In Bali’s burgeoning elite residential communities from Berawa westwards, options for shopping and dining are very sparse. Villa dwellers out west face a half-hour drive on the highway to hell if they want a decent meal, an evening out, or a spot of shopping. That’s all about to change, with the arrival of Sea Sentosa, a new project now under way between Batu Bolong and Batu Mejan surf beaches.
Following on the success of their villas and spa in Seminyak, local lifestyle brand, Sentosa is branching out with this mixed-use development in Canggu, combining restaurant, club, retail and residential elements. Multi-storey villa-apartment buildings will be blended with low-rise retail and lifestyle venues. But don’t freak out about high-rises marring the landscape just yet. Vertical gardens, like those at the Musée du Quai Branly will cloak the taller structures of Sea Sentosa, making more green surface area than the green fields which the buildings will replace.
Word on the street is that 40 units of retail-lifestyle space are for lease. Grocer & Grind is rumoured to be one of the first to sign pre-lease papers, and I expect we’ll see a Periplus bookshop, along with all the usual suspects. Think Seminyak reloaded (but edited). I see a Milo’s boutique and a Surfer Girl shop, a florist and and wine merchant in my crystal ball. If a Cempaka or a Vinoti Living pops up, I for one, will not be shocked by it. Maybe a Blue Glue, too.
Beachside features at Sea Sentosa will include a restaurant/club modeled on the likes of KuDeTa and La Lucciola, with two infinity pools. I expect there will be something rooftop, too, plus a spa and health club.
Don’t for one second think this is just island gossip and rumour. I’ve seen progress on the project myself on morning mountain bike rides. It’s happening, and here are some photos to prove it (above, below), courtesy of “De Tom“. Based on my observations of the initial phase of construction and marketing, this looks like a serious, quality operation. Like the Sentosa in Seminyak, it’s already obvious that Sea Sentosa will be well-managed from ground-breaking to completion and beyond, and with financials that make good investment sense.
Still, I’m sure some of the bumpy, grumpy, and frumpy regulars at a particularly popular beach café nearby are grumbling and cussing into their Bintangs. And I expect surfers are feeling edgy about Sea Sentosa, too. Bruno and I, like many Canggu, Pererenan, Cemagi and Seseh dwellers, don’t know whether to laugh or cry or applaud or run for higher ground. Personally, when there’s a choice, I prefer to laugh and applaud.
If change is coming to the Canggu area, at least it’s being brought here by professionals with a proven track record, whose previous projects haven’t been at all horrifying – – quite the opposite. Sentosa in Seminyak is “fun”. The master plan and landscaping are very good indeed, and the place feels sane, solid and pretty stylish, without being an eyesore. The development mind behind Sentosa, Saxon Looker (pictured above), is a man who professes an interest in quality and design. He’s brought in energetic creatives for Sea Sentosa and is giving them free rein. Sounds ok to me.
P.S. The offices of the Yak magazine have also moved to Canggu. Change is coming, let’s see what we can do to make it as positive as possible.
after scanning the website, there are no pictures to be found of the actual project in the way of artist renderings. we\'d really like to see some more concept images please
Some changes are good, I think this is a positive for the area, however, I do wonder about the night club!! specially when we live on Batu Majan, less than 200 metres from the site, the noise could be a problem. Certainly going to increase real estate prices, which is great for home & land owners of the area. As long as its not a trashy development as we have all seen on so many parts of the island. The great attraction of this area at Echo Beach, its really paradise and so laid back, just hope this doesnt change and we dont all loose our sea views!!
I wonder about the nightclub also. On quiet nights, we can actually hear KuDeTa all the way out in Pererenan (carries over the sea). I expect the Sentosa club will also produce bass beats that travel far. On the other hand, the authorities in Bali are being much more vigilant about noise issues. I certainly don't expect it to be a trashy development. I anticipate that it will be even more stylish and successful than the Sentosa in Seminyak, and just as professional. The laid back nature of Echo Beach is changing already, and I expect it won't last much longer. When the new highway is built it will pass quite close to Echo Beach, and this will surely pump up the pace of change. All indications are that it indeed will be built, and I predict most or all sections of this highway will be done by 2015. BTW, if you are 200 meters from Batu Mejan, then you are going to be very close to the highway, I expect. The highway noise may be more of an issue than nightclub noise. I used to live 200 meters from KuDeTa (inland), and the noise was very rarely discernible at my house. It's designed not to travel inland. The SeaSentosa situation may be similar. Personally, I will welcome some retail and restaurant outlets in the neighbourhood. It is tedious and wasteful to have to go all the way to Kerobokan/Seminyak/etc by car all the time.
