeaway food and shop for followers of austere Arab-style Islamic orthodoxy with their out through the windscreen as the rain eases off. The religious souvenirs. So relentlessly popular are the tours that pretentions of Middle Eastern dress, their faux-pious soggy papers clutched under you arm are starting to run most participants don’t even get close to the small, inner burial mannerisms and claim to religious piety and learning. chamber but have to sit in dense ranks on tiled patio floors ink onto your shirt. The worst bit was that initial drenching all around the vicinity. Bandit Saints of Java paints an astonishing portrait of Islam as you plunged through the sheet of water coming off the as it’s actually practiced today by many of Java’s 130 million roof. Most are off the beaten track and don’t appear on modern people. The author is a superb, witty and entertaining writer maps or make it into the pages of a Lonely Planet guidebook. who vividly records what he saw and felt close-up on the These landmarks inherited from the distance past are buried ground. Though some of the material is almost impossibly A gutter can be a good idea. under the new geography of cities, highways, ports, railroads, esoteric, the book’s most vital contribution in my mind is that factories, plantations, administrative boundaries and tourist it gives one faith that Indonesia’s lovely, animist native attractions. They roost at the top of staircases on steep kajawen beliefs will endure in the end under the onslaught You can get plastic gutters and downpipes here in Bali hillsides, lie in the darkness of caves, shelter in the tiny scraps of the harsh tenets of hardline Islamist Wahhabism imported with all the fittings (apart from good brackets but we’ll of forests still left on Java, crouch under the arbors of trees from Saudi Arabia. This erudite and well-researched study come to that). Prices are very reasonable and installation in quiet villages, hidden in the cluttered old quarters of the gives us the hope that Java will continue to hold dear its own island’s major cities or in district level towns like Blora, Tuban, soft, Sufi-inspired interpretation of Islam.is not difficult but does need to be planned. Kediri, Demak, Tegal, Karawang, Sumedang, Banten, Kudus, Magelang, Jombang, Mojoagung and Gresik. Often the Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn, Monsoon Books Be careful because most Indonesian people know very temples lie besides or opposite the high-rise domes, shiny 2018, ISBN 978-191-204-9448, paperback, 448 pages, halls and Middle Eastern-style minarets of flamboyant modern dimensions 20 cm x 13 cm. little about gutters. Unfortunately the fact that water does mosques whose straight-laced parishioners view the local not flow uphill has never been pointed out to Indonesians. pilgrimage sites as nests of idolatry and backwardness. Have you noticed how much time and effort goes into George Quinn is a one-of-a-kind scholar of Indonesian building those drainage channels along the sides of the studies. Possessing a native speaker level command of Review by Bill Dalton roads, and have you also noticed how the bottoms of the Indonesian and Javanese, this Australian specialist holds a For any publishers interested in having one of their books channels don’t always flow downhill, they go up and down BA from Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University and for many years headed the Southeast Center at the Australian considered for review in Toko Buku, please contact: pakbill2003@yahoo.com. with the surface of the road? National University. As an Indonesianist - or more precisely, Copyright © 2019a Javanist - of the first rank, he is adept at writing in a number You can read all past articles of of genres - fiction, literary criticism, lexiography, history. He Toko Buku at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
I can’t count the number of times I have climbed on a roof to find out why water is coming in to find a valley gutter between two roofs which is lower in the middle than at the end where the water is supposed to run out. Gutters come in a round semi circular section and square box gutters. Two sizes are available in both the round and square section and the size you chose is dependent on the roof area that will flow into it. Don’t underestimate how many cats and dogs will fall out of the sky in a particularly fertile wet season. You should also make sure the downpipe can take a full sized cat. A technical point. Round gutters and round pipes such as sewers are known as “self cleaning”. It works like this - as the amount of water flowing decreases it falls to a lower level and is concentrated in a smaller width in the pipe, the cross section of flow reduces so the speed of flow down the pipe or gutter is maintained thereby helping to wash things away. In a flat bottomed gutter this is not the case. As the amount of water flowing falls it still has to fill the same width of gutter so the speed of flow drops and anything being washed down falls to the bottom and is left. The Victorians understood this principle well when building sewerage systems in Britain. Having said this I would always recommend the square box section gutter for use in Bali. Why? Because you can get good brackets for them. The brackets for box section gutters are good solid plastic that hold the gutter firmly in place and can take a reasonable load. The brackets for round gutters, on the other hand, are flimsy sheet steel. They rust immediately so they quickly look a mess. Worse they bend very easily so one dose of cats and dogs and your gutters sag in the middle and the water doesn’t drain away properly. You may be interested to know that round gutters are being heavily promoted by the “Denpasar Save The Mosquito Society”. You also need enough brackets. The Indonesian habit of “saving a bit of money for my poor old mum” means that local contractors will agree to put up a gutter but leave out most of the brackets only putting enough brackets up to hold the thing in dry weather. Cats and dogs, and water for
The Acne Guide To Removing Cats and Dogs From Your Roof It’s been a bit wet. that matter, are very heavy. You must insist that brackets are placed as close as 60 cms apart (ok, ok, two feet to In fact it has been so wet that the ducks have all had new seals fitted to their nether regions. A leaky duck is a very you imperialists, why don’t you get a life, a metric one that unhappy duck you know. is, join the real world....... I do like the inch though. It is such well proportioned thing isn’t it. Even it’s name has a My next door neighbour has started behaving quite odd. rather nice ring to it. I don’t really like centimetres very He has suddenly started collecting animals. Two horses, two cows, two dogs, two cats - strange really they are all much, in fact I hate the horrible little things but we must in pairs. It has been a bit of a bother though, their amorous move on. I stopped using a bone to bang in a nail a long behaviour is keeping me awake all night. He got two time ago.) rabbits a couple of weeks ago and now he has 3,726 of them hopping around all over the place. You must plan the slope of a gutter along with the An enterprising bloke down our street has a new sign up placement of downpipes. A slope of 1% to 2% is fine (as outside his shop: long as you have enough brackets to keep it firmly in “Arks made to order, new models always in stock” place) and again enough downpipes to suit the area of It is, of course, LRT (leaky roof time) again in South East roof being drained. Asia and the time when you remember that last year you promised you would repair that leak in the roof “when the You might consider doing the island a favour by not putting dry weather comes”. The dry weather has come…and your rainwater into the drains but instead returning it to gone and the roof is still leaking. the water table either through a soak pit or an old well. It There are a lot of leaky roofs at the moment. is clean, fresh, sterile water after all. Believe it or not if development continues at it’s present pace Bali will have I was talking to an insurance salesman last wet season. a water shortage in the not too distant future. He had his head in his hands. “Merry Christmas” I said. “Get stuffed” he said. A final word of advice, paint your plastic gutters, brackets A week later I saw him again. and downpipes. Ultra violet light from the sun damages “Happy New Year” I said. the plastic. You may see that old pipes can become faded “Where can I buy razor blades?” he said “my gas oven has run out of gas.” and the plastic brittle when exposed continually to “You can’t bake a cake with a razor blade” I responded. sunlight. The grey plastic has a pigment in it to protect it “Get stuffed” he said. from UV but the sun is intense here and you will extend the life of the plastic if you paint it. For some who have lived in Bali for a while a leaky roof is just part of the wonderful texture that makes life in Bali what it is. Now where did I put that evil spirit? For others, however, leaking roofs drive them mad and Phil Wilson drips anonymous is picking up new members again. You may hear them from time to time mumbling the drips anonymous prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the drips I cannot fix, the strength to fix the drips I can and the wisdom to know where to put the bucket.” Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions Why do so many roofs leak? expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or Well there are a number of reasons: 08123 847 852. 1. Most houses have roof tiles that are handmade and so Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
