We're thinking of spending 10 days around Easter in Bali. Any suggestions of good, non-touristy resorts/hotels. Don't want large, faceless hotels that could be anywhere in the world (eg Hyatts/Hiltons et al) or places with crass 'local' entertainment. Just a good chill-out place with good food, things to do nearby (not interested in shopping!) and pool etc to keep the kids (9-16) quiet for a few hours, plus a general air of not-too-opulent comfort. Probably around 200-300 dollars a night for four of us.

We just spend our winter holiday in Balii and thoroughly enjoyed Alam Sari in Keliki, just outside of Ubud. The Villa Teratai is gorgeous, and has excellent views. The 12 rooms are very nice as well. The property is set into a hillside, so the higher you go the better the views. Every morning we had lovely views of Mt. Agung to wake to.

Alam Sari is NOT your typical hotel. It is nothing like a Hyatt or Hilton. It is non-touristy...really. Guests can participate in a village walk through Keliki, which we did early in our stay and it completely changed our trip. Dewa, our guide for the walk (also a driver for the hotel), lives in the village with his family. We learned all about the changes that have come with modernization...from how agriculture has changed to family structure and home living. We visited several housing compounds: Dewa's own family's where we ate fresh fruit picked from his back garden area and met his pigs and chickens, a traditiional Keliki style painter's, a wood carver's, another painter's, walked through rice fields, found wild coffee, vanilla, tamarind and cinnamon. The village tour can be as long or as short as you like, and will be tailored to your interest. We could have gone on all day, but had to get back for a woodcarving class we had arranged...which brings me to the next great thing about Alam Sari.

We were able to arrange a variety of courses that were held right at Alam Sari. Batik, wood carving, Balinese dancing...right at the hotel. Balinese traditional music was a short drive away down deep into the rice fields...the road looked more like a goat path! The music room was actually a practice studio run by yet another very talented artist. On one day we were there we could hear a women's group practicing. It was great to have the chance to try out all the different instruments and have guidance as to how to make a good sound come out of them. Seeing a dance/music performace AFTER taking t he courses was so much better than when we had seen performances in the past having no idea what we were really seeeing. Painting class is offered for free (I think it's free) at the Brahmin painter's compound in Keliki. My daughter went twice.

Our 7 year old daughter was thrilled with the classes, the pool, the vanilla milkshakes, and the friends she made...during our stay we were fortunate in that lots of other families were there too...Dutch family who lives in Tanzania, Americans living in Beijing, Americans living in KL, Dutch living somewhere in Sumatra...we ended up having a great group of people, with all the kids hanging out together, doing batik or wood carving or whatever the activity of the day was.

For the adults, the spa is lovely...various massage, bath, jacuzzi, manicure, pedicure...lovely girls do the treatments.

The rooms...clean, well appointed with Indonesian antique style furniture with plenty of storage space so you can unpack. Porch area is lovely to sit and have morning coffee and watch the sun come up - if you are up that early!

Food...excellent. I can say that we did have the best food right at Alam Sari. We ventured out a few times...to Indus - great views for sure, fine food, but not special, and 10 times the price. To Naughty Nuri's - great BBQ, great prices, good for once I think. Once we took the Casa Luna cooking course and ate that lunch...so-so I think, and I became slightly ill following that one, luckily just short term and probably a result of just plain eating too much. Alam Sari put together special menus for Christmas eve, Christmas dinner, New Year's Eve...they were all excellent.

Other activities that kids would enjoy include white water rafting, elephant park, downhill countryside mountain bike ride, ATV tour...lots of stuff to do that the staff can arrange for you.

Anything bad about this place...well...once we noticed a bit of traffic noise, like beeping cars and such, coming from the road below. Turns out there had been a landslide that completely blocked the road...it had been cleared enough to let one car pass though at a time, and they were beeping to let the cars from the other direction know they were coming. Occasionally around dinner time, a noisy truck or two would pass that we could hear. It didn't bother us at all, and some other guests and I talked about it since there was a comment in the guest book about the noise, and we all decided that the noise was rare and not a problem. If you were looking for complete silence 24/7 then maybe you would be annoyed once in a while.

