News Archives

Launching of the 2013 Buffalo races season!

13 May 2013/in News, West Bali

Jembrana’s Buffalo races are one of the major attractions in West Bali. This tradition takes place only during dry season. The racing buffaloes, called Kerbau Pepadu, and their carts have been carefully decorated for weeks by farmers. Wearing silk banners and wooden bells, and having their horns painted, buffaloes will have to face a 2 kilometers race. Competitors are divided in two groups coming from opposite sides of the river. They are easily recognizable: North river group wearing red colors and South river group wearing green ones. Farmers come to race for honor, pride and the trophy, rather than for money. Thus it is both a colorful show and an exciting competition that can gather more than 240 pairs of buffaloes. The opening race will take place on July 28th!

N°	Date	Venue
1	July 28^th, 2013	Kaliakah
2	August 11^th, 2013	Mertasari (Regent Cup)
3	August 25^th, 2013	Pangkung Dalem
4	September 8^th, 2013	Delod Berawah
5	September 22^th, 2013	Awen
6	October 6^th, 2013	Merta Sari
7	October 20^th, 2013	Kali Akah
8	November 10^th, 2013	Delod Berawah
9	November 24^th, 2013	Tuwed (Jembrana Cup)

Dajuma’s trainees

6 May 2013/in Dajuma, News, People

Every spring, Puri Dajuma supports the local school of tourism by welcoming 10 trainees willing to experience a 10 day assignment in our resort. Lately, Budiman, our maintenance supervisor, showed Imam how to replace a pool light. Imam was very excited about this “hands-on” experience which is constantly reported by the participants as being very helpful to illustrate practically the subjects taught at school. No doubt that this kind of experience either confirms or clarifies one’s vocation in the hospitality business. In all cases, we wish them all the best and invite them to apply for open positions in Dajuma’s team.

Corporate seminar at Dajuma

29 April 2013/in Dajuma, News, West Bali

Puri Dajuma had the pleasure to host the TÜV Nord Asia Pacific Regional Manager’s gathering of a world leader of inspection and certification services company. Our Baruna hall is the perfect location to carry out a management conference. Completely isolated from the rest of the resort on the last floor of our main building, it offers a 360 degree breathtaking view to the tropical garden and the ocean. This wall-less room is completely protected from the rain and can accommodate up to 28 persons. All the necessary tools and equipment to make fruitful brainstormed decisions in a relaxing and inspiring environment are available : WiFi, beamer, screen, white board and flip chart. Puri Dajuma can also contribute promoting corporate identities through logo printed welcome banners and flags. On the day following the work session, the delegates had a sightseeing tour in West Bali and went snorkeling in Bali’s best coral reef. They then had a farewell dinner with traditional Balinese music and dance. All were delighted and many commented there was no better way to develop team building. Please contact us so that we can tailor for you and for your team a unique and memorable corporate seminar.

Great emotion at Puri Dajuma: Yulia gets married!

22 April 2013/in News, People

All Dajuma staff is happy to be around Yulia for her wedding. You may remember her as “Miss beauty” as many guests use to call our pretty receptionist. Yulia grew up in Pekutatan, near Puri Dajuma, and remembers how, at age 11, she came to get brochures for an exercise at school: “I was very shy at that time. As I already had family members who were working there, I applied”. She’s just got married to Wahid Zainullah, a nice young man also from the village of Pekutatan. After 3 years spent with us, Yulia decided to resign and fully dedicate herself to her family. We wish her a lot of happiness and many “baby beauties”. We already miss her charming smile.

Yoga

15 April 2013/in Dajuma, News

Dajuma Yoga and Mindfulness, not only for our guests but also for our staff !
Dajuma has been offering yoga sessions since 2011. Tini, our Yoga teacher, has a 13 year experience in Ashtana Yoga practice (alignment of movement and breath). She proposes our guests 2 public sessions per day at 8am or 9am. Private sessions are also possible on demand. Yoga sessions take place either on Dajuma front beach garden or in our Baruna hall where up to 15 people can relax from a 4-sided open building offering a breathtaking view to the garden and ocean. To ensure leading edge expertise in our yoga sessions, we invite twice a year Guru Manohara who gently leads the group and provides every participant with a unique experience. Also, since yoga is not that popular in Bali, we invite our staff to join once every week. This is a great opportunity to be together in a rather different atmosphere than the usual work context. Make sure you have a yoga session with Tini whenever you wish to!