vary slightly and don’t lock together quite as well as they should. 2. When installing roof tiles the spacing of the lathes that support the tiles is often not as accurate is it should be and as a result some designs of roof tiles won’t seat properly. 3. Standard practice on houses in Bali does not include the use of sarking or underfelt as a waterproof membrane under the tiles. 4. Standard practice is for ridges to be heavily concreted into place, only small amounts of movement in the house will crack the concrete. 5. Poor waterproofing of end walls where the roof meets the wall. 6. Insufficient slope on roofs which results in wind driving rain up the tiles and into the roof. 7. A bizarre lack of understanding of the mysterious ways of water. 8. Unfortunately many tukangs don’t understand about roofs. Last week I went to see a man with water pouring into a bedroom. When we came to inspect the roof it was surprisingly well made and one of the few roofs in a “standard” house I have seen with a full membrane installed under the roof tiles. Unfortunately small leaks where the end walls meet the roof had been “repaired” by people who, instead of repairing the roof properly from the outside, tore out parts of the membrane from inside and in fact made the problem much, much worse. For information about flat concrete roofs go to https://www. mrfixitbali.com/roofs-and-gutters/flat-concrete-roofs-235. html Be careful who you let onto your roof. Waterproofing is a bit of an artform really. It is surprising how only a very small crack in concrete combined with that insidious capillary action can produce a significant drip underneath and a substantial loss of demeanour for a house dweller. The results of a leaking roof can be devastating and Bangli has a special wing to care for leaking roof victims. Leaking roofs can also damage your house and contents.
How to avoid your roof leaking
Leaking Roofs
honest people who are building their dream home only to find that the builder has scarpered, the money has run out and there is a distinct dearth of windows If you are building a new house put a waterproof membrane under the roof tiles and make sure the roof is and doors, electrical wiring is nowhere to be seen and properly installed.
roof should be. If you have a leaking roof make a note of where the drips are. If they are next to a wall or in the ridge then you may Enquiries follow only to reveal that the 8 teams of workers have to wait for dry weather before they can be properly that came and went over the 14 months the project dragged on for left because they hadn’t been paid. Sadly sealed. If leaks are in the centre of the roof moving tiles pleonexia is alive and well in the construction industry and around may be sufficient BUT be very careful who gets contractors know that the average owner builder, Mr and onto your roof. Mrs Nicefriendlypeople, are easy prey for their games. Lambs to the slaughter comes to mind. Many roof tiles in Bali are very fragile because the has clay been fired at low temperatures using wood (often Such cases are common in Bali and inevitably the “builder” has been paid more than the work he has completed. He less than 800 degrees). To get effective fusion of silica will have worked out that by running off now he will end up ideally you need to get up over 1,000 degrees. As a result with more profit than if he finishes the project and he will tiles break easily and someone climbing around on your avoid the most difficult period when he is doing the roof can do a lot more damage than you can imagine. finishing work and trying to get final payment. I recently met a very poor Indonesian family who had Sometimes he may add insult to injury by demanding even more money, his argument being that the money paid is less than the amount of work completed. saved hard and recently had their roof upgraded replacing bamboo beams with timber. The upgrade was a nightmare with badly placed and broken tiles everywhere. As a result When a contractor walks away from a half finished job it the house was flooded and one room remains unusable. leaves all sorts of problems. The project is likely to be They cannot afford to have the roof repaired. A tragic story considerably delayed and it may be difficult to find a new but unfortunately all too common in a country lacking in contractor willing to take on the mess that someone else standards, training and understanding.has left. Unfortunately the sort of contractor who perhaps had planned all along to walk away from a half finished job may well be the sort of person that will have also cut If your roof is badly leaking it might be a good idea to corners in the work. simply start again. The tiles can be removed, a waterproof membrane installed and the existing tiles replaced. This is So how do we protect ourselves? a comprehensive waterproofing job, the tiles will not be damaged because they have not been walked on and the We use standardised systems that; if well set up, properly thought out and a rigidly applied; minimise the risks cost is not too high because the existing tiles can reused. involved and keeps contractors in check. These systems Any broken tiles can be replaced and the tiles can be use a Bill Of Quantities and a Schedule of Payments. painted to seal them. A good Project Manager can set up and manage these There are other options such as replacing your tiles with systems for you. “Colourbond” but we’ll talk about that another day. Bill Of Quantities Of course if it carries on raining at this rate the roof leaks A Bill of Quantities (or BoQ) is a detailed list of all the tasks will become somewhat irrelevant and an ark might that have to be completed to construct the project. Each become a sound investment. part of the work is fully described and costed so everyone knows exactly what is to be done and how much it will cost. Let us look at a typical Bill Of Quantities and see Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject what information and the level of detail you should indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions expect. On the website at www.mrfixitbali.com/images/ expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted sampleprogressreport.pdf you will see a sample report from a database designed for managing project progress and payments. through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or 08123 847 852. The Bill Of Quantities is broken down into headings for Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson each section of the work such as: You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
• Site clearing and project setup • Foundations • Structure • Floor slabs • Walls • Roof and ceilings • Windows and doors • Electrical Installation • Plumbing Installation • Ceramic wall and floor tiling • Painting • Drainage • Water Supply We also need to add on: • Architect’s Fees (10%?) • Structural Engineers Fees • Construction Tax (10%) • Legal costs (IMB, contract fee, etc) Under each of these headings will be a breakdown of the tasks within that heading with the estimated costs. The tasks should describe the work to be done, the type or level of quality of the materials to be used and a quantity such as cubic meters (excavation, fill or concrete), square meters (tiling, roofing and painting) or per item (washbasins, toilets, doorhandles, stress pills, etc.). The price for a single unit and the total price for the totals needed for the project is also given. The description also should, where relevant cross refer back to the drawings in order to tie the specifications stated on the drawings as part of this document. This provides legal protection. The costs are totalled up to give us the TOTAL cost of the project. Alright so we now have our Bill of Quantities and this should become a part of the legal documentation that becomes part of the building contract. The builder must sign up to agree to construct according to this document. You might want to add a penalty clause should he not complete the contract, if he refuses such a clause this might ring warning bells.
