05-Feb-2024, The bamboo course has officially ended, but I am determined to finish the job on “my” bamboo house. Perhaps one more week would be enough to finish everything?

Natalie welcomes me to come back and finish the job in the week after the course. But as it turns out, Made and Bapak (the older gentleman that has also been helping us a lot) are no longer available, they have other projects to attend to. From now on, it will only Dul and me working on the house. Not having Made and Bapak around (both experienced builders) the speed of building will significantly decrease. Dul is an apprentice himself and I have even less experience with bamboo. Luckily, I do have lots of experience with building and renovating houses so I am not too worried to tackle the rest of the job myself. I will do my best to finish as much as I can and to gain more experience in building. At this point I will just be cheap labor to finish the house, but that is perfectly fine for me. It is a win-win situation as I am getting joy out of building and Natali gets a finished project.

This fourth week is not a full work-week though, I have much more stuff going. On Tuesday-morning I pay a visit to the Yamaha dealer for my very first bike-service. After waiting for more than six months, my brand-new 155CC Yamaha Aerox bike has arrived (end of December) and I am absolutely loving it. It looks cool and sporty, the bike is very comfortable and fast on long distances. Ayu picked me up at the dealer and we went for breakfast and had some great coffee and a delicious croissant.

On Wednesday afternoon I am paying a visit to the immigration office to pick up my passport. I had to apply for a visa extension because my first 30-days on the VOA (Visa On Arrival) were soon to be finished. The extension has been such a hassle with three visits to the immigration office. First visit is to apply for the extension, second to provide biometric details and the third visit is to pick up the passport with the new visa. Next time I will either get an agent to do it or apply for the 60-day visa. Both options are more expensive but worth it to safe all the hassle.

Then on Friday I have a flight back to Europe. So we only have; a full day on Monday, a half day on Tuesday, a half day on Wednesday and Thursday to wrap up the work on the bamboos house.

Monday – Dul and I are working the entire day on finishing the rafters of the roof. It has been a real challenge for the both of us. We are lacking the experience to tackle certain problems we encounter. The biggest challenge is getting a good match in opposing bamboo poles on the wavering (the tip) of the roof. We want the diameter of the poles to match in order to get a smooth line on the ridge of the roof.

At the end of the day, Made is kind enough to help us for a couple of hours and we were able to finish all the rafters. Thanks to Made and Bapak, we smashed out the second waiver of the roof like it was nothing and I was pleased with the end-result. It turns out to be much prettier than expected. I cannot wait to get the actual roofing done.

Tuesday ­– With all the rafters installed, we are joining the ends of the bamboo poles together with another (small) bundle of Lidi. We set out the position of the Lidi, drill a hole, drive a bamboo pin in and tie it off with black rope. The excess part of the bamboo is cut off and we have one rafter finished. Sounds easy enough, but we have to do this for all 48 of them. To make it even more challenging, not all rafters are easy to reach and sometimes I must squeeze myself in awkward positions or hang off the side of the scaffolding. It requires a certain strength and confidence to do so but I have always enjoyed climbing and I am not bad at it either, so this helps a lot. It’s a good thing we don’t have Health & Safety on this site either. Not a chance that this way of working would pass any regulations in the Western world.

Wednesday – Making more Lidi’s on the rafters and yet again I underestimated all the work it entails. I was hoping to finish the Lidi’s yesterday but even at the end of today we are not finished. The roping of the bamboo is tedious work and the rope itself is very rough and easily cuts the fingers. Although I am wearing gloves, my hands are full of blisters. The reason to use a rough rope like this is, is because it has a very good grip on the bamboo, but it is hell to work with and to get a proper knot in.

Every now and then we take a break from all this tedious rope-work, and we work on something else. The long arches at the entrance and back of the little house still have to be made as well. After doing some basic arches in the course, I was pretty confident Dul and I could do this in no-time. But the fact of the matter is that it is giving me quite some stress to get it right. Basically, I had to figure this out with Dul -two inexperienced bamboo-builders- and this was some next-level stuff. Made was around to answer questions, but that was all he was able to do; answer questions. Cutting the fishmouth at the top of the building is very difficult and I struggled to get the size and angle of the joint right. I was hoping to do all four today. But yet again I underestimate the work and process, and I couldn’t quite get it right. At the end of the day I managed to install one, and it isn’t my prettiest work. But on the bright side; at least I finished one.

Thursday – After another two hours of work, we finally finish installing the Lidi on the end of the rafters. I am relieved to have this part of the roof completed. This being the last day I was I am a bit bumped out because we still didn’t finish the work. Especially since I will be away for about six weeks or more.

I have been talking to Natalie and she agrees that I can come back in six weeks to finish the job. I will probably have to do it all by myself, but that’s fine by me. I would be happy to finish this project at some point at least. For now, we install a big tarp over the roof to protect it for the coming weeks. Especially because it is rainy season, we don’t want the bamboo to get too wet every time. Nobody will be working on it anyway because everybody will be busy doing other projects.

To show my gratitude to the team for the last four weeks, I took them out for lunch in a nearby Warung. Just a simple outdoor ‘restaurant’. The place is very basic where they prepare the food, but it tasted good and everybody is full and satisfied. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the team, but I will see them again. For now, we say our goodbyes and until we meet again.

Friday – I have a flight scheduled in the evening with KLM back to Amsterdam. I will travel to Europe for a family weekend and for a few projects. Today is finally the day I can recover from the busy weeks and I could finally do a gym class today since a long time. Doing a CrossFit class is a good way to wear me down before the flight so hopefully I can get some sleep. A message popped up on my phone, saying I can check in online for the flight. Turns out there is a pretty good deal on an upgrade to business class. After many, many economy flights, I decided to treat myself this time and take the upgrade. Maybe it was the endorphins still working from the gym-session. But anyway, the payment is a success and I guess I am flying business class home this time. This is awesome and I have no regrets!

For business class passengers; there is no waiting line at the check-in; we can enjoy free food and drinks in the lounge; no waiting line when boarding the plan; large comfortable seating with lots of space in the plane itself; excellent food; a nice KLM gift (Little Dutch house); personal greeting by name; and most importantly the seat can go all the way down into a flatbed! This was the best part of the experience. It is nice to get some decent sleep on the plane. I enjoyed the flight very much, better not get used to this or I’ll burn a hole in my wallet.

To close this story I will share another time lapse video of the bamboo house:

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