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 (USD267.75), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
With guided treks around the paddy fields each morning, free daily yoga classes, and Como Shambhala’s globally celebrated spa treatments on offer, the mountainside Como Uma Ubud boutique hotel in Jalan Raya Sanggingan (a five-minute drive from Ubud's city centre) is clearly on a mission to relax and rejuvenate. Given the incredible valley scenery, the soothing sounds of Balinese wildlife, and the beautiful thatched balés that fill the place, it couldn’t fail.
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
A Como Shambhala aromatherapy gift; GoldSmiths staying in a Suite also receive a welcome cocktail for two served in-room or at the Pool Bar
11am, but later check-out is possible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 2pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £262.23 ($324), including tax at 21 per cent.
More details
Rates include breakfast, daily yoga classes and guided morning walks through the surrounding rice paddies.
Also
Uma can organise activities ranging from adrenaline-fuelled to serenity-filled. Try white-water rafting on the Ayung or biking the jungle. For more sedate thrills, learn yoga, batik, Indonesian puppet making or mask painting.
At the hotel
Spa, gym, library, DVD/CD library, free WiFi in restaurant, pool, concierge, bar and lobby. In rooms: flatscreen TV, DVD/CD player, free broadband internet. Suites have a Bose sound system.
Our favourite rooms
The views from the three Uma Pool Villas are hard to beat: from your infinity pool you can admire vast panoramas of the lush valley, right down to the Oos river meandering along the bottom. The Como suite has equally camera-friendly vistas, as well as the resort’s finest pool and its own spa treatment room.
Poolside
The 25-metre pool is surrounded by immaculate green lawns and is shaded by an assortment of tropical trees.
Spa
Como Shambhala's signature holistic treatments are available in the beautiful spa, which peps up its minimal decor with pebble-dashed feature walls, foliage and quirky design elements. There are four treatment rooms, a steam room, sauna, a 25-metre spa pool and a yoga pavilion, with a post-work-out meditation bale. Pampering options include Asian-inspired massages, reflexology, body polishes and herbal soaks, facials and mani-pedis. The spa's open from 9am to 9pm, the gym from 6am to 9pm.
Packing tips
Inland Bali is the perfect trekking ground so make sure you bring suitable shoes for jungle yomps – sturdy sandals should do the trick. Bring mozzie repellent too.
Also
You can smoke in your room and the restaurant is split into smoking and non-smoking areas. A three-night minimum stay is required over New Year and there is a compulsory New Year's Eve dinner for US$100 a head (50 per cent off for children).
Children
Booked in advance, babysitting should be booked a day in advance and costs US$5 an hour. Extra beds are US$70 a night (half the adult rate for 5–12 year olds), and under-5s dine for free with one paying adult. A kids menu is available.
For the most breathtaking view, make a beeline for table 2; you’ll be right beside the waterfall-fed pond, where you can watch golden koi gliding through the water.
Dress Code
Clean lines and floaty linens.
Hotel restaurant
Kemiri, an open-air dining balé pavilion beside a tranquil fishpond, is your setting for breakfast, served between 6.30am and 10.30am. Choose from a tropical fruit plate, a hearty full English (eggs, smoke-house bacon, chicken sausage, a sweet corn cake and roast tomatoes), or more healthful options such as an egg-white omelette with kale. Kemiri opens for special themed evenings too, such as spicy, meaty bebek bebutu feasts. For dinner, head to Italy-inspired Uma Cucina, a street-side bar and lounge with a big communal dining table (plus outside seating) that serves up an informal Meditteranean menu. Expect handmade pastas, cheeses and sausages, wood-fired pizzas and breads, plus classic Italian gelato and granitas.
Hotel bar
A relaxed, contemporary affair, Como Uma Ubud’s Pool Bar is the ideal spot for lingering on a lounger making your way through the lengthy wine list or the 15-strong martini menu; the jasmine tea and ginger-infused variant gets our vote.
Last orders
Kemiri closes its kitchen at 10.30am. The Pool Bar keeps pouring until 11.45pm.
Room service
Healthy Como Shambhala dishes and guiltier pleasures such as pasta and club sandwiches can be enjoyed in rooms from 6am to 1am.
Jalan Raya Sanggingan, Banjar Lungsiakan, Kedewatan, Ubud
Bali
80571
Indonesia
Como Uma Ubud is in Jalan Raya Sanggingan, a five-minute drive from Ubud's city centre.
Planes
Fly into Bali's Ngurah Rai International Airport (www.baliairport.com), south of capital Denpasar and roughly an hour-drive to the hotel. Call our Smith24 team to organise flights (03331 222 485). If you need one, visas can be bought on arrival, so have US dollars cash with you if required.
Automobiles
Ubud, Bali’s cultural and artistic centre, is within walking distance. Bali’s capital, Denpasar, is half an hour away by car. The hotel has free parking and a valet service.
Worth getting out of bed for
If Ubud is Bali’s cultural heart, then the gangs (alleys) are its veins and art is its lifeblood. You can lose a day just wandering around the town, pootling between art galleries and craftsmen’s workshops.
Local restaurants
Across the Tjampuhan River, Indus serves Indonesian and Western dishes – sometimes with Latin dance evenings or, at Full Moon, accompanied by jazz. Naughty Nuri's Warungon Jalan Raya Sanggingan offers the best barbecue in Ubud. Don't be put off by the shack-style structure it occupies, stop by for their signature pork ribs and a refreshing local beer. Never tied down to one cuisine, Nomad, at 35 Jalan Raya Ubud (+62 (0)361 977169) serves a variety of dishes from full English breakfasts to Balinese tapas.