The Schedule of Payments
Now we come to the important part, we have to determine a schedule of payments. We start by saying we’ll give you so much to get started. This gives the contractor some cash to pay for some materials and start up costs. Next we have to work out how we will carry on paying as the project proceeds. We have to make sure the contractor has enough money to carry on working but also make sure that if he heads for the hills we are not out of pocket. This might sound difficult but remember there is a profit margin for the contractor in each part of the project and we can use the profit margin on the work he has already completed as the advance for the cost he will incur on the next part. This means that after each payment is made you and the contractor are square, you have the work completed and he has his profit so far. It is advisable to avoid paying large amounts. If you have only 3 or 4 payments for the whole project the amount paid
Are You Planning To Build? - Take Great Care A building permit has to be obtained before construction of and the amount of project completion will vary to a far any building in Indonesia begins. The building permit is greater degree than if you use smaller, more frequent also known as an IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan, it payments. specifies the approved initial design of the building but it Construction companies tend to use a more rigid also continues through the buildings life stating what the approach. They will set milestones and pay only when the building can be used for. Here we look at what the IMB is, milestone is achieved. For example they may only pay for how you apply for one, the documents you will need and the roof when every part of the roof is completed and has some notes about compliance with building regulations. been inspected and passed. The IMB or Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan Ok now the final stage is to manage the Payment Process. Before any payment is made the project is inspected and payment made according to the actual work done. You will IMB stands for Ijin Mendirikan Bangunan which literally need an engineer to go through the bill of quantities and means “permit to establish a building” commonly known check each line item to assess the percentage of as a “Building Permit”.It is an approval from the government completion. This is totalled up to give you the total financial to build a building. value of the construction that has been completed. If you look at the sample file you will see that there is a IMBs are important, very important. column second from the right with the percentage complete entered which is then calculated into a monetary Make no mistake, after the land certificate the IMB is value for the amount of work completed in the right hand probably the most important document regarding column. Armed with this information, some common properties in Indonesia. The building permit is not only a sense and a healthy dose of assertiveness, you can now permit to carry out the initial building but it also continues make sure you are not paying more than you should. through the building’s life as a registration document. The A good contractor will understand all this. He/she will give permit defines (through a pile of associated documents you a detailed Bill of Quantities and will respect your that are lodged with the application) the specification of desire to get progress inspections carried out before you the building that is or has been built and the purpose the release money. building can be used for. If you know you are not a very assertive person beware All buildings in Bali should have an IMB that the contractor may sense this and feel that he can exploit you. It might be best to find someone to represent you in dealing with making payments but make sure it is Unfortunately many don’t. someone you trust. The IMB is the responsibility of the owner of the building. Look out for tell tale signs of dodgy dealings. Don’t let If you are the owner then it will be your responsibility, if you emotions take over, be methodical and never assume the rent or lease a building it is your landlord’s responsibility. contractor is your best friend and is going to be benevolent to you. Keep an eye out for vagueness or lack of detail in Do not buy or lease a building that does not have an IMB the Bill of Quantities. Excuses should ring alarm bells. If or you may have problems. If you lease a building that has he cannot keep his workers this suggests there is a an IMB and wish to use it for a different purpose than is problem. If the staff walk off find out why and if they have stated on the IMB (say you want to use your building for not been paid you can bet your life the contractor will be keeping elephants or perhaps for night time activities dishonest with you. It is also well to remember that happy involving “social networking” when it is currently registered workers will do better work than unhappy workers. as a private house) then the IMB must be changed. If a Protection comes from having aclear definition of what is villa is to be rented out rather than used as a private to be done, what has been done and accurate costings for residence you also probably need to be careful. the two. Balinese people often do not bother getting an IMB but take note - they can get away with it. Don’t assume that Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject you will be able to. Once a government official smells a indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions walking ATM with a foreign passport you will (or will not) be expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted surprised just how quickly compliance with the law can be through the website or the office on 0361 288 789 or officially urged. This may happen even more quickly 08123 847 852. should your neighbour not like elephants or does not appreciate the more subtle aspects of “social networking”. Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode How to get an IMB or Building Permit at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
Obtaining an IMB is really a part of the town planning process. Permits are issued by the Dinas Tata Ruang Kota dan Pemukiman which means the Department of Town Planning and Settlements. With the IMB certificate comes a metal plate rather like a car number plate to be mounted at the front of the building.
Documents you will need
To get an IMB it is necessary to submit a pile of documents that will include the following: • A land certificate including the relevant survey plan. • An ijing Kavling (permit to subdivide) if one is needed. • Correct land zoning for the building that is planned. • Drawings of the buildings that comply with local building regulations. • Structural and services drawings to make sure that the buildings have been properly designed and specified. • Signed permission from all owners of directly neigbouring properties. A common pitfall for unwary property buyers in Bali is the fact that, while there are many professional developers that do the right thing, there are quite a number that start building before they have obtained an IMB. This is illegal. I recently came upon what is, sadly, an all too common occurrence, a very expensive villa nearing completion which we were able to determine had no IMB. I suggest that if someone is going to spend perhaps a million dollars building a villa it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that a building permit is obtained beforehand. In fact it is hard to understand why developers or builders so often proceed without an IMB. If they comply with the regulations and obtain the permit at the start they will avoid problems and increased expense later on.
Keep everything legal
Many assume that financial lubrication will achieve anything but bear in mind three things: 1. The further the building process progresses, the larger the dose of lubricant that will be required. 2. The fact that someone (perhaps your developer) does not wish to seek an IMB before starting the building process is a sign to you, it immediately suggests a lack of integrity and further that something is probably not right – perhaps the design is not acceptable or there is not a full set of drawings.. 3. Times are changing, government is being cleaned up and lubricant is becoming a dirty concept, it may be that an IMB is obtained now but, beware, if the building doesn’t comply you could well have a problem later on.