Price...for 3 of us, 2 adults and 1 child, 9 nights stay, all meals except those mentioned that we ate out, daily massage for 2 of us, and a few spa treatments for our daughter, all classes, transportation...everything...we spent $1200.00. I was surprised it was so affordable!

We communicated with the owners extensively before our stay and the reason we ended up choosing Alam Sari over some of the others was that they were always quick to reply and their answers were always thorough and clear. You can see their website at www.alamsari.com

Other places we considered were Klub Kokos (though maybe this is better with younger kids), Maya Ubud, Tegal Sari (they required payment in full before arrival and that bothered me), Tamam Harum, Pita Maha, and Alila Ubud. As you can see, we were completely happy with Alam Sari. I have loads of pictures, including really detailed ones of the villa, inside and out. I can e-mail you a link to the album if you'd like...just post your e-mail for me.

very nice report...you did not mention, was your villa air conditioned?? for pictures: [email protected]
thanks

Yes, air conditioned, though we didn't need it. Used it though, since there were mosquitos (rainy season) that we didn't want to share our sleep with.

You may wish to check the Bali travel forum for some questions to your answers. Most travelers there tend to be from Oz and seem to experience the kind of vacation you want. Bali is quite inexpensive and you should be able to do well for lodgings for about $100/night. Do not rule out shopping. I tend not to shop much in traveling but did endulge while in Bali. If you do not I am sure your children will. You will have a good time.

Almost none of the hotels in Ubud are of the chain type, other than the Amandari and Four Seasons. Most of the chains (Sheraton, Hilton etc) are located in Nusa Dua or Kuta. 99.5 percent of the hotels in Ubud are locally owned or managed small bungalow or boutique type accomodation.

The Keliki walk is a very popular wallking tour which you can actually do yourself, as most of the visitors to Ubud do. Or, you can ask a local driver or guide to walk you through it..it happens to be one of the most popular things to go...if you want to do it yourself you can start in Payogan village and follow the small road to Payogan temple, then over the river to the rice padi views and the ridge overlooking the river gorge. It ends at Campuhan Temple. If you take a local guide with you he can explain a lot about the Balinese Hindu culture and accompany you to ceremonies at the temples. For information on local activities and classes contact the Pondok Pekak library, behind the soccer field in "downtown" Ubud. They are also the best source for second hand books and are always looking for book donations as well.

In the past few years Ubud has really gone "international" with many good new restaurants in all price ranges, from less than 50 cents to 50 dollars, (but most in between, say 5 to 10 dollars per person).

The "Keliki walk" is very popular, and is different from the village tour we experienced - the walk to Keliki from Ubud just gets you to the outside edge of Keliki and you can see the part of the village that is on the driving road, but not into the village itself, and certainly not into villagers' compounds. It is quite nice, and can be done no matter where you stay. Allow about 3 hours one way to do this walk at a leisurely pace.

The actual village tour we did cannot be done without being accompanied by a villager, and you need to let them know at least one day in advance so they can arrange with the residents for you to actually enter their homes. Alam Sari's staff is largely from the village of Keliki, and the village walk is done through an agreement the hotel has with villagers...the hotel supports the village and the village supports the hotel sort of thing.

Thanks for all that - especially Kim Japan's thorough report. Very useful.

Hi Mushed,
Our family of 4 (2 adults and 2 daughters ages 13 yrs. and 16 years) spent 10 days in Bali in early December. We divided our time between northeastern Bali (Sambirenteng) and Ubud which is something you might want to consider. We spent 5 nights at a resort called Agung Bali Nirwana in northeastern Bali (www.agung-bali-nirwana.com) This fantastic place is one of the few actual waterfront properties in Bali. It consists of 3 large and luxurious villas each having 3 