The Number Cruncher

Meet Anim - the other half of La Pari Pari's management team.

She's the one who crunches the numbers and has been instrumental in helping me understand and believe that we are capable of building La Pari Pari.

I don't have a head for figures. I also have a terrible sense of direction.  So much so that for my fortieth birthday, I bought myself a GPS device for my car.

But I digress.

The whole point of this post was to talk about opposites.

Anim and I could not be more different in our viewpoints, backgrounds, perspectives and training.  I am a marketing and communications person.  I know how to sell things.  She, on the other hand, comes from a finance background and has worked with several small businesses over the years.  She's seen the realities of having to balance the books and ensuring that you always have more than enough in your kitty to pay the staff and vendors.

I write stories.  She reads stories voraciously.

I like nice things.  She tends to sway towards the simpler aspects of life in most ways.

I think long-term.  She's into the details.

I'm chatty.  She's quiet.

And together, I actually think we make a pretty good pair when it comes to work.  Of course, there's tension, especially when someone like me who is more verbally-oriented tries to talk to someone whose brain immediately translates everything into figures.  You should hear us arguing.  It's like a chicken and duck talking!

But we've learned to laugh about it.  Really.  I think that's super important.

Besides, I'm scared of her big, orange calculator....

Bridges To Cross

There's little to really show, in tangible terms, when you're in the initial stages of a project like La Pari Pari.  But, as I am beginning to realise, the beginning is a critical juncture, where the thinking is consolidated and foundational elements need to be captured to ensure that the end result comes as close as possible to what we have in mind.

Here's a quick peek at some of the bridges we are and will have to cross in the coming weeks:

One of the things we've had to grapple with in the last couple of weeks has been budgets.  From what we are seeing, there will be a need to scale back a little on our ideal, and make some decisions as to what is commercially viable versus what isn't.  The good news is, we can still realise the dream.  We just may have to change bits and pieces to fit the accounts.

We've also started a La Pari Pari Facebook fan page, for those of you who are users of the site.  Todate, in barely a month, it's already garnered close to 200 fans!  We are currently using that site to help our friends and supporters stay connected and also to test ideas for La Pari Pari.

Today, we got an inquiry from Peter Tan about disability access, prompting us to ensure that the resort will have facilities that enable people of all shapes, sizes, forms and challenges to enjoy it.  Thank you Peter for your thoughts.  We're really grateful for feedback like this that helps us think of ways in which we can ultimately better serve our customers once we open.

Our development plans are proceeding very nicely.  Last night we met with our architect to view the first round of drawings that roughly estimated the positions of various building elements within the property. Now that's done, Ijam is proceeding with designing the guest rooms!  Even at this early stage, the conversation has been very encouraging, with good ideas surfacing from everyone that I think will result in a property that is both functionally practical and pleasing to the eye.

So hopefully, in two months' time, we will have some initial sketches to share with you!

We've also discovered, after mapping the trees on the property, that we have a really fascinating mix of vegetation already thriving on La Pari Pari.  There's a good number of trees that are over 40 feet in height.  According to Aida's estimation, some of these are actually rainforest trees that have perhaps been re-planted on our property by previous owners.  Owing to the fact that they do not have the advantage of shade on our property (unlike in the rainforest), they are a little smaller than they would typically be in their natural habitat.  But they are pretty all the same.  There's also a cashew tree and a variety of tea tree bushes plus loads of other plants we are still trying to identify.

The interesting conundrum all this presents is:  with all the shade, do we have enough sunlight to power our outdoors using solar energy?

Have a fantastic weekend y'all!

Silver Linings

View from La Pari Pari's backyard - those are paddy fields behind the white tree

Several people have remarked at the boldness of our attempt to break away from our established lives and start a completely new one in a different place and different industry than the ones in which we both currently work.

Sure, there have been times we've wondered whether this apparently mammoth task is too huge for us to handle.  Things have appeared daunting in moments.

Take for example, the issue of (again), money.  I think by now everyone knows the turmoil our financial markets have been in for a good oh, six or nine months, depending on how far back you feel it all started tumbling down.  For a start-up company, this can sometimes mean certain death.  

As a first-time entrepreneur with no track record, the one thing you rely on for your initial cache of cash for capital is your own.  A year ago, according to our calculations, we had more than enough to fund the necessary things that needed to be put in place before we go to the financial institutions to get a loan for the construction of La Pari Pari.  Money for the purchase of a piece of land, money to hire an architect to help us design the resort, money for a land surveyor, etc, etc, etc.

But as of six months ago, half of it disappeared along with the dizzy descent of our financial markets.  

It left us with an interesting conundrum, at the very least.  Where were we going to get the additional resources to bankroll our project?  After all, we couldn't go to the bank with merely a business plan and no visual depiction of the dream we wanted to build.  Unlike other things, a resort is sold largely on its visual appeal and of course, over time, its service.