Building Permits It appears that many IMB applications in Bali are “arranged” and “eased” through the system. This is not a good idea because the staff in government departments have a tendency to move on and a holder of an arranged IMB may suddenly find new staff have arrived and start to check the records. Remember that the drawings and specifications of your building submitted for the IMB remain on file and at any time in the future they may be pulled out and compared to the building. This is what has been happening in and around Singaraja in recent months where local authorities have been carrying out checks to make sure that houses have IMBs, that the building usage matches the IMB and also that the building taxes have been paid. Do not doubt the government’s resolve, a bad outcome can lead to demolition and several expatriates in that area have been warned, if they cannot resolve their issues they may well find themselves in trouble.
Compliance with building regulations
Compliance with building regulations is checked in the IMB process. For example it is policy that buildings should be no higher than the palm trees. How high is a palm tree, well, for implementation purposes, it is defined as five floors or 15 metres. There is, of course, one famous exception to this rule – the Grand Bali Beach Hotel which was built by the government in the 1960s before the “palm tree” rule was established.
Q Live healthier cheaper with integrated electric motors - a cross between a bicycle Why battle traffic to visit doctors for health consultations that and a motorcycle - allow the rider greater speed with less do not necessitate therapy or a medical procedure? Have effort. On motorized bikes you can easily pedal uphill. A you ever tried to contact a doctor by telephone? Thankfully, selection of ebikes and escooters can be seen in the Selis a growing number of Indonesian physicians are using social Bali showroom in Denpasar. Don’t forget to ask the friendly media, especially blogs and Twitter, to offer a wide diversity and helpful manager for a thorough list of what needs to be of reliable non-diagnostic health advice and even live-chat done for maintenance and to get the ebike ready for the services to thousands of followers who ask questions not just required annual inspection. Selis Bali does service calls, too. about nutrition, children’s health, diet, sexual health, Average cost of models is around Rp20 juta. With an cholesterol or diabetes, but also about deeper medical issues. installment payment plan, you can drive away for as little as Tanya Dokter (Ask the Doctor) and KlikDokter let people send Rp400,000 down. Address: Jl. Teuku Umar 216, Dauh Puri questions about health problems that are answered by Kauh, Denpasar, tel: 0361-474-8205. Hours 9 am-6 pm. general practitioners and specialists, usually within 24 hours. Optimal medical examinations cannot be carried out online, Q Good sense for The Wet so doctors will not make diagnoses, as they don’t want to To keep mosquitoes from laying eggs, add a handful of neem bear any legal liability. Symptoms of a disease might be leaves to small pond or pools. Neem leaves will help stop misread if they are being described through live-chat or email. mosquitoes from breeding, but won’t harm other pond If a question indicates the need for further examination, creatures. Frogs, lizards and fish, especially tilapia fish, will patients will be advised to see a physician in person to ensure feed on mosquito eggs and larvae. *Excess water in the wet accuracy. season can be stored in ponds to prevent water laying stagnant on the ground. Rainwater can be stored in tanks, but usually tanks will not hold all of it. Extra water can be stored in the ground, in ponds and by trees that store water in their roots, trunk, branches and leaves. Dig a shallow trench around your house in places where the rain falls, then fill with gravel. Use the soil from digging the trench to make the ground higher so that the water flows away from the house. This will help keep the house dry during the wet season. Water can be run to vegetable gardens, compost pits, etc. Edges of garden pathways can also function as swales to collect and hold water. Dig new holes for trees, but leave them empty to fill with rain, which will soften the soil so that when trees are planted at the end of the wet season, they will grow better. Q Supermarket Savvy Q Beware the Tick. Learn how to read a food label Ticks attack dogs in to cut calories, increase dietary between their toes and in fiber intake and make healthier their ears. Brush down and choices. A powerful lot of wash your dog with watered nutritional info is packed into down shampoo regularly. the tiny “Nutrition Facts” panel. Introduce Bravecto into his First check out the caloric food which you can buy for intake of one serving, the Rp90,000/bottle from pet amount of the product typically shops or Hardy’s. You’ll get consumed at once. 2,000 around 4-5 months of calories is the average daily treatments from one bottle, reference amount that you enough for two dogs. For should shoot for. Dial down animals, the Balinese use your daily sodium intake to the tick powder Bedak less than 1,500 mg (about 2/3 Doris (Rp24,000-Rp45,000 teaspoon of salt). Keep depending on size bottle) saturated fats to less than 20 gr or replace salt with unsaturated fats, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Your consumption of added sugar should be no more than 25-35 gr. Dietary fiber should be at least 28 gr to avoid constipation and natural remedies. For example, they first remove the tick, then slice a lemon which they apply to the wound. For cows and kerbau (ox), the Balinese scrub vinegar (cuka; Rp1,500 for small bottle) onto the tick bite. They also feed their livestock whole papaya leaves which turns the animal’s blood bitter, and maintain overall digestive health. Nutrients such as fats, repelling ticks. Alternatively, Sunset Vet (Kuta: tel. 0361-934-cholesterol, carbohydrates and protein are also listed, as well 8915; Ubud: tel. 0361-975-296) for Rp100,000 will send as select vitamins and minerals. Most people living in someone around to give your dog a shot and apply treatment Indonesia automatically get enough proteins every day by against ticks. BAWA is also able to give good advice as regards eating a variety of foods. Tofu, tempe and beans (kacang ticks. merah, kacang polong, kacang hitam/undis, kacang kara, etc.) are among Indonesia’s richest sources of plant-based Q Shopping Pointers protein and also give dietary fiber. Ubud’s markets are prone to rip off people and vendors can be pushy. Prices are much lower at the souvenir shops Krishna Q Go electric! and Jogger. The main market Pasar Ubud is pricier than Join the Green Energy movement to reduce your carbon Sukawati Market where not only crafts, home decorations, footprint in our world. Electric ebikes (sepeda listrik) save statuary, carving, bags, clothing and other artwork are sold, fuel costs and reduce air pollution. These “pedal-assist” bikes but also heaps of Indonesian-style dresses, shirts, scarves,
20 The Frugal Balinist
cushions, handbags, as well as household wares go at terrific bargains. It’s no accident that lines of busses full of thriftconscious Javanese shoppers are always parked along the road outside. *Pie Susu is a small cake and popular Bali souvenir. It’s cheaper to buy at the factory itself on Jalan Nangka in Denpasar at Rp1,500 each. *Pusat Pernak Pernik One of the more solitary small pleasures I enjoy in Ceking village near Pasar Sukawati is the place to buy throughout the week is settling down to a good read bracelets, all kinds of art and decorations. *Bali Pulina in Buleleng, North Bali, is the bargain place to buy famous with the Weekend FT in a café serving half decent Balinese civet coffee. *Indonesian tourists buy Seniman coffee. Apart from the cringingly ghastly “How to brand coffee which sells at the low local price. The Balinese Spend it”, the magazine supplement written by FT themselves prefer to just drink kopi palsu (adulterated coffee) hacks with leaden wit and obvious contempt for their like Warkop, Bali’s cheapest coffee that is mixed with ground readers - by definition themselves possessing no corn and dried rice. They are not fond of real coffee like style of their own and in need of being told “where to Westerners, mostly because of its high cost. Middle class get it”, the rest of the newspaper provides some first Indonesians drink the Kopi Bubuk Banyuatis brand from Singaraja. The upper class favors the Kopi Bali Cap Kupu rate long form and investigative journalism covering Kupu Bola Dunia brand.
