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Hello dear friends,
Today we are going to visit one really mysteries place in Bali. We have passed it by so many times, watching it each time we were surprised by its mass. Tremendous and perfectly beautiful. Ominous and dark.
Who are you? Why are you here left alone? Are you lost in eternal space like a little child? You are left shrouded in mystery and spider webs on this magical and friendly island. What’s the secret?
Yes, Bali has all shade of different colors, whether it’s a peaceful rice field, surgent and slashing ocean, a beautiful temple with magic rituals, wonderful dances or smiling people. And it has its secrets, too, which are known only to silent spirits which remain mute holding the truth.
It amazes with its size and scale. Aren’t we in Bali where buildings are allowed to have not more than 2 floors? How come you’re so big? Who are you waiting for and where are your guests?
You will ask what I’m talking about. I’m talking about an abandoned mysterious hotel in Bedugul.
Abandoned Hotel in Bali — P. I. Bedugul Taman Rekreasi Hotel & Resort
To find answers to our questions, we decided to become its guests. So one day, while we were staying in Bedugul and enjoyed peaceful walks in strawberry fields, we decided to visit this abandoned hotel and talk to its ghosts, so they could tell us what happened.
Abandoned hotel from afar. Beautiful! The architect must be talented.
All surrounded by strawberry and vegetable farms
It takes 5 minutes from our house in Bedugul to this hotel by car. So here we come, proceeding to the main entrance and passing by destroyed sidewalks and a beautiful summerhouse.
The morning sun shines so faintly. The place looks at us sadly with its empty-eyed windows and mutters: “You again. What do you want from me? I didn’t need you to come”.
When we were looking up the information on this abandoned hotel in Indonesian websites, we found no useful information except scary stories and other words than “palace of Satan”, “hotel with ghosts”, “ghost house”, etc.
The local people couldn’t tell anything but “this is an abandoned hotel, nobody lives there but ghosts”.
There is a version that the hotel was owned by Tommy Soeharto, the youngest son of the former president Soeharto. The constructions were launched in 1993 and frozen in 1995. There are many rumors and legends about it:
- After bombing in Kuta in 2002, Tommy’s plans were ruined as tourists didn’t want to come to Bali.
- He violated some obligations and couldn’t invest in further constructions.
- Tommy got in jail for an assassination of the Supreme Court judge.
Boring and disputable information.
Here’s a scooter parked near the entrance. Okay, so there’s, at least, somebody. We need to find this person and ask out.
Abandoned hotel P. I. Bedugul Taman Rekreasi Hotel & Resort consists of 7 levels, 5 floors up the ground and 2 ground floors. There are luxury rooms with private balconies, a restaurant on the floor, dance halls, and a big terrace on the top with amazing panoramic view.
Welcome!
Here are Apsara dancers greeting visitors
We proceed inside, coming up to the reception desk. Whispering ghost voice is greeting us: “Good morning, friends! Are you coming from far way? Hurry up! We have only a thousand rooms available. Would you like a room with the view to Agung or Batur?”
According to these words on the table, this place is very popular among Russian-speaking tourists
“Ok, we would like to see the room with the view to Agung” – “Go straight and then turn left – the door is open” – “Excuse me, who are you? Is this a ghost?” – “Yes, it is. I’m going to follow you so you won’t run away”.
Going towards unknown directions
Passing by the winter garden
We are entering a big common balcony decorated with empty flower beds. Unfortunately, there are only weed plants and burrs growing in them.
We are looking around – we are on the medium level. Roofs look Tibetan by the way.
Here is our room. So beautiful! There’s a very big balcony and a view to sacred Agung.
The ceiling is wonderful, it was designed to open – this is very trendy now in Bali. You can sunbathe in a daytime and enjoy the stars in the night.
Great private balcony! With a view to great Agung! What else would we need?
Ah, and the air here is so nice – fresh and chilling. You miss a cup of strong Balinese Robusta coffee. We would spend hours here drinking this coffee and enjoying the beauty of Agung.
— Unfortunately, our policy doesn’t allow moving the furniture, — the ghost replies shuffling about in its shyness.
— How come it doesn’t? You’re in Bali, aren’t you? It’s a tradition to face Agung while you sleep, otherwise, you’ll get in troubles.
— The place was designed by a Chinese designer, he had no idea of this, so he projected beds caddy corners and fixed them to the floor.
— Caddy corners? You must be crazy! No, I will never lay down in such a shameful direction. Show me another room, please!
“Okay, we have some couple more rooms for you. Please do not get so upset, take a look at them first. We are so rarely visited by customers. Besides, it’s a full moon today, we need some fresh blood for our Sabbath”, the ghost lisps sadly in response.
And here he grows so pale and terrified: “Uh-oh. Never mind. I’m so old that I always say some nonsense. Have just told you all the secrets. Oh no. Again”
“Okay-okay, just show us more of this palace”, we say in response and thank god it’s still morning. We need to get more information and run away from this creepy place.
“We are having a dance today”, the ghost murmurs in excitement forgetting that he’s letting out more secrets. “Hundreds of headless dummies left from Nyepi will resurrect on the full moon and get here to dance”.
Meanwhile, we are lead towards the ground floor. Less and fewer sun rays can reach us.
Here’s another room. It’s smaller and apparently cheaper.
