Bali, Indonesia

Amandari

Price per night from$900.00

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD900.00), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Of rice and men

Setting

Upmarket Ubud village

With the working rice paddies of Ubud’s verdant valleys visible from its thatch-roofed suites, Bali hotel Amandari acts as an authentic village by connecting locals walking across the grounds with visting guests. Plenty of luxury is on offer though, from pool-side, palm-shaded sunloungers to delicious dining.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

A 60-minute massage for two

Facilities

Photos Amandari facilities

Need to know

Rooms

Thirty suites, plus one Amandari villa.

Check–Out

Noon; earliest check-in is 2pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £855.20 ($1,089), including tax at 21 per cent.

More details

Rates include breakfast and airport transfers.

Also

Balinese rindik music – played on a bamboo flute – is played in the pool area between 7pm and 9pm each night. The sounds then float up atmospherically to where guests sit in the bar and restaurant.

At the hotel

Infinity pool, library, boutique, gallery, spa, gym, tennis court, WiFi.

Our favourite rooms

We love the duplex Asmara and Ayung Suites, as these come with an upstairs bedroom and downstairs living area. Alternatively, Pool Suites 14 and 15 are extremely private, and have the advantage of coming with their own swimming pools.

Poolside

Palm tree-shaded loungers overlook a 32-metre infinity pool, lined with green tiles, which offers views of the lush forest and rice paddies beyond.

Spa

A winding stone path leads through the gardens to lily pond adjacent Amandari Spa, where holistic treatments draw inspiration from traditional Balinese Melukat purification ceremonies, body scrub treatments used by Javanese Royalty and Balinese acupressure. Aman Spa’s natural product range is used in all of the body treatments, massages and facials. Spa specialists in residence include fascia-focussed healers, numerology shamans and joy coaches.

Packing tips

Bring a pair of trainers – after a couple of days of all-out relaxation, you’ll be itching to get up and play tennis, or take a long walk around Amandari’s stunning grounds.

Also

Extra beds are available, on request, in every room category for US$175 a night a person (plus tax); please check with the reservations team if you require more than one extra bed.

Children

This hotel is better suited to couples.

Food and Drink

Photos Amandari food and drink

Dress Code

Casual, but smart.

Hotel restaurant

The Restaurant is an elegant, open-air building, specialising in Western food (Italian and vegetarian dishes are particularly well-represented), although some Balinese dishes, such as suckling pig and smoked duck, do make their way onto the menu. Meals at the alfresco Dining Balé come with a side of valley views; equally intimate and nature-immersed is a private dinner at the Lotus Pond.

 

Hotel bar

The Bar is also open-air. All coconut-palm columns and dim lighting, its speciality, the Kedewatan Sling, is made from vodka, grapefruit juice, watermelon juice, lime juice and sugar syrup, topped up with tonic water.

Last orders

10.30pm.

Location

Photos Amandari location
Address
Amandari
Kedewatan, Ubud
Bali
80571
Indonesia

Planes

Amandari is a 90-minute drive from Ngurah Rai International. The airport is served by carriers including Garuda, Singapore Airlines, Jetstar and JAL. If you need one, visas can be bought on arrival, so have cash with you if necessary.

Automobiles

The hotel is a short walk away from the centre of Ubud, and a 35-minute drive from Denpasar.

Worth getting out of bed for

Amandari can arrange visits to Lungsiakan village, the rice fields of Tegalalang, and local morning markets. A hearty helping of temples – including Gunung Kawi, Pura Agung Gunung Ruang, Pura Griya Sakti – are within an hour’s drive from Amandari. Thrill-seekers can hike up Mount Agung, cycle to the Monkey Forest and ride the rapids of the Telaga Waja River. And creative types can take private painting lessons with artists from Ubud, and sharpen their culinary skills with a cooking class in the local village – complete with a market experience and mid-morning snack of kopi bali (strong Balinese coffee) and pisang goreng (fried bananas). Indulge in pampering sessions at the spa, and limber up with Amandari’s free yoga classes, or book private yoga and meditation sessions on your private terrace or a river-view bale.