In retrospect, I think that was when we faced our first real big hurdle as business owners.  And I am sure, it won't be the last time.

Thankfully, after months of thinking laterally and being just darned tenacious, along with some interim help from Dad (yes, even he's been roped in), we managed to more than scrape through.

In less than two weeks, we will be off to Langkawi to make our final payment for the land on which La Pari Pari will sit.  This is a big deal in terms of our project's progression.  Once we initiate the transfer of the land title to our name, we begin the process of converting the land's status from agricultural to commercial, allowing us to then build on it.

Without all that, we can't go to the banks and ask them for money to build La Pari Pari!

So, the lessons for us have been:

1. If you look hard enough, you'll find a way out of a jam.

2. In fact, if you persevere enough, it'll probably serve as your best tool for getting your self out of the crack you've fallen into

3. Prayer, and a supportive Daddy go a long way :-)

La Pari Pari's First Gift!

This month, I turned the BIG 4-0, which, as my friend who have crossed that hurdle before me say, is the new 20.

At the rate my life is going, I am inclined to believe it.  After all, aren't I the one who purposely decided to turn her life upside down by pursuing a dream?

Along with the well wishes and the lovely deluge of messages that I received via e-mail, on the phone and Facebook, I also had the opportunity to indulge in my favourite past time over my birthday weekend - spending time with people I really love.

And, La Pari Pari got its first gift!

For my birthday present, my long-time friend and extended family member Anne Foenander decided to gift me her services for creating La Pari Pari's webmercials.  Since we anticipate that most of our bookings will come via the web, knowing the target segment we are pursuing for the resort, webmercials will be crucial to our marketing efforts.  

Although there won't be a webmercial for La Pari Pari until much closer to our opening day, this still means a burden has been lifted off our shoulders :-)

Thank you Anne, for your wonderful gift.

Here's a taste of the magic Anne can do!

Dreaming La Pari Pari

Some of you have asked us, naturally, what La Pari Pari will be like.  Rustic?  Tropical? Modern?

Today we came one step closer to determining the answer.  After many months of discussions and visioning, talking things over and bouncing ideas off walls and ceilings and floors, the design brief for La Pari Pari has finally been completed.

So we do have an idea of what we're after.  But what eventually emerges is something that we are leaving open to our architect to explore, and we hope, pleasantly surprise us.

In the meantime, just to get a taste of the visions we hve in our head, here are two resorts we love.

La Banane is a stylish little resort (it only has nine rooms) on the island of St Bart's.  

A long distance away from Langkawi but close to our hearts as a source of inspiration for the intimate and very accessible feel we want to achieve with La Pari Pari.  

La Banane is modern yet not ultra hip in the way some design-oriented properties are - you know the kind, all metal and glass and concrete and cold.  It's somewhere you can feel comfortable lounging around in your shorts or in your swimmies by the pool, yet it still feels more luxurious than home because let's face it, who wants to go on a vacation only to feel like they're still in their own backyard.

Plus, seeing that La Banane is a well patronised location even though it isn't beachfront, we think it is a great benchmark for La Pari Pari which will also be a short walk away from sea and surf.

The only thing we would add for consideration in designing La Pari Pari is our inclination to ensure some element of local context is added to the design.  But not in that "kampung house knock-off" kind of way.  Something a lot more subtle - a swash of colour or texture, an ornament, even images on walls perhaps.

Hotel Azucar

As contrast, there's also Hotel Azucar on the coast of Veracruz, Mexico.  This twenty-room resort is all about quirky charm - something that ensures it will sustain its uniqueness for years to come.

It sits within its environment comfortably, a reflection and tribute to the sugar trade that has framed the history of its locale.  It's the heart behind its design intent that we admire - how its soul is expressed in the place and use of local materials, even driftwood!

So there you have it - a sneak peek into the images that have been floating around in our heads for over a year now.

With a visit from the creative muses and some small ingenuity, hopefully La Pari Pari will measure up to these two places we love, but of course in its own individually unique Malaysian way.

Isn't this all so exciting?

Swimming, Naturally

One of the things highest on my list of "What I'll Miss" once I move to Langkawi is fresh water.

Being on an island means that access to fresh water swimming locations is slim.  In fact, unless you count the various waterfalls and watering holes on the tourist map, the options are close to

 zero.

For someone who is used to flowing rivers and isolated spots along a river bend for a picnic or a quiet sunlit snooze, this is a big one not to have.

So I've begun searching for the next best thing - the possibility of constructing a natural swimming pool on La Pari Pari's grounds.  It fits with our conservationist goals and has the potential to look amazing.  Not to mention it doesn't wreck a girl's hair or make her sensitive eyes turn blood red.

Having done a bit of webtrawling on the subject, I don't see how we can't have one.  We have to have one.  What's there not to want??

I think the only place I have heard of in Malaysia that has this sort of pool is a luxury condominium in Kuala Lumpur.  

So what do you think?  Fancy taking a dip in a less than conventional pool?