Our Story

Long before it was a library, this land had a name. It belonged to Made Sumendra's grandfather — a Balinese priest, healer, and beloved community figure known as Pekak Mangku. His home was a simple hut, a pondok, set in the middle of his ricefields. Neighbours and visitors would call it “pondok'ne pekak” — the grandfather's house in the ricefields. The name stuck. It still does.

In the early 1990s, Laurie Billington — an American teacher — came to Bali with her students. She stayed at the home of Pekak Mangku, and there she met his grandson, Made Sumendra. A musician. An artist. A man rooted in the soil of Ubud. They fell in love and soon got married.

Laurie carried a conviction wherever she went: “Every town should have a library.” In 1993, she made it happen. On the same land where she had first arrived as a guest — with the blessing of Pekak Mangku and his family — she built Ubud's first public library. The only place in town where tourists, expats, and locals could sit together, read, learn English, discover Bali, and simply meet.

While Laurie filled the shelves, Made brought the ricefields to life in a different way. A lifelong musician and artist, he created the Learning Center — a space where visitors could learn Balinese arts directly from local masters. Gamelan, dance, wood carving, painting, silver jewelry, offerings. The crafts and rituals that make Bali what it is, taught not as a performance but as a practice.

The library and the learning center grew together, side by side, on the same family land. Two visions. One place.

Over the years, Pondok Pekak became more than a library. It became a community. Thousands of travellers from every corner of the world have sat with our teachers, played gamelan in the garden, learned to carve wood, and left with something they couldn't quite name — a feeling of having touched the real Bali, not the one sold on billboards.

Local children came to read. Expats came to borrow novels. Solo travellers came for a class and stayed all afternoon. The 30,000 books grew to include ten languages. The classes grew to include everything Made knew, and everything the people of Ubud were willing to teach.

Laurie Billington passed away in 2009. But the library she built is still here. The teachers she helped support are still here. The compound her family has called home for thirty years is still here — still on Pekak Mangku's land, still on Jl. Monkey Forest, still open every day.

Made continues to run the centre. Their son Kadin now manages the business, working to grow what his parents built and carry it into the next generation of Ubud travellers.