 

Reviews

Photos Amandari reviews
Shelly Horton

Anonymous review

By Shelly Horton, Star reporter

We’ve just committed the cardinal sin of travelling – handing over our passports and money to a complete stranger. My friend and I have ventured to more than 50 countries between us – we know better – and yet there we are like tyro tourists in Bali’s Denpasar airport with no ID. Before our stupidity can register, the helpful man reappears with our passports and visas, then fast-tracks us past the massive queues before whisking us off to a waiting car. It’s the perfect introduction to superior service, Amandari-style.

On arrival at the hotel, the smiling Balinese receptionist quietly informs us that we’ve been upgraded to the Amandari Suite, and shows us to our room. We restrain ourselves until she leaves, then run amok exploring everything. We’ve only just finished our traveller ritual – you know: unpack everything, jump on the bed and do a cannonball into the infinity pool – when another staff member glides in with a complimentary bottle of wine. Our initiation to Amandari in Ubud, the spiritual heart of Bali, couldn’t have been better.

Now, faced with bedrooms in which Posh and Becks, Christina Aguilera and Mick Jagger have slept (not all at once), we are struck dumb. We walk down to our first villa (yes, first), which has a high, thatched roof and impeccable decor. Yes, that’s our living room. Jaws dragging on the floor behind us, we reach our second villa. It’s the same size and set-up, but simply houses a king-size bed. This villa opens onto our private infinity pool next to another thatched outdoor entertaining area and gorgeous garden. All we need now is a celebrity-scale entourage and we’re ready to party…

Suitably blissed out, we decide to eat at the Restaurant, which looks over a large infinity pool, and enjoy some of the best Indonesian food we’ve ever tasted. Traditional drumming is coming from a lit-up stand. ‘Are they statues with music piped out of them?’ asks my companion. ‘Yes,’ replies the waiter. ‘Just put money in the slot and they’ll play all night.’ Then he laughs as our statues walk off to take their break.

Lofty schemes are hatched to explore Ubud the next morning and put our stamp on the town, but those plans don’t quite work out for us. Instead, we roll out of bed and spend the entire day lying by the pool doing some Olympic-standard lounging. I consider it an achievement if I manage to read five pages of my book without nodding off.

Feeling guilty for doing nothing we hit the gym. Amandari’s gym is a picture of serenity. The pavilion actually floats on a lily pond. It just doesn’t feel right grunting and groaning in such a tranquil place – now I know how Katie Holmes felt giving birth.

On a well-being roll, the following morning we join the free yoga class. Our teacher is very gentle, pausing every couple of minutes and reminding us to ‘take it easy’. Then, to get the heart rate back up again, we hike down the moss-covered stone steps to the river below. It’s treacherous and the moss is pretty slippery, though probably not helped by the fact we are wearing flip-flops. The ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss’ saying probably originated while Mick Jagger stayed here.
After the Eat, Pray, Love phenomenon we thought we should visit a healer, but the results are less convincing than those experienced by Elizabeth Gilbert in her memoir. We are sent to Pak Cok Rai, a member of the Ubud royal family, who is famous for his magical healing and therapeutic powers. He could be 70 or 120; his face looks like a prune with eyes so it’s hard to tell. We arrive in his outdoor treatment area as a tourist is being treated for ‘Bali belly’ (a bad case of the runs). Pak Cok Rai cuts up some herbs and then, to our surprise and the patient’s, crams them in his mouth, chews them up, then spits them out on the guy’s stomach, which is then covered in clingwrap.

I’m relieved to escape that particular treatment. Instead, using acupressure and reflexology techniques, he shoves a stick into points between my toes. It hurts. Reciting some mantras, he traces the stick on my stomach. Then he pokes the stick between my toes again and this time it doesn’t hurt as much. To be honest, I think he wasn’t pressing as hard. Dutifully, I pay up – I’d arrived with a sore hip and leave with a lightness in my hip pocket.

It’s finally time to depart Amandari and to make the separation less painful we are given chocolate brownies to eat in the car. No disrespect to Pak Cok Rai – but those brownies have true healing powers.

 

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Price per night from $900.00