All beach development is bad. The beach and the ocean are our most precious resource. Whether the Sea Sentosa will be built in good or bad taste, we must leave the ocean alone. We have a choice in this, no matter what the fatalists say. Is shopping and drinking your champagne with your gaudy friends so important that you are willing to embrace traffic. pollution, noise, environmental destruction, and beach erosion which will destroy the waves that Echo beach was founded and made famous? DOES BALI NEED THIS??? Lets build things that attract humble soulful people interested in actually experiencing Bali, an island so unique to the world that it should have been named a World Heritage Site. Lets stop trumpeting EXCLUSIVE this and that. How about INCLUSIVE projects? After all, we westerners travelled a long way to discover the beauty of Bali....namely its culture, greenery and pristine beaches....and not feel like we are in some bad Miamish nightmare. I wish all we had to worry about was global warming.
Hi Alejandro, Some very good points, and very good questions. Thanks for posting them. I'm proud to be able to share your thoughts here with other followers of this blog. I like especially the point about "exclusive" vs "inclusive" projects. It's worth mentioning here that the Sea Sentosa project is unusually inclusive, in comparison to other existing and planned developments. I found out a bit more about the project, and was intrigued to see how much they have involved the local community, surfers, and given them not just a place to vent steam, but the opportunity to actually shape the Sea Sentosa. Also, its investments in sustainability are above and beyond what is demanded or expected. We should be getting on the case of other projects that have less inclusive visions . . . like what happened at Dreamland (a travesty). There are many others. Good to get involved as early as possible, methinks. Bravo for standing up for the sea (the sea is our mother, after all, in more than a metaphorical sense). Speaking of Miami-ish nightmares . . . have you seen that totally out-of-place McMansion on Pantai Mengening? Eeeek. And doesn't building retaining walls (as at Mengening) increase beach erosion? I wonder why people still get away with that.
If you look at what Sea Sentosa are doing from the environmental aspect I think this is a positive development. Property development in Canggu is going to be almost inevitable so it's good to see that Saxon Looker is going to care for the environment. They're planning to minimise the impact on the landscape and the community with garden walls, utilize solar, wind and bio diesel energy and get rid of the black water. All in all it's going to be a classy development for the community and I will welcome some restaurants and shops so I don't have to trek into Seminyak every day.
Victoria, didn't you move to Canggu to experience life in the countryside? You lament about having to trek to Seminyak? I am sorry if the 10 minute drive to Tiara Gatsu to do your grocery shopping is too much for you to bear....so much so that you support the extension of Sunset Road into your backyard, the increase in traffic, noise and pollution and basically putting an end to a Balinese traditional way of life? How is the Sea Sentosa benefitting a former self subsistent farming community? Will locals be able to use the facilities? If not, then it is but another neo-colonialist exploit. Will there be paramilitary-like security guards shaking down anyone who enters, screening and discriminating based on what is a preconceived idea of a Sentosa guest? To maintain their profile, Sentosa will inevitably impose the same discrimination policies that exist at Ku De Ta, Sky Garden, Desa Seni, Sari Club etc. where asians are either refused entry or must pay a fee. Why are you afraid of integrating? Do you not wish to have Balinese friends? Celebrating the Balinese experience means building bridges, not walls between communities….. Speaking of walls, when you build retaining walls the beach will recede! The sand will not collect and form the shifting sand dunes and sand bars that allow us to enjoy a beach to walk on and waves to surf. Eco-friendly? Its like asking if I paint the roof of my SUV white, am I slowing down global warming? Projects like this disrupt the tri hita karana philosophy of harmony as families in communities become consuming units rather than producing units. Victoria, if only you knew the ship was sinking you would not be raising your champagne glass so high.