The drive from Bali’s capital Denpasar to Ubud is the Antiques Roadshow on speed. Statues, vases, carvings, canvasses, textiles, carpets... Here a life-size stone horse, there an extravagantly embellished day-bed. It’s as if every Balinese-style home we’ve ever seen has disgorged its contents onto a roadside market. As the urban jostle melts to green and we wind inland, uphill and northwards, our taxi windows frame a ceaseless cornucopia of art and craft.
By the time we reach our hotel, on the artistic town’s outer fringes, we’ve furnished a thousand palaces and Mr Smith has eyeballed so many table legs I fear he’s developed a furniture fetish. Our eyes need peace, and luckily that’s exactly what Como Uma Ubud does best. As we cross the entrance courtyard to the airy lobby and settle on a smooth bench hewn from a tree trunk, we’re embraced by a stillness broken only by birdsong and the chattering of some unknown jungle creature.
This is a place far from Bali’s buzzing coastal tourist hubs. Here, among the lush forests and rice paddies on the slopes of the island’s central mountains, Como Uma Ubud’s 29 suites and villas are encircled by nothing but nature. Ours, one of three Uma Pool Suites, awaits at the end of a stroll along stone paths lined with tropical vegetation, through a wooden gate and down a private stairway. We’re led there by Trishna, who, like all the Uma staffers, moves without bustle or fuss but always somehow materialises exactly where she needs to be.
Our villa appears not only to boast a private garden, but a private jungle too. Beyond the low stone wall bordering our lawn, the Tjampuhan Valley drops steeply away, distant hilltops visible beyond its glorious tangle of green foliage and the Oos River chuckling along somewhere down below. We’re at treetop level. No one can see us, and we can’t see anyone. Except...
‘Squirrels!’ shouts Mr Smith. I follow his gaze and discover Uma’s unique entertainment: a furry Olympics in the immediate jungle. The little red critters’ constant play is better than TV.
With its mossy stone walls and long, colonnaded terrace, the garden resembles the grounds of an ancient palace and boasts multiple jungle-viewing options: private infinity plunge pool flowing over the brink of the gorge; sunloungers on the timber deck; two deep wicker chairs on the terrace.
Light streams through the villa’s liberal spaces, over cream stone and timber, filmy voile curtains and the dreamy four-poster bed. It’s all soothing simplicity and entices us to waft in and out through the French doors in sarongs. We wallow in our pool with only the squirrels as audience, bananas dangling from a branch so close we can almost reach out and pull one off.
What to do when you’re so relaxed? Relax even more. We repair to a spa villa to sample Uma’s Como Shambhala Retreat menu. The resort can be as much of a spa as you’d like, with complimentary morning yoga in the central pavilion, a special Shambhala menu of organic and raw foods at Kemiri restaurant and a tempting list of bliss-out therapies. We choose 90-minute massages and Mr Smith opts for an extra head massage. Therapists Ani and Puri stroke and knead us into heaven, and after a while I hear Mr Smith snoring gently. Minutes later, he’s moaning happily. Perhaps he’s thinking of furniture again.
‘That was the best massage I’ve ever had,’ he says, as we float back to our private jungle. ‘It was like my head left my body. But in a good way.’ Much as we’d like to follow through with the super-healthy Shambhala menu for dinner, Kemiri also boasts too many decadences. We can’t resist the grilled Lombok lobster with chilli paste and kaffir lime, and the crispy fried soft-centred duck eggs with oyster sauce. They’re placed reverently on an alfresco table overlooking a fish pond by our waiter Ugung, who wears a tiny flower behind his ear. It indicates he’s prayed today, he says.
Each day in the Balinese lunar calendar requires different prayers to maintain the intricate system of balance that shapes the Hindu beliefs. These beliefs are cherished with particular devotion here in the island’s mountainous heart, where the Balinese believe their gods reside. Sitting in the stillness, watching evening mist curl among the treetops and hearing our enchanted forest’s nocturnal creatures begin their night serenade, we can imagine why. We can also see why the resort is called Uma, a word that means ‘living house.’
Next morning, culture calls. Ubud is not just a religious hub but a locus of art, performance and craft, and the final destination of that art avenue we followed from Denpasar. The town and its surrounding hills are filled with exponents of multiple mediums, from painting to sculpting and jewellery-making. We’re headed to where it all converges: Ubud Market. We set off for the 10-minute trip in Uma’s vehicle with soothing music, chilled-out driver and white interior.
The Serenity-mobile deposits us beneath the fantastically ornamental walls of Ubud’s main palace (the town has many, most still occupied by descendents of pre-colonial royals). From there we dive into the dense and seemingly endless maze of stalls, nooks and carts stacked to the ceiling with clothing, batik, gold, silver, wood, pottery, paintings, antiques and visitors like us, goggling at this frenzy of eye candy. We plunge into theatrical bartering for goods – I score two batik dresses for about US$8 – and Mr Smith falls in love with a painting of local village life. Over-stimulated, we escape to a gallery café (every café has a gallery, or the other way around) to contemplate the crazy scope of the Ubud aesthetic: from the simple, organic forms we love at Uma to the ‘Bali baroque’ flourishes of palaces and temples to imported European styles.
Back in our villa, the housekeeper appraises Mr Smith’s canvas with an expert eye. ‘It’s a good one,’ he says, and identifies the artist and Dutch master who helped develop it. ‘My brother’s learning this style,’ he adds. Some places, everyone’s a critic; in Ubud, everyone’s an artist.
We’ll shop again tomorrow, perhaps at the galleries right outside Uma. But for now we’ll sink into our veranda chairs and soothe our souls with the most beautiful canvas of all: dusk over the jade-green jungle, squirrels scuttling for bed and the treetops reaching up for the sun as it sinks to meet them. All perfectly painted by Como Uma Ubud’s resident artist: nature.