This book, like so much of Bali, entails the telling of a story. Like any story there are the tensions between the sacred and the profane, the high and the lowuespecially as the main subject of this story, the hotel, by its very function, would seem to go against the persistence and resilience of traditional Balinese culture. But in each of these ten hotels, there is I believe, despite all the inherent contradictions of commerce and privilege, the sincere attempt to provide, even for the briefest of times, the feeling that this place is truly the island of the Gods, that these places are highly sophisticated architectures of welcome, offerings of refuge between mountains and sea.