content is behind a pay wall and I have no interest in Q Make shoes last! the weekday newspaper itself, it’s not worth my Keep shoes on a shoetree to give perspiration and other stumping up for a subscription. Fortunately for me the moisture time to completely dry out. If your shoes get wet, weekend print edition is usually on sale at Periplus bookshops around Bali. stuff them with newspaper and let them dry slowly. Indonesians dry them in the sun. Store shoes in dry area where they can get fresh air and not mold. Give them a break; don’t wear the same pair every day. After each wearing, clean On one occasion, seated at a table on the deck shoes with soft, dry cloth. Keep leather shoes lubricated and of the Starbucks in Renon Plaza, engrossed in protected by polishing with Kiwi shoe polish (Rp16,000) a good read trying to control the flyaway pages regularly. Most liquid polishes contain little or no wax and of my newspaper I was enveloped in a cloud of may cause shoes to dry out. smoke. I was partly aware that a dapper Q Industry killerIndonesian man in his early thirties had arrived Recent government regulations are very unfavorable and and sat down at an adjoining table, put down clearly do not support the solar industry as it imposes extra his coffee, opened his lap top, and positioned charges to people who want grid-connected solar installation. his handphone together with some other Solar panel owners are now losing 35% of their generation device alongside. Preparing to be irked and and make it literally impossible to sell solar panels in ready to rustle the pages of my broadsheet ostentatiously enough to attract attention for a Indonesia. The new regulation, an alternative energy industry killer to protect PLN, is creating a real headache for everyone, seriously impact initial investment, generation and savings warm-up death glare, I realised that the smoke over 25 years. didn’t actually reek of tobacco, as I had automatically assumed it would. As I was registering this, the man raised a small expensive-looking rectangular black and silver object to his mouth and took a toke. Upon exhale an astonishingly copious cloud of vapour billowed forth, was taken by the wind toward and past myself, on to envelop other tables nearby, only dissipating on the far side of the deck. Impressive in its way. What kind of a storm cloud, I wondered, would a party of half-a-dozen such tokers emit? What about the proverbial smoke-filled back rooms be like? Would they be able to see other? It wasn’t that I was completely unaware. I knew smoking had evolved and that the tobacco barons had developed new ways to attract and addict a younger clientele in the delivery of nicotine, while extending their questionable business ethics into other less lethal areas of business. In fact, I had even read about just that very thing in a previous issue of the FT, to the effect that the big tobacco majors Please send your budget ideas, bargain deals and money were now concentrating on e-cigarettes and vaping, sales saving tips to pakbill2003@yahoo.com of which now stood at some US$16 billion and expected to Copyright © 2019 Bill Dalton treble to over $40 billion in four years. The only clouds on You can read all past articles of that horizon being a growing international movement to The Frugal Balinist at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz regulate the sale of these products. In this instance, I just adjusted my chair so I had my back to the man and instead of resuming my reading, forgot about the vapours and fell into a reverie upon life and tobacco over past decades. One way or another, smoker or not, tobacco affected us all. Its aroma and its advertisement, an ever-present factor in our lives. The habit has been around a long time. King James 1st of England (1603-25) not only fulminated against the noxious weed but cut off the head of the man who brought it back from the Americas. It was the introduction of cigarettes, which really kicked tobacco industry into the big league, on a par with oil, coal and transportation. By the 1930s smoking cigarettes was the social norm. It was permitted and catered to almost everywhere. The whole world stank of it. We did, so did our clothes and our homes. We just didn’t realise it. In hindsight one has has to wonder how a non-smoker managed to get through life in such a tobacco-ridden environment. Think of the allure of a beautiful and elegant woman smoking a cigarette, a not uncommon and powerful image back then. As a redblooded non-smoking man how in reality, if your dreams came true, would you be able to make love to that woman? And don’t let’s be gender specific here – it works everywhich way. By 1950 the British Medical Association( BMA)sounded the death knell for tobacco’s glory days, announcing conclusive evidence to show that cigarettes caused lung cancer. To prove the point King George VI of England died of lung cancer in 1952 at the age of 56. Not long after his daughter made a point of revoking the Royal Seal of Approval carried by Benson & Hedges and other British brands. She had good cause to believe the BMA. Nonetheless there followed a vicious 50-year campaign of huge mendacity waged by Big Tobacco to deny the reality, that cigrette smoking was the second greatest killer in the world after road accidents.