Dajuma temple festival

8 April 2013/in Dajuma, News, West Bali

Besides Nyepi related ceremonies dealing with, if you well remember, 3 main rituals: purification of Hindu bodies and souls, chasing of demons, and silent and peaceful introspection, there is the so-called temple festival locally known as the “Odala ritual”. This stands for the anniversary of the temples built after a new land has been found or the ancestral shrines every family owns. This anniversary takes place every 210 days, on new moon or full moon, and is carried out with all the well known Bali’s artistic inputs with dancers, offerings, colorful paintings and decorations made of coconut, bambu and banana trees as well as umbrellas and long flags (“umbul-umbul”).
This year, Dajuma’s Temple Festival coincided with the purification ceremony to protect each building built on Dajuma land. This festival happens usually within the first year of the inauguration of a new land. But since the beginning we knew that we were going to have several stages of development and it was decided to wait for their completion before organizing the ceremony. This 3 day ceremony requires to sacrify for Gods: one Lamb, one Pig, one Dog, Ducks and Chickens. All black. No body knows the reason but we can tell you that it took them 1 month to find the pure black Lamb. The sacrificed animals were taken to the ocean by traditional “Praho”. Once back to the shore, people pray together and dance back to the main Temple. The priest then closes the ceremony and speaks on behalf of the Gods who express their thanks about the offerings and their happiness to be together with the spirits living at Dajuma. He advises the employees to carry on doing small offerings on a daily basis. A final common praying session takes place and gives the floor to musicians and dancers who stay late in the evening to entertain employees, Gods and spirits.
The next morning, all Dajuma holy symbols of Gods are put back in their home “Dajuma Temple”. This year festival did not leave anyone indifferent. Just memorable !

Nyepi ritual

2 April 2013/in Dajuma, News, West Bali

This is our 3rd and last blog post on Nyepi ritual. As you may remember, Nyepi stands for one of the most important Hindu ceremony in Bali not only to purify everyone’s soul and body but also to chase away demons and bad feelings while restoring the cosmic balance that is disrupted by man’s greed in exploiting the earth. After the effigies of demons, the so-called Ogoh-Ogoh, are put to fire, everyone takes time for introspection. To do so, four main principles are put in practice:
Amati karya: refraining from working.
Amati geni: refraining from lighting fire or using light.
Amati Lelugan: not going Outside the family compound.
Amati leleanguan: refraining from indulgences.
The entire island is shut down, including the airport, so that no plane lands or takes off on that day. Roads are completely desert. Only for question of life or death, ambulances, police or fire trucks will be alowed to take the road.
At Dajuma, our on duty staff will either come and go back by walk or sleep at the premises. The Pecalang (Religious Police) discretely monitors if the principles are observed. Several expat come from downtown Bali to escape and all guests appreciate this moment of serenity. One can ask himself: what are 24 hours of silence in a human life?
Come and experience next Nyepi on Monday, March 31st 2014!

Ogoh-Ogoh

25 March 2013/in News, West Bali

A month or so before the D-Day, every village prepares demonic effigies made of papier-mâché and bamboo called ogoh-ogoh. Those are taken by hand to the main island cross sections where they are put to fire while others make noise and play music to chase away the demons for another year. As Dajuma’s staff comes from 2 villages, there is a kind of soft competition between them by which people are selected to carry the best Ogoh-Ogoh in the area.

Melasti Ritual

18 March 2013/in Dajuma, News, West Bali

Bali is well known for the importance of the Hindu religion which is part of everyone’s life in the island. As such, rituals are common in Bali and some of them keep Balinese people busy in a way that looks very unusual to foreigners. This is why we thought it might be of interest to our readers to get a better insight into one of these : Nyepi (silence day). This consists in a series of rituals that will be described in the next three blog posts. The first one is Melasti Ritual, 4 days before Nyepi. It is dedicated to Sanghyang Widhi Wasa, the “All-In-One God” or supreme god of Indonesian Hinduism, a term invented in the 1930s by Christian missionaries to describe the Christian god to the Balinese. Thousands of white dressed Hindu people bring all the ceremonies equipment and the symbol of gods (spears, banners, statues, …) to the sea or other water sources that are believed by Hindus as a place to purify everyone’s heart or soul and all other elements in the universe. Melasti’s ceremony is supposed to keep people and things away from bad influences. Dajuma’s team went to the village temple together with 3000 people in the morning. Later in the afternoon, our team carried out the same smaller scale ceremony in Dajuma’s sea temple. The next couple of days, all the community will be busy preparing more offerings for rituals. Next week, we shall explain Ogoh-Ogoh, the evening before Nyepi or Silent day.

ITB: Dajuma in Berlin!

11 March 2013/in Dajuma, ITB, News

Every year in March, takes place in Berlin, the world leading travel trade show. The 2013 edition was scheduled from March 6th to 10th. and Indonesia was the official partner country. This year, for the first time, the International fair was opened by Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel and by H.E. Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of the Republic of Indonesia. 8 million people visited Indonesia in 2012. About 120 exhibitors represented Indonesia during ITB 2013. Dajuma has been participating since 2002. Every year, ITB offers new opportunities to promote Dajuma and to meet travel agents who search for exclusive and very unique resorts for their guests, faraway from Bali crowded South. 10 thousand kilometers from our peaceful Pekutatan, Puri Dajuma is proud to support his great team by sharing in ITB Dajuma’s breakthrough in its world class hospitality services with its historical and new partners!

Puri Dajuma Beach ☆☆☆☆