Nice balcony, all green and covered with fluffy moss and curly creepers.
The view from the balcony is wonderful! So inspirational! Looking at this beautiful landscape, you get immediately encouraged. I think this room would suit us.
Oh no. “Look at these spider webs on the walls. No and no. We won’t stay here”, I say.
“Oh, you say no again. You humans always hate everything. My guests will be left hungry. Okay, what else can I offer to you… Let’s go upstairs to the terrace and I’ll show you the real beauty. Maybe you make up your mind and stay?”, the ghost whines in frustration.
We go up to the last level of the hotel, on the 7th floor. Here lies a huge open terrace with a 360 panoramic view. There are some beautiful summerhouses on it. All surrounded by fantastic landscapes.
Beautiful, Batur. Agung. Altogether.
While we were enjoying the view, somebody started talking to us in a slightly comprehendible English: “Hello, I’m a security here. My name is Dewi”
“Hello, Dewi! We are so happy you are here – we might have just started hearing ghosts”, we said.
“Oh, well. There are so many of them here”, he responded humbly. “Around a few hundreds. And by the full moon, all rooms will be occupied. I’m here to look after the place. It’s on sale by the way. Would you like to become our customer?”
Here we started asking Dewi out about it. And he looked so missing of talking to people that he couldn’t stop talking either.
And here what he said. In the mid 1990s there was a Chinese millionaire who went to Bali for a vacation and fell in love with it (just like every one of us), But like all other millionaires, he couldn’t just stay and relax enjoying surfing, doing yoga, walking in rice fields, drawing topless Balinese women, cooking organic tarts or merely watching sunsets.
Instead, he got down to a business plan, deciding to build a tremendous hotel with several floors and hundreds of rooms and a view to sacred Agung, which didn’t exist in Bali at that moment. And he chose a place very distant from the tourist area – in Bedugul, which is visited by foreigners mostly to see “a temple from a post card”.
We didn’t get why a Chinese millionaire would choose such a strange place for his ambitious project. Probably he was expecting tsunami or it was a part of his marketing campaign to attract millions of Chinese tourists. But the fact is the fact.
So the land was purchased, money invested and construction works successfully launched. The millionaire was looking forward to seeing the result of his massive work.
But suddenly the darkest hour came to Bali. Bombing in Kuta claimed lives of hundreds of people. The entire world was mourning after this tragedy.
And as for the owner… Nobody wanted to stay at his fantastic hotel. Everyone was scared. And the poor millionaire lost his mind.
That was it. Now the wind whistles around empty summerhouses.
As you see, the hotel had never been finished. This giant building stands near the Bedugul road, all covered with moss and looking at us with its empty-eyed windows, reminding of the vain ambitions.
It’s so beautiful around: green trees, vegetable farms and strawberry fields. But nobody ever visited this hotel, booked a room or danced in the dance hall. Such a sad story! But there’s still a chance, friends!
As Dewi The Legend Teller said, P.I. Bedugul Hotel is on sale now. Yahoo!
The owner’s relatives (Chinese or Indonesian – we still have no idea) or maybe the owner himself decided to sell out P. I. Bedugul Taman Rekreasi Hotel & Resort for 100.000.000 USD.
Ummm? We asked several times if he was sure about this information. But he kept persuading that the price has been already fixed.
“Would you like to become owners of a hotel in Bali? Or maybe you need a land? Here in Bedugul, we have something much cheaper than the hotel. I can help”, Dewi said.
We weren’t ready neither for this kind of purchase nor to become owners of a hotel. Bedugul is an amazing place. But probably a beachfront hotel would be better. I like Karangasem area, near White Sand Beach.
And suddenly Dewi disappeared. We couldn’t really understand what was going on. Just a minute ago he was trying to sell a land and then he was gone. We looked all around but didn’t see him anymore.
We decided to walk up to a temple established right there. The stairs were decorated with dragon snakes, they looked at us angrily.
We were hoping to find Dewi, assuming that he might have gone to pray or was upset with us because we weren’t interested in buying the hotel. But there was no Dewi upstairs either. So strange. He seemed nice and friendly and now just gone away.
Upstairs there was a small temple with a silent deck covered with creepers. And from there you could see many things.
From one side, there was a hotel for 100 million dollars.
From another, there were beautiful green fields of cabbage and strawberries. Peasants were working and picking veggies as usual. Far away, you could see small trucks carrying volcanic rocks and sand. An ordinary Bali life.
And I was sitting there thinking.
Beautiful, gorgeous, but empty and abandoned. Like and abandoned state created by a Chinese millionaire or a Soeharto’s son, or maybe a Russian oligarch? It doesn’t really matter who built this place.
Now it’s just a home for a blowing wind and hundreds of ghosts, sometimes visited by curious bloggers who are always eager for adventures. So it goes.
The story is over, dear friends. We hope you didn’t get too scared while walking this strange place with us. What do you think about ghosts by the way?
Perhaps you think we are crazy and it would have been better if we’d preferred sitting home, safe and sound.
Okay, you can find the location of Abandoned Hotel in our Bali Map. Next time we will be peacefully walking wonderful lakes in Bali, like decent people.
Sending you rays of the sun and see you soon!
Best regards,
Natalia Liubimova June 2014
P.S. By the way, you can find the best prices and book hotels at our partners here.