came ready-packaged in a mystical doctrine that was In the days when I smoked it was only two or three widely welcomed across Java. Though widespread cigarettes day, unless I was drinking. Then I chain-smoked. conversion from the Hindu-Buddhist faith to Islam was When they banned smoking inflight by the early 1980s I complete by the 1600s, the old belief systems did not disappear. Buddhism and Hinduism had a presence on Java for 1000 years and their influence still survived in was happy. I could stop smoking for years at a time. Trouble was - easy to quit, easy to start. I never liked many rites, symbols, customs and traditions such as smoking in and around food so lighting-up after a meal was the wayang theater forms and architectural features like no big loss in restaurants. In fact I reserve a special place the split gate that reflect Java’s ancient past. in hell for the affected swine who light a cigar when other people are eating. The more expensive the cigar, the more it stank. Since my late 40s I’ve smoked very little and not at all in the past decade. Whatever the case, the whole paraphenalia in and around smoking affected us. When I first started smoking I went up-market, Benson & Hedges in their red and gold tin, Balkan Sobranie Black Russian or enticingly foreign like Gauloises and Gitanes. Then settling down to Senior Service or Players and a spell rolling my own in 60s. By the mid 70’s I had pretty much settled down to Benson & Hedges gold or Marlboro Light, which was when I finally graduated to tipped cigarettes. Like publishing, the British and American tobacco barons exercised dual dominion over the world when it came to international brands, so I never really got into American cigarettes, but somewhat familiar with the ‘jetplane’ brands of the 50s and 60s (Rothmans, Stuyvesant, Pall Mall, etc.), until the advent of Marlboro Man that is. One phase I observed with interest and faint contempt was the early 70s fashion branding of cigarettes in huge packs by Cartier, Dunhill, Davidoff and the like, inevitably accompanied by a gold or silver bric lighter from Dupont or other purveyor of cadet luxe. For most of us I suspect, looking back at the golden age of tobacco, now that the stench is gone, is a pleasant exercise in nostalgia. We grew up and matured alongside it all - the Researchers who today struggle to trace the dynamics of packaging, the accoutrements, the advertisements, the religious change in modern Java are unanimous in one thing: sponsorships – all designed to entice. syncretic Javanized Islam has been on the run, pushed hard by conservative, orthodox forces since the 1980s. Javanese have now largely abandoned their pre Muslim beliefs that were intermixed with animist, Hindu and Buddhist leanings By the time I looked up the man with the laptop and his vape had gone. You know what? E-cigarettes etc. kill only and avalanched over to observant conservatism. This a handfull of people a year, so on the scale of lethality I imported hard-edged guise of pious Islam is hostile to the reckon folks can be left in peace to take a small toke of veneration of any image or object that might tempt believers nicotine in the great outdoors, without the heavy hand of away from the single-minded worship of the one God, Allah. the law being invoked. That said, I do wonder a bit about the involuntary sharing airborne particles lung to lung.Bandit Saints of Java is a challenge to that perception which can only hold water if one assumes that Java’s unique religious heritage and Indonesia‘s pre-national history have died out or are irrelevant in the present. This unusual work of nonfiction dives deep under the surface of modern Indonesia, exploring personalities, legends and lore in the ParacelsusAsia wacky, teeming world of local pilgrimages that is largely Comments or queries ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com invisible to journalists, scholars and tourists. The book convincingly illuminates how a brash, new, energetic religion Copyright © 2019 ParacelsusAsia changed but not wholly supplanted the old Buddhist/Hindu You can read all past articles of Alternative Voice at belief systems. www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
TOKO BUKU
Reviews of English language books on Indonesia Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn The religion of Java lives on in the venerable mausoleums of has published countless papers and articles reflecting his legendary saints and spirit guardians who represent local, decades-long travel and research in Java. traditionalist native faith with all its mysticism and magic and Have you noticed? The Balinese don’t like rain, they don’t obsession with holy places and the dead. For modern Quinn didn’t write this brilliant discussion of Java’s pilgrimage drink rainwater and they certainly don’t like it on their Indonesians, saint veneration and local pilgrimages are culture from the sterile confines of a university office under heads. It is something to do with picking up evil spirits on central to their Islamic identity and the practice of their religion that adopts a tolerant, understanding and humanistic towering bookcases but actually lived the experiences reported in his book. Only a man on the spot would be able it’s way from the sky. Which reminds me, I picked up an approach. The author argues that many Javanese are able to describe in such rich detail the packed, fetid atmosphere evil spirit the other day, it was supposed to be gin and tonic to stay strong in Islam while honoring their semi-divine of tombs and the details of architecture. Though not a Muslim but I suspect it was a particularly evil batch of Arak. “Arak ancestors who are known as the Nine Saints (Wali Songo). himself, he is as informed about the nuances of Javanese Islam as any practicing Indonesian ulama. Often Quinn was attack” is of course the name of a condition not a drink. The pilgrimage sites, which Quinn calls the new heathen the only tall, fair-skinned outsider granted as a matter of Arak does have it’s uses though - it is very good for landscape of Indonesia, are not your usual shrines but fusions courtesy a priority place in the inner sanctum. Key-keepers cleaning carburettors. of holy ground, the focus of memorable stories and objects of religious devotion. Hundreds of these places of worship, without exception made him feel welcome and were lavish in their responses to his innumerable and sometimes big and small, sprawl across Java as well as Indonesia’s outer provocative questions. His respect (dare I say reverence?) Have you also noticed, the Balinese don’t have gutters. Islands. Visiting them has become normal in modern Java for the old Sufi saints are equal in ardor to any devout The logic is, in fact, sound. Get the water off the roof and serve to assuage those who face an interminable wait - now averaging 17 years - to go on the haj to Mecca. The Javanese worshipper. straight onto the ground and organise for it to run away saint’s graves are havens of refuge and respite embedded The writer’s marvelous, tactile description of the venerable somewhere out of the way. This is also good because solidly in the practices of everyday life for scores of millions 15th C. Demak mosque 25 km east of Semarang, is a case much of it ends up back in the water table. of people. The Indonesian Ministry of Tourism reported that 12.2 million people visited the tombs of the Nine Saints in in point. There are myriad, priceless scenes of devoted pilgrims - a milling hubbub of murmuring prayer and singing 2014. in crowded incense-filled chambers. The text is populated It is a bit of a pain though isn’t it. It starts peeing down, cats by strange supernatural characters like Gatholoco, the A few of the sites, like that of Sunan Bonang in Tuban, host “walking human penis;” a guardian of a holy mountain who and dogs turn into elephants and whales and as Mr up to a million visitors a year. In the final months of the became an icon of male vigor at 79; a Muslim saint who Murphy would predict you are just about to leave for work Ramadan fasting month, 20,000 pilgrims a day visit the tomb was gay and an atheist Sufi saint who took his dogs into with papers clutched under your arm. You wait with a of Sunan Ampel in Surabaya. The popularity of local the mosque. Others were outright tricksters like the wise pilgrimages has given rise to a highly profitable services sector