Take a deep breath, Alejandro! Poor Victoria, I'm sure she doesn't deserve such a dressing down! She has a good point. Of course, development is not good for the environment, on the face of it. But you and I and Victoria know that we are not going to stop development around Echo Beach. I think what she is saying is that if we have to choose between spam-villas like the wretched ones around Petitenget backroads and a comprehensively considered, multi-use development as the Sea Sentosa promises to be, then let's choose the lesser of two evils. Personally, I breathed a sigh of relief when I learned who was developing that big parcel, and what their plans were. I think we have every reason to believe that the Sea Sentosa will give more than lip service to environmental matters and community building. BTW, the Balinese "community" in that neighbourhood is really rather dire, mostly a pretty nasty lot. Thank the gods for small blessings . . . while hoping for bigger ones. And Alejandro, the issues you raise (too many for one message, IMHO), are far more complex than you imagine them to be.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the principal of Sentosa properties IS BALINESE!!! And he's a pretty nice guy, very generous, and EXCELLENT with the community. The Sentosa in Seminyak is super with many different layers of the local community. They are very inclusive and positive. So what's all this talk about foreigners being "neo colonial" . . . Sentosa is a BALINESE company. And BTW, the contractor is BALINESE, too! And it's the best contractor in Bali, with superb track record for both private and public sector construction projects. I note that their public sector projects recently also (funnily enough), look corruption-free, in other words, it looks like the money actually went to materials, labour, machinery, tools and expertise, and therefore the end results were satisfactory and completed in good time. Let's all count our blessings, please. And dear Alejandro, I understand exactly how you feel, I feel the same. But might I suggest doing a bit more homework first to find out the facts before making assumptions? Just a thought . . .
Its inevitable I guess. There are too many unlawfully built hotels like Anantara that have set the precedent for further beach front destruction. Its already being destroyed as we speak. I am not assuming anything. I see bulldozers on the beach every day full steam....surfers complaining that the reefs have been covered with sand and the waves are not the same....The new sunset road that ends at Sentosa is already being built. The water at all the river mouths is raw sewage.... Sentosa is a Singaporean company btw. Anyhow, Pak Kadek is balinese...he is no angel either. all of his establishments discriminate against his own people and Asians in general. I am half vietnamese and my relatives are either refused entry or have to pay to get into his establishments. Further, Ku De Ta2 on Jalan 66 is being built on a mass grave from the 1965 genocide. They are picking out skulls and bones from the ground dailey. Ku De Ta 1 in oberoi is another mass grave site. (we are talking 100,000 corpses) And now he wants to do away with the Peace Park and build a night club at ground zero. Would we ever party at Aushwitz? Never. Somehow we all turn a blind eye for the glitter of glam. It was nothing personal Veronica....Sorry for being so vocally opinionated Susi.... and thanks for your solidarity.
Hey Alejandro, thanks for adding some more info. Sentosa Bali is not related to developments at Sentosa Singapore. I don't know where the Sentosa Bali guys keep their money or do their banking, but the developers are Bali/Australian, and the company is registered as a corporation in Badung (Denpasar). I'm not sure all your information is straight, there seem to be some crossed wires. KuDeTa1 is on a mass grave from '65-'66. And it wasn't genocide, it was Balinese killing Balinese because of personal vendettas and general fear and hysteria. The people in the mass grave are not ethnic Chinese, they are ethnic Balinese, killed by ethnic Balinese, just to set the record straight. I think you might be too susceptible to the surfer rumour mill. Skulls and bones? Well . . . there are skulls and bones under most seaside road ends in south Bali, so if there are skulls and bones at an excavation on Double 6 beach, I don't think anyone would be terribly surprised. Sad yes, but surprised, no. You really need to do a bit of fact checking. The extension of the Sunset Road will not end at Echo Beach/Sea Sentosa. It will extend all the way to far Tabanan, and it's desperately needed. There is almost one death per day on the existing east-west highway across Bali, it is inadequate to serve the traffic load. Your 100,000 corpses figure is ludicrous. Please, you have good intentions in striving for balance and care for our environment and communities, but you will destroy any credibility you have if you don't do your homework properly. Serious. Oh, and you are absolutely right about the raw sewage. The number one problem in Bali is corruption. It is the root cause of almost every other problem the island faces, and it prevents