We were hoping to start work on the pool in May but the holy month and travel restrictions mean it has to be put off until June.
We have decided to go with Sukabumi Green stone tiles for the floor and walls with cream coloured limestone around the top.
Sukabumi Stone can only be found in one place in the world – the Sukabumi regency of West Java. It is incredibly cheap to buy in Indonesia yet sells for hundreds of dollars a square metre overseas. It is stunning to look at and is often used in swimming pools in swanky Balinese resorts.
As well as being non slip, Sukabumi stone contains a mineral called zeolites that are highly effective in reducing levels of ammonium in water. Zeolites also absorb heavy metals that can build up in pools, such as calcium, magnesium and phosphates.
It’s one of those moments where we have been able to source something locally that is going to look totally unique.
We’ve also decided to build one side of the pool around a beautiful old frangipani tree that was planted by the landlord’s grandfather when he first bought the property.
Leaves will most likely be a small issue but we have enough people on hand to attend to that and the frangipani flowers, with the house behind, will look spectacular.
The process of building a swimming pool in Indonesia is really something to see.
There is no prefabricated fibreglass shell to simply drop into place – it is all built from scratch.
No less than a dozen young tukang start digging out the pool by hand. It is soft volcanic soil and the hole has already been partly dug out by an earlier team to build up the soil in our gardens. But it will be 11 metres long and 6 metres wide by the time it’s finished and 1.8 metres deep at one end. About 100 cubic metes of earth to be moved in all.
Next a wall of concrete bricks is laid around the inside perimeter, a section of which collapses three times, almost taking a number of tukang with it. Later a retaining wall of timber sheets will be made up to hold the newly poured cement walls in place.
But first a concrete floor needs to be laid with channels formed to accommodate lengths of reinforced steel ribbing.
The ribbing can possibly be bought pre-formed in other parts of Indonesia but here every length needs to be formed by hand.
Each bend in the steel is created by placing the desired length of steel rod on a piece of timber which has two heavy screws drilled into it about a centimetre apart. Every piece of steel is then bent into shape by hand and then cut to the appropriate size.
The whole process takes a number of days to complete. It would be much quicker to buy them pre-formed but labour here is cheap and the forming can be done with the simplest of materials.
With the steel reinforcing in place it is time to pour the cement walls and floor.
The company who are in charge of the build are a highly regarded Balinese firm who are professionals to the end. But the pouring of the walls is like watching something straight out of vaudeville.
Corrugated iron sheets propped up on make-shift timber crosses form the pouring chute which needs to be picked up and redirected around the walls and floor as the pour progresses.
No simple task for such an unwieldly apparatus!
A pair of portable cement mixers then chug away for the next couple days as one team of tukang add cement and water, another manage the movement of cement along the chute and yet another team guide and spread the cement across the floor of the pool and in behind the retaining walls.
The end result is surpisingly neat.
Half the tukang finish up at this point as all that remains to do now is the tiling and fitting off the electric pump.
It will take a number of days for the for the concrete to set so a couple of tukang get to work cutting the Green Sukabumi tiles into 20cm squares.
25 tiles to the square metre. The pool floor alone is about 66 square metres not including the stairs. The walls add up to 55 square metres give or take.
About 3000 tiles.
It takes two of them the better part of two weeks to cut all the tiles to size. The buzz of the cutting wheels is incessant and one of our neighbours complains more than once about the noise and the dust.
Indeed a layer of dust settles over most of the new house and its going to take a major effort to remove.
The guesthouse has now been closed nearly five months and with the pool almost complete, I’m starting to think about whether we should open a couple of rooms and test domestic demand.
Bali was preparing to reopen to international tourists in September but the outbreak in Surabaya has worsened and case numbers are surging throughout Java.
Dewi is sceptical at first but I don’t think it will be too hard to manage.
Firstly, mask wearing is mandatory as are guest temperature checks on arrival.
You are not allowed to enter the guesthouse and need to get tested immediately if your temperature is over 37’C.
It is very unlikely we would ever have a full house so little risk of guests not being able to social distance from each other.
There is very little reason for staff to spend any but the briefest amount of time in the guesthouse while guests are staying.
Our side and rear terraces are vast spaces so no problem for social distancing between staff and guests.
Dewi and I can stay far away if we wish, in our house on the far northern wing of the property.
There are four rooms inside the guesthouse with a further two rooms outside, overlooking the rear terrace.
Very simple for Rini and Hani, Ian and Fajar to move to the outside rooms and we can reactivate our listings for the rooms inside the guesthouse.
By late August the pool is finished, we have moved into the new house and we are ready for a trial reopening.