pre-Islamic jester Semar.sheet of water running off the roof in front of you, it doesn’t called wisata ziarah (pilgrimage tourism) in which pilgrims slow so you make a dash for the car. Damn, where is the are whisked around by chartered bus to as many as 9 tombs All the esteemed personages are echoes of Java’s ancient key on the key ring? Then the key just won’t go into the in 6 days. Run on a shoestring, the tours are composed mostly tantric heritage that fused Hindu-Buddhist tantra and yoga of women who wear like-colored t-shirts, sleep in the bus, with Sufism. The majority of the saints were opponents of lock. You flop, wet through, on the car seat and you stare mosque or rest pavilions, eat takeaway food and shop for followers of austere Arab-style Islamic orthodoxy with their out through the windscreen as the rain eases off. The religious souvenirs. So relentlessly popular are the tours that pretentions of Middle Eastern dress, their faux-pious soggy papers clutched under you arm are starting to run most participants don’t even get close to the small, inner burial mannerisms and claim to religious piety and learning. chamber but have to sit in dense ranks on tiled patio floors ink onto your shirt. The worst bit was that initial drenching all around the vicinity. Bandit Saints of Java paints an astonishing portrait of Islam as you plunged through the sheet of water coming off the as it’s actually practiced today by many of Java’s 130 million roof. Most are off the beaten track and don’t appear on modern people. The author is a superb, witty and entertaining writer maps or make it into the pages of a Lonely Planet guidebook. who vividly records what he saw and felt close-up on the These landmarks inherited from the distance past are buried ground. Though some of the material is almost impossibly A gutter can be a good idea. under the new geography of cities, highways, ports, railroads, esoteric, the book’s most vital contribution in my mind is that factories, plantations, administrative boundaries and tourist it gives one faith that Indonesia’s lovely, animist native attractions. They roost at the top of staircases on steep kajawen beliefs will endure in the end under the onslaught You can get plastic gutters and downpipes here in Bali hillsides, lie in the darkness of caves, shelter in the tiny scraps of the harsh tenets of hardline Islamist Wahhabism imported with all the fittings (apart from good brackets but we’ll of forests still left on Java, crouch under the arbors of trees from Saudi Arabia. This erudite and well-researched study come to that). Prices are very reasonable and installation in quiet villages, hidden in the cluttered old quarters of the gives us the hope that Java will continue to hold dear its own island’s major cities or in district level towns like Blora, Tuban, soft, Sufi-inspired interpretation of Islam.is not difficult but does need to be planned. Kediri, Demak, Tegal, Karawang, Sumedang, Banten, Kudus, Magelang, Jombang, Mojoagung and Gresik. Often the Bandit Saints of Java by George Quinn, Monsoon Books Be careful because most Indonesian people know very temples lie besides or opposite the high-rise domes, shiny 2018, ISBN 978-191-204-9448, paperback, 448 pages, halls and Middle Eastern-style minarets of flamboyant modern dimensions 20 cm x 13 cm. little about gutters. Unfortunately the fact that water does mosques whose straight-laced parishioners view the local not flow uphill has never been pointed out to Indonesians. pilgrimage sites as nests of idolatry and backwardness. Have you noticed how much time and effort goes into George Quinn is a one-of-a-kind scholar of Indonesian building those drainage channels along the sides of the studies. Possessing a native speaker level command of Review by Bill Dalton roads, and have you also noticed how the bottoms of the Indonesian and Javanese, this Australian specialist holds a For any publishers interested in having one of their books channels don’t always flow downhill, they go up and down BA from Yogyakarta’s Gadjah Mada University and for many years headed the Southeast Center at the Australian considered for review in Toko Buku, please contact: pakbill2003@yahoo.com. with the surface of the road? National University. As an Indonesianist - or more precisely, Copyright © 2019a Javanist - of the first rank, he is adept at writing in a number You can read all past articles of of genres - fiction, literary criticism, lexiography, history. He Toko Buku at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
I can’t count the number of times I have climbed on a roof to find out why water is coming in to find a valley gutter between two roofs which is lower in the middle than at the end where the water is supposed to run out. Gutters come in a round semi circular section and square box gutters. Two sizes are available in both the round and square section and the size you chose is dependent on the roof area that will flow into it. Don’t underestimate how many cats and dogs will fall out of the sky in a particularly fertile wet season. You should also make sure the downpipe can take a full sized cat. A technical point. Round gutters and round pipes such as sewers are known as “self cleaning”. It works like this - as the amount of water flowing decreases it falls to a lower level and is concentrated in a smaller width in the pipe, the cross section of flow reduces so the speed of flow down the pipe or gutter is maintained thereby helping to wash things away. In a flat bottomed gutter this is not the case. As the amount of water flowing falls it still has to fill the same width of gutter so the speed of flow drops and anything being washed down falls to the bottom and is left. The Victorians understood this principle well when building sewerage systems in Britain. Having said this I would always recommend the square box section gutter for use in Bali. Why? Because you can get good brackets for them. The brackets for box section gutters are good solid plastic that hold the gutter firmly in place and can take a reasonable load. The brackets for round gutters, on the other hand, are flimsy sheet steel. They rust immediately so they quickly look a mess. Worse they bend very easily so one dose of cats and dogs and your gutters sag in the middle and the water doesn’t drain away properly. You may be interested to know that round gutters are being heavily promoted by the “Denpasar Save The Mosquito Society”. You also need enough brackets. The Indonesian habit of “saving a bit of money for my poor old mum” means that local contractors will agree to put up a gutter but leave out most of the brackets only putting enough brackets up to hold the thing in dry weather. Cats and dogs, and water for
‘How dare you?’ snarled teenage Greta Thunberg to
The Acne Guide To Removing Cats and Dogs From Your Roof the world at large when she spoke at the United Nations
Climate Action Summit in New York last year and proceeded to castigate present generations for failing
to protect and safeguard a safe and eco-friendly future that matter, are very heavy. You must insist that brackets
for people of her generation; for allowing climate