growth toward solutions for the problems. It poisons everyone and everything. You and I included. I'm sorry if you have felt bad because relatives were refused service at a business establishment. As they say in America, and it's true here, too, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." Really, who cares if people let you into a place or not. If they don't want you there for whatever reason, then you certainly don't want to be there. KuDeTa, and every other business (with some exceptions), has the right to choose to serve or not serve anyone for any reason. BTW, my husband, who is Italian, elegant, handsome, mature, polite, and fashionable, was refused entry to Bacio, when we had been invited there for the opening party. Why? Because he was wearing very chic, leather shoes . . . with an opening at the toe. He was abused by a diminutive gay fellow who threw a fit like Rumpelstiltskin right there in front of everyone. It's not racist. It's a choice on the part of the business owners, which they have every right to exercise. Whatever. Are you bummed if they don't let you into the gay baths because you dress straight? Cheers, Susi
BTW, if there were skulls and bones on Double 6 beach, we would certainly hear about it in the local press and banjar grapevines. We definitely heard about the human leg found on Pantai Seseh on Wednesday . . . still hearing about that. It's in Sanglah for forensics . . . so I don't buy your skulls and bones rumour without some kind of corroboration, and neither should you. Anyone who passes on potentially damaging information without corroborating it causes damage to others. Be responsible. x x x S
http://www.40yearsofsilence.com/
By the way, people on the beach drinking their cocktails will always have a beautiful sunset to watch as the sun plummets into the infinite horizon.....while us surfers have the ocean's perspective....If you look at the coastline "development" from our point of view, while risking infections, typhoid, e coli, lead poisoning..... it aint pretty sister. Check out Bali Fokus. Yuyun just won the Goldman's award. That's the equivalent of the nobel prize for environmental activism.....and no one here celebrates her. She'll set you straight on coastal development
Um . . . I am a wave ski surfer and a boogie boarder and a deep water swimmer . . . you're not talking to a landlubber. Again, assumptions?? Hati2 with that habit, it can cause one to become chronically unpopular . . . And . . . uh . . . I support Bali Fokus and have channeled funders and publicity to them repeatedly . . . they are not low profile at all, very well known among Indonesian NGOs and very respected. Get that chip off your shoulder if you want to make some positive change, my dear boy. Nobody likes petulance. And promulgation of unfounded rumour not only damages your own credibility, but the credibility of people and organisations which actually do their homework . . . I'm not being sarcastic here, not trying to score any points. Would love to see your venom be transformed into informed enthusiasm, then you might be able to effect positive change . . . rather than just improving your fronside cutback.
BTW, the main cause of coastline destruction and pollution is corruption in Bali. Let's get that straight . . . Some developers take it upon themselves to self-police (meaning limit environmental impacts voluntarily and strive to operate their businesses in more sustainable ways). These are developers that are focusing on an educated, aware and conscientious market (high end, mostly European, American, Australian). That market typically asks questions, and demands a certain level of responsibility. Developers focusing on less sophisticated markets and more price-focused customers are the ones who tend to take advantage of corruption to do things that are both destructive and illegal. Indonesia has laws and regulations that protect the environment and limit development. They are not enforced. Corruption. It is illegal to dump waste into rivers and drop garbage on the ground in Indonesia. Again, not enforced because of corruption. Corruption is the number one enemy of the environment in Bali. Let's work on that . . . otherwise all the petulant surfers in the world are not going to improve the quality of the water or viability of the shoreline environment in Bali, or anywhere else in Indonesia.
One more point about corruption. There are funds allocated for environmental remediation, waste management, water quality, community environmental education, law enforcement, regulatory enforcement, and so on and so on. Unfortunately, because of corruption in Bali, a lot of those funds simply go into the pockets of corruptors (at all levels, from the little guys to the ministers in Jakarta). And so . . . the environment continues to be degraded, public health deteriorates, and so on and so on. Corruption is the evil here. Not the pretty girls drinking mojitos at KuDeTa. Put on your thinking cap, Alejandro! Emotion doesn't solve problems - - understanding, awareness, intelligent action and perseverance do. All the Tasmanian Devils in the world will not improve things in Bali. But a few Wily Wabbits might.
