The time is finally here, something I have been looking forward to for many weeks. As long as I can remember I am fascinated by bamboo buildings here in the Eastern part of the world. We do not have a lot of bamboo buildings in the West, but there is an abundance of bamboo structures here in Bali. Moreover, I am always into learning new things and acquiring new skills, on top of that I am a very hands-on person and I like to create and build my own things. When we put all of this together, it only makes sense I would take on a course on how to build with bamboo. I signed up for a practical course at bamboo creative in Belega, about 30 minutes north of my own place in Sanur. It is only(!) a three weeks course, facilitated by an Australian lady who knows a thing or two about the subject.

On the first day of the course, we dive straight into the practical basics; how to handle the knife and how make certain cuts into the bamboo, using the knife, a chisel and handsaw. The teacher makes cutting into bamboo look really easy, but the reality for a beginner is very different. It was difficult, although you don’t need to have a lot of strength, you just need to find the correct angle and apply the right amount of pressure. After a several days I was still struggling to get the right technique, but I did see the improvement already. As they say, practice makes perfect so I kept my practice going. The very first assignment is to make a hole in the bamboo and precisely fit another piece into that hole.

We learned how to treat the bamboo (only in theory though), and how to clean the nodes of the bamboo. Then one of the most important aspects of a building of any kind; big or small, are the joints. We practiced several methods with one of the most common one being the fish-mouth. Other applications include splitting the bamboo and smashing the bamboo flat, which is often used in walls and flooring. Finally, we learned on how to bend a bamboo pool, this will enable us to make beautiful round structure in a bamboo building without losing too much strength and integrity

In the first half of this week, we applied all these techniques and new learnings by building a large bookcase. It was fun and very meaningful in my learning. It was not easy but I am very pleased with the end-result. I could not have done it without my teacher though, his name is Made and he is very patient and good at explaining things. Everybody knows that you start with the basics when you want to acquire new skills and you start small. But even before finishing the bookshelf, I realized that making bamboo furniture is not passion. I want to build something bigger than that, I want to construct a building (even if it’s a small one). After all that is my goal in this course. Nonetheless building the bookcase was essential in my learning.

The second part of the week, together with my teacher, I made some designs on paper. I had a particular roof in mind, one that arches up and into a point at the top. To put our ideas into reality, every new building starts with the build of a scaled model. The details of the model are important as well, including on where certain bamboo poles meet and are joined together. The model will be an exact replica of the real thing. The model will also be used to measure certain distances and transform it into the real-life building. We choose a relatively small floor plan; only 2 x 2,5 meter. With a room height of 3 meter. At first we were not sure on how big the roof would turn out to be and it was the model itself that eventually showed us. The final result of the roof will end up with a height of 5-meter. It will be 6 meter long and 4,5 meter wide. It’s safe to say that this is a massive roof!

By the end of the week the model is finished and I am very, very excited on the next steps;

We are going to turn this model into an actual life size building! How exciting is this!😀

As of this day I do not have any future plans of building my very own bamboo house, but learning these skills is never wasted. Who knows, one day I might end up building my own bamboo house. And I can’t wait to start working on this building, my very first one. I am especially excited to build that beautiful arched roof. No doubt it’s going to be a lot of work but it will be great for my learning process.

Finishing the model marks the end of the first week (6 days), but if this wasn’t enough activity for the week, I also participated in a Padel-tournament on Saturday evening and hiked a mountain on Sunday with Ayu.

I joined the Padel tournament with some friends and it was a lot of fun and social event. I Ran into familiar faces and met new people (also Dutch). Putri (my partner in the tournament) and I we won the first match but lost the second. Unfortunately, this meant the end of the tournament for us but it was a fun experience. Given that I have only played a handful of times and other teams were way more experienced, I think we did very well. And we did our best and we had fun, this is all that matters at the end of the day.

For the hike on Sunday, I got up at 4 am, picked up Ayu and drove for 90 minutes on the bike to the foot of Mount Abang. Mt. Abang is 2100 meter tall and it took us about three hours to get to the top. It is a very beautiful but steep hike and mostly through the forest. The forest is beautiful and housed some very interesting species of plants and trees; ones that I had never seen. As we came closer to the top, the fog was setting in, making the whole trip and experience a bit spooky and special. The weather is a lot cooler and more pleasant than expected and the trees provided lots of shades, thus making the experience very pleasurable. The view at the top is absolutely astounding and worth the hike. It took us another three hours to go down. It is not uncommon for Ayu to get painful knees on the way down, as it is very straining for the knees. So we took our time, better safe than sorry as they say. After the long, tiring (but Beautiful and worthwhile) hike we treated ourselves on coffee with a panoramic view on Mt. Abang and the famous Mt Batur, but this was not all. This area is famous for their natural hot springs so before driving back to Sanur, we treated ourselves once more. We emerged ourselves in the hot water and our tired muscles could finally fully relaxing in the hot water. Just sitting in the hot water doing nothing for an hour was absolute bliss. We could not have ended this great adventure any better. The drive back to Sanur was about two hours and after having dinner together I arrived home around 9pm. I was exhausted but very satisfied. I tidied up my stuff and hurried to bed. The next day the second week of the bamboo course is starting. Before closing this post, here are a whole bunch of photo’s of the hike:

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