change to go beyond easy repair; for sitting on our are placed as close as 60 cms apart (ok, ok, two feet to duffs while whole eco-systems disappeared and you imperialists, why don’t you get a life, a metric one that vulnerable species became threatened with mass extinction. is, join the real world....... I do like the inch though. It is Greta has a point. However she overlooks the fact that all such well proportioned thing isn’t it. Even it’s name has a these dire consequences and calamities in progress started rather nice ring to it. I don’t really like centimetres very earlier than the generation of the Baby Boomers, which is much, in fact I hate the horrible little things but we must now practically the oldest living generation at whose feet she can lay blame. Perhaps it’s a moot point and she has a move on. I stopped using a bone to bang in a nail a long right to throw it in our faces as the Boomers as a collective time ago.) entity became the ‘force majeure’ that failed to stop the inevitable downward spiral of our current ecological condition. Individually we experienced the beginnings of You must plan the slope of a gutter along with the an emerging awareness in the 1970s when the Age of placement of downpipes. A slope of 1% to 2% is fine (as Aquarius dawned. That’s why some of us created a few long as you have enough brackets to keep it firmly in bandwagons like the Green Movement, the Harmony and Understanding Communes, the organic farming collectives, etc. place) and again enough downpipes to suit the area of roof being drained. We were so busy liberating ourselves from the constraints of the 50s and 60s ‘old’ morality and mentality and so caught up in trying to create a new, i.e. more spiritual, world You might consider doing the island a favour by not putting paradigm alongside our technological accomplishments your rainwater into the drains but instead returning it to that we lost sight of the lurking dangers to our eco-systems. As the years passed and we grew up and moved into the the water table either through a soak pit or an old well. It next phases of our mature lives, we had a chance to vote is clean, fresh, sterile water after all. Believe it or not if into power those that could have made a difference. Alas, development continues at it’s present pace Bali will have politics being what they are and combined with individual greed for power and wealth - and collective apathy - it a water shortage in the not too distant future. seems to be always a matter of compromise, accommodation, negotiation, concession, finding middle A final word of advice, paint your plastic gutters, brackets ground and conceding to lesser goals. So the good, the green and the social causes frequently had to go to the wall and downpipes. Ultra violet light from the sun damages and cede the way to politically appeasing issues for the the plastic. You may see that old pipes can become faded electorate. The pocketbook of the constituent is a mighty and the plastic brittle when exposed continually to influencer and the causes benefitting nature, the environment and the social good are always more sunlight. The grey plastic has a pigment in it to protect it expensive and tend to get shunted to the advantage of from UV but the sun is intense here and you will extend lower taxes, the mirage of universal employment and the life of the plastic if you paint it. continued industrial and technological progress. We still see plenty of that in action all over the world. And Now where did I put that evil spirit? we should not be proud that our laissez faire-laissez aller attitudes led us to these dire results. Yes, Greta, we hear you. And we admire your spunk and audacity even as we Phil Wilson think you’re a bit over the top when you accuse us of stealing your childhood. We also hear the very veiled but implicit criticism that we do not deserve to survive because of what we, collectively, have done to your home planet. It is indeed cringe worthy. Even more so when we contemplate what we leave behind for our children and future generations. Previous “Fixed Abode” articles can be found subject indexed on our website at www.mrfixitbali.com. Opinions expressed are those of Phil Wilson. He can be contacted Does Humanity Deserve to Survive? Whether our home through the website or the planet can be saved is one of the salient questions. office on 0361 288 789 or Piggybacking on that is the question whether humanity 08123 847 852. Copyright © 2020 Phil Wilson You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
deserves to survive. That implies the idea that, if we do not deserve to survive as a human race, we automatically assume that our children and other future generations will continue our business as usual mentality and are therefore also not worthy to survive. That’s grossly unfair to Greta and other likeminded waifs. But we need to let this young generation show their mettle and give them a chance to step in where we left off. Yes, it’s getting us off the hook in a way but blaming us falls short of letting us help with solutions. I am reminded of my old boss whose favourite saying was ‘Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.’ Boomers, Millennials, Gen-Xrs and whatever other denominals still to come, can work collectively to formulate solutions and enact them. Some may be simple, others farfetched but one thing stares us in the face: it is past midnight and the glass shoe has shattered because not one solution will fit all. What we’re doing and not doing will determine how and if we survive. Paying for the future. Since governments are always notoriously short of money because they’re spending it in all the wrong places, we need to look in another direction to augment the financial wherewithal to finance big projects like combating climate change, preserving the world’s natural forests, cleaning up our oceans and planet. Governments will always claim they are short of money for these ambitious projects, but the world’s billionaires aren’t. They have so much money they and their heirs can never spend it all. ‘Billions and billions of stars’ said the late Carl Sagan, ‘so many we can never explore them all’. That’s how you can view the collective wealth of the world’s billionaires. Emulating Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, other altruistic Midases are already funding projects to benefit humanity with mega bucks. Ben Delo, a British mathematician and founder of the crypto currency trading company BitMEX has pledged to give over half of his fortune away to ‘fund work to safeguard future generations and protect the long-term
Can the World’s Billionaires Save our Planet? prospects of humanity including mitigating risks that could spell the end of humanity or permanently curtail our potential’. Delo’s focus is rather unique as he is concentrating his largesse on projects that will benefit future generations rather than the ones alive now because he believes too few people are looking out for the interests of future generations. Mr. Delo’s generosity is targeting projects and organizations that are actively involved in improving life on Earth for the children of the future, the billions of people yet to be born; to ensure the human race is still around in 100, 500, even 10,000 years. Barring any rogue government stupidity or terrorist act resulting in whole scale annihilation of the planet, Earth could remain habitable for 600 to 800 million years more so there could be about 7 million future generations to care for. Ben Delo thinks that the youngest generation feels disenfranchised even though a vast and exciting future lies ahead for them if they can navigate the challenges and opportunities posed by new technologies in the upcoming century. ‘In order to safeguard that extraordinary future for our descendants’, he says, ‘we must act now because we are at a critical moment to do so. We’ve never been in this position before: with the power to destroy the future, but not necessarily the wisdom to wield that power responsibly.’ In order for our current civilisation to survive, says Delo, we need to plan beyond our own lifetimes, we need to work together and take action to reduce the risk from specific dangers and catastrophic global threats like natural pandemics or activities that can cause or accelerate human extinction, nuclear war, extreme climate change, synthetic biology (think biological weapons) or preparing for dangers that don’t yet exist such as metamorphic AI and its big risks of potential misuse. Humanity is facing far too many risks in this turbulent and transformative period in our history. Now is the time to start to mitigate them and think about the long-term challenges we face as a species and think about the long term future of the world. Putting his money where his mouth is, Delo so far has funded research into the prevention of nuclear wars and pandemic diseases as well as academic research into shaping the very long-term future. A lot can be done to protect future generations from the stupidity of our generation’s actions but it is high time to get on with it and for all living generations to work together to create some realistic and far reaching consequences. If we cannot get official governments to take decisive action, we need to look to the billionaire philanthropists to step up to the plate. There is no consensus on when or if the Age of Aquarius has made its debut but all agree that its length will be around 2,160 years. If we want to experience some of that we do need to turn the cart around now. Greta, go meet Mr. Delo.
By Ines Wynn
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