But I know exactly how you feel. One of the messages I am continually trying to hammer home is the need for a SENSE OF URGENCY here. What is lacking is a SENSE OF URGENCY about the issues that are impacting quality of life now, and in the future. So . . . I suppose a few Tasmanian Devils may be helpful in instilling that SENSE OF URGENCY.
Do you speak Indonesian? Do you read the local newspapers? Watch Bali TV? Have you ever been to the DPRD? Do you know anyone in the island's regulatory bodies, regulatory enforcement agencies or police department? Ever met any officials at Cipta Karya? Or the Kantor Agraria? Now read this: http://www.walhi.or.id/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=771%3Artrw-ditolak-lingkungan-bali-makin-rusak&catid=114%3Awalhi-di-media&Itemid=84&lang=en
Hi there, SOrry for bad english. Its good idea for your plan to built another tourist facilities where local people got some chance to earn money. But dont forget to tri hita karana philosophy, which in our eyes seen lot chance to get money but actually not. So please be carefull on taking desicion , otherwise you will finish slowly... Thanks.
Bravo, Made! Thanks for your comment. You are absolutely right, and I agree with you completely. Quick money is almost always "expensive". I think because of the fast rate of change, it has not been possible for the communities in Bali to understand this. I wish that the communities had more information, more power, and more ability to understand what they are allowing to happen on their island. Just look at Seminyak! It is a disaster. And the local community let it happen. They made it happen. I hope the communities of Canggu and Pererenan can avoid the same mistakes . . . . Ubud didn't. Talk to your parents. Grandparents. Talk to your friends. Talk to your friends' parents and grandparents. If there is no harmony within the community, only greed and competition and jealousy, then there will be no harmony in the environment . . . .
Sirs, Actually, I live close to Canggu and understand and knowing the way of life foriegn people and balinese ( hindu ). Just to let you know Pura Batu Mejan is not just pura, far deep inside lot of misteries that noone knows, dont ever think nothing on vacant land, if there is no blessing there will be nothing but worst and worst then finish/ bangkrut. You have to talk a lot with Pak Nyoman ( Sol Beach ) of this. Believe or Not....
A sure sign of the end of days. An empire to the sleek and meaningless built on skulls and blood and demarked by toxic estuaries. Saxon Looker is unquestionably an emissary of the darkness. Is it any wonder that he cunningly adopts a stealth profile to deflect the probing radar of the indefatigable internet search engines.
Oh, c'mon already. Don't get vitriolic. I am trying very hard to be very nice about the Sea Sentosa. Why? I need a bookshop, GP clinic, pharmacy, wine shop, MacShop, deli and decent cafe that I can get to on my mountain bike. Sea Sentosa is going to build it, and right there at Echo Beach. A real community centre with bikini waxing and botox and teeeth cleaning and a psychiatrist's office and a gym and a gay florist and all those other things that really bring us together today in our modern world. Just like in Marin County. OK, that's my self-interested bias on the Sea Sentosa story. I just don't want to be forced to COMMUTE all the bloody way to Seminyak wasting a half an hour each way and more behind trawling taxis and passive-aggressive garbage truck jockeys languishing over every discarded Cristalle bottle at 20kmh when I'm jonesing for an organic fresh raspberry-blueberry juice or a refill of xanax or the new issue of vanity fair or Italian AD or a routine rectal exam or a bottle of shiraz. Seems a waste to have to travel so far for these thing, don't you think? And so many of us do. I calculate there are 3,000 villas out this way with staff or residents toiling over the traffic-choked roads to Seminyak to meet their basic needs every day, be they crystal healing massages or mental maintenance. It's wasteful! That is approximately 6,000 round trips to Seminyak at 30 minutes each, meaning 3,000 car-hours or pembantu bike-hours in traffic EVERY DAY. Life should be proximous, not tortuous. Get off Sea Sentosa's case, or else I will be wasting so much fossil fuel sitting in traffic to Seminyak to get my "basics", the planet will burn before you turn 60. Think of your son! You don't want the earth burning up before he goes to his first junior high dance. So let me have Sea Sentosa's "village square" where I can arrive on my Rockhopper before my first cigarette burns out, and load up on everything I need, including a café corrigé and get home to write my blog posts before hell freezes over and our blue marble melts. And frankly, the fact is, this part of Bali is going to be