Asian Style Hotels. Kim Inglis
are the restaurant and spa. Seafood beach barbecues on wood grills and ocean-fresh bounty in both the Balinese and Western menus may be enjoyed either al-fresco or in the handsome dining room. And for spa sybarites, there's a line of botanical products specially devised for the hotel by aromatherapist Brenda Ramen. An exciting line-up of treatment packages with themes like Ocean and Earth are unique to the Legian. Appropriately, Ocean starts with a salt scrub and seaweed wrap and ends with a wave massage where you are massaged above and below simultaneously—believe me, it's divine.
Jalan Laksmana, Seminyak Beach, Bali 80361, Indonesia,
tel: +62 361 730 622
fax: +62 361 730 623
The Club at the Legian seminyak
Rising to the challenge for ever more personalized service and total guest privacy, the Legian opened a wonderful series of private residences across the road from their main hotel in 2002. Called the Club at the Legian, it comprises ten one-bedroom villas and one three-bedroom villa, all with private pools set in individual walled compounds. To service these, there's a deluxe clubhouse, with 35-meter (115-foot) lap pool, restaurant and bar—and each villa is provided with a butler. In the words of the general manager: "We set out to offer a completely secluded and private space for two where everything you want is to hand." Sensitively done? Yes. Sensuous? Definitely.
No stone was left unturned in designing a space that is totally indulgent, in terms of service, atmosphere and facilities. Given that the Club does not have the wonderful sea views of the Legian, the intention was to create a mood and setting entirely different from other villas in Bali. Utilizing the services of Shinta Siregar of Bali-based Nexus Architects and interior designer Jaya Ibrahim, the visually elegant rooms ooze understated drama. The interiors have a pan-Asian aesthetic, yet the material palette is traditional Balinese. Coconut wood is used for columns, benkerai and alang-alang for roofs, woven rattan on the underside of roofs and on the cupboards and terrazzo with shell chips for floors. Nonetheless, the overall effect is unashamedly contemporary.
Each villa has a lounge area (see left), bedroom, airy bathroom, outdoor bath, and an attractive take on the balé with a sunken dining table overlooking a plunge pool. There's a fashion-forward feeling permeating throughout: this is achieved by both the mod cons to hand (DVD, TV and CD player with concealed speakers, desk with internet connection, espresso machine and more) and a color palette of dark timbers and black terrazzo. Of particular note are the series of streamlined banji screens that run along the outer wall of the villas. Made from mahogany, they allow shadow and light to fall in geometric patterns in the interior. As Ibrahim says: "The villa is completely enclosed, and could be rather claustrophobic. The idea is to bring the world to the guest, rather than having the guest get up and look for it."
Most visitors to the Club are there precisely because they don't want the world to intrude. Their raison d'etre is to chill (in private)—and everything is organized so as to facilitate this. The color palette of chocolate brown, cream, biscuit and grey, with soft furnishings in natural tenun fabric, are soothing and easy on the eye. CDs and DVDs are available on demand. Bathing options are twofold, in the wickedly self-indulgent outdoor terrazzo tub set in a lily pond, or in the Javanese stone-tiled plunge pool where a sculpture of a stylized offering tray filled with goodies for the gods is given center stage. Meals can be ordered at any time of day or night; all you have to do is dial B for Butler.
Thoughts of shopping along nearby Jalan Seminyak or a trip to the hills (there is a private limousine service at the Club) became more and more remote the longer I stayed. Time and again, the circular outer table with cushions beneath the balé roof was the magnet: it is the spot that everyone gravitates toward. And once you're there... why move? Taking meals, reading, or simply idling away the hours, listening to the tinkling water in the ornamental pond, made me lazier and lazier.
If you do get it together to emerge, cocoon-like, from your deluxe hideaway, all the facilities at the Legian are open to Club guests—spa, pool and restaurants. Also, reserved for Club guests only is the private clubhouse, a semi-open, breezy structure where Indonesian shells and glass on the tabletops and bar counter play tricks on the eye and a short, but excellent, menu is served. Here the atmosphere is hushed and somnolent: I never once saw anyone in the pool, and only occasionally someone in the bar... and they were usually either checking in or checking out.
For style aficionados, people wanting to get to know each other better (!) and those in search of solitude, the Club offers a zen-like experience in seriously tasteful surrounds. It's high style hedonistic and deliciously indulgent.
Jalan Laksmana, Seminyak Beach, Bali 80361, Indonesia.
tel: +62 361 730 622
fax: +62 361 730 623
Begawan Giri Estate Sayan
There ought to be a warning sign at the entrance to Begawan Giri Estate reading: "Begawan causes total bliss-out. Beware." My advice? Take precautions before you leave home: Don't pack books, laptops, telephone numbers, fancy clothes and makeup. Take only yourself, an open mind and a sarong. On arrival, just give yourself up to the place; don't fight it. The trick is total submission.
So how? Indeed, why? These are difficult questions to answer, because the magic of Begawan lies in simply being. But if push comes to shove, I'd say it's because it has elevated the concept of service to an art form in an environment that combines wilderness with refinement. Because the 9 hectares (22 acres) of land comprise a "private estate" rather than a "hotel." Because the warmth of the staff comes from an inner radiance rather than from a learnt code of conduct. Because, once you immerse yourself in the place, you're freed from the normal constraints of a normal hotel—and you can simply be.
If this sounds a bit new agey, it isn't. "First and foremost, Begawan Giri is a home," declares founder Bradley Gardner, "albeit an extremely luxurious one. That's why it's called a private estate, not a hotel." And it pushes the boundaries of hospitality. You, as the guest, are its raison d'etre.
It's as if all the irritating quibbles you have about hotels have been erased. For a start, if you're flying into Denpasar, a representative meets you before immigration and fast tracks you through customs and out the airport. When you arrive at the estate, a private butler deals with your passport formalities; he or she unpacks, packs, feeds, clothes, even breathes for you if necessary. You soon discover that you don't have to bother with signing after you have a meal or a drink; your order is just discreetly added to your bill. You don't pay extra for any of the generous quantities of mineral water left at strategic points in your residence. If you want a special request food-wise, nothing is too much trouble. The air-conditioning is virtually silent; in fact there is no sound of generators, buggies or any machinery. If you want a bath, boiling hot water tumbles out of a bamboo tap into a huge six-ton carved-in-situ rock bathtub. If you want a swim, crystal clear spring-fed pools beckon.
Such are the small details. The bigger picture encompasses, and surpasses, them—if it were possible. Begawan Giri's 22 suites housed in five highly individual residences along