built on, to the maximum extent that it can be built on. Wouldn't you rather have one large moderately-well planned development, with moderately sound commitments to environment and surf, rather than an anarchic patchwork of cheap batako "luxury villas" spewed out willy nilly for flip value, with 1.5 are per villa and private pools smaller than my staff loo's bak mandi and budget Korean tour busses pulling up to empty their waste tanks before heading to Tanah Lot? for sunset and souvenirs before the men all get whisked away to "cafés" to enjoy the best Banyuwangi has to offer. I tell you, Balinese locals or small-lot players would destroy Canggu/Pererenan. It's kind of doomed anyway, and neither you nor I will be able to lay down in front of enough bulldozers to change that. So accept the change, you cannot by any stretch of the imagination do otherwise. Just make sure the change is going to be one that leaves some shred of dignity for all involved (as opposed to the pants-down-policies of Seminyuck). If the Balinese communities out here Pererenan way were left to their own devices, it would be hell on earth and fast, believe me. They are the worst prepared and least competent decision makers for a situation like this one. Change is gonna come. Let's just change without changing into Pattaya or Seminyuck or Bondi. Change is inevitable. Like death and taxes and bad weather in Bali. Think of the Echo Beach/Canggu/Pererenan situation like death. If you know you're gonna go, go good and in the meantime keep the Aspidistra flying. What I personally think makes most sense in a situation like the one here is to enact the kind of laws they have in Morocco. Foreigners can absolutely own land, lock stock and two smoking barrels. But they must pay 100% tax on purchase price of said land (goes ostensibly to roads and schools and doctors and micro-business development), and no parcels under one hectare may be purchased, and only ONE domicile is allowed per hectare. I think Sri Lanka did the same. It's so easy. Just one A4 sheet of unbreakable regulations guarantees that prosperity, Beverly Hills-dom, and butterflies and squirrels and hummingbirds in abundance are guaranteed for all, locals and invading Huns. Furthermore, the "one hectare one bule" policy makes it IMPOSSIBLE for Balinese families or communities to disagree and hate each other. A tract of one hectare requires consensus, compromise, cooperation, and general agreement. Slicing and dicing does not. It fans the flames of jealousies, anger, sibling and generational rivalries, etc, etc . . . there are SO many stories of tanah warisan being feuded over until people destroy each other, it's outrageous! If you don't force the Balinese to work together, with no alternative, they will kill each other over a chicken or one are, or a jalan, before you can say rumplestiltskin. Hence the bizarre batako wall at Echo Beach, damaging EVERY business there, including the idiots that put it up (overnight). And the threats and thugs that forced Sea Sentosa to give a million bucks to a bunch of drunken gamblers to make an ego-puffing pura at Batu Mejan. Helloooo.....Batu Mejan was never a TEMPLE. It was just a strange stone sticking out into the sea. It looked like a table. So people found it "weird". So someone made a little tugu there, just a few stacked stones, where people put canang if they felt spooked by its weirdness. Now the local yobs are pounding their chests and claiming it's a real temple and bulding a huge monstrosity out of stone IMPORTED from near Besakih (stone industry that ruins the roads, communities, and ecology). The whole temple concept has less to do with Echo Beach than the Sea Sentosa does. You have no idea what a bunch of yobs the local community out here is! They are now having gang wars because some kepala desa says he had a "pawisik" (heard voices) that said he had to become a Gusti (give himself a noble title). Everyone was hating him as kepala desa anyway, and now he and all his vast extended family are claiming they are nobility (as if anyone gave a flying f). It's frying out here, people are about to pop. Not to mention the rabies and arak oplosan and Balinese youth ripping off villas at night in cahoots with the police and the forced-to-be-hired local staff. It's scam-o-rama out here. Saxon Looker and his Anglo-Saxon lookers are the lesser of many evils, believe me. And for small, tight, guerilla, buttoned-up, entrepreneurial types like the Sticky Fingers people . . . nothing can stop them (like me) . . . they contravene the laws of physics and that's their M.O. If Echo Beach becomes icky, they will sprout in other shapes and other places, and they are always ready to up stumps and move on to greener cricket pitches. I totally salute Sea Sentosa, and welcome them. You should SEE what horrors the locals have wrought and what petty conflicts they are battling to the death over fly-speck patches of land! There is NO dignity in ANY of it. And the local Balinese have NO ability to work together for the greater good, even within their own immediate families. they believe in "every man for himself and god against all" and they will kill their own family just to get a jalan to the two-are that "their" tamu wants to make a bungalow on. Surfers out here are super naive, too. They are starstruck and stupid. And they never, ever had the gumption or discipline or care to do anything. They don't give a flying f. They just want to do their thing and not get involved. Complain only. Well . . . this is their destiny, they made their bed, now they gotta lie in it . . . thing is . . . they will all piss off with their money and their cute girls . . . they are nomadic-parasitic, as surfers often are in developing countries . . . act virtuous, talk virtuous, but to do the WORK of being involved in manifesting virtue . . . sorry dude, I'm kinda busy and I don't speak the language, besides my girlfriend's fifth grandmother just died in Banyuwangi, and I gotta give her like money for the like funeral, so I don't have any money to contribute right now, and since she's over in Banyuwangi, she won't let me go out in the evening and if she skypes me and I'm not at our place, she really goes ballistic . . . shame about her fifth grandmother, I only got two grannies myself . . . must be pretty heavy for her . . .and her little brother wrecked his bike last week in Surabaya so he couldn't got to work and I was like so glad I could help out 'coz he can't make money for all those grandmothers if he can't get to work, know what I mean? and a new bike here only costs like $1500 so I figure I might as well chip in and make it possible for the guy, after all he IS my Javanese fiancées brother and all that . . . At least within the several hectares of Sea Sentosa, there will be controlled density, green space, and no MANIACS popping up batako walls overnight out of spite or building PUBLIC TEMPLE LOOs and GAMBLING PAVILIONS out of malice right at your front door. Sea Sentosa is absolutely, the best possible outcome in the best of all possible worlds (wigs off to Leibniz here, rest his soul, what a bent old be-closeted queer he was).
A bit of poetic fun. I am actually a cynical relativist in all things related to... like human stuff. And Susi... try looking up the word 'pithy'.
pith is the fiber in the fruit . . . so you want the fiber WITHOUT the juice?
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I love it. Keep it rolling!
dont do the same as with the villa sentosa at seminyak, because so bad service at the spa . . . so many times we treatment with my guest, always no good suggest from the staff.
to mr saxon the villa sentosa is very nice place but your staff at spa therapist and receptionist very so bad not friendly so dusty place..did you have manager at spa....???
You can't halt progress on the beach, as everyone gravitates towards the water - SS appears to have had a great deal of planning and design thought applied. It is far better to have a fully integrated and carefully planned development by an experienced developer with the runs on the board as opposed to a piecemeal hodge-podge of unrelated form and function. Several great surf breaks out front and a quality space from which to sit and observe...10 points to the design team on your great vision.
I do agree with Paul Durkin about the inevitability of development here, and the about the comparative benefits of having it done by professionals who strive for quality, and are aiming for buyers who expect quality and can afford it.
I'd be interested knowing both Susi's thoughts and others on the Architecture as they see it now.. There are many and various points above and it's impossible to address them in any detail. In the end yes, development is inevitable but don't be fooled by the glossy magazines, 3D renderings, glamorous write ups and the "big name" designers. Covering god knows how many tonnes of concrete with a green wall is far from responsible and even further from good design! You can also have a bedroom without a window as well if you want. No thank you. I may not have as much insight into the project as others but from what I have studied this development is NOT good Architecture and is far from it.. I could write all day but I'd rather stay busy doing than talking too much about it..
Well . . . architecturally it's hard to comment on Sea Sentosa . . . I haven't seen any of the new drawings . . . understand there have been some changes . . . I certainly did NOT like the faux-Lombok-lumbung rooves appended like random hats on the old design . . . what can one say these days? In Bali these days, anything better than abysmal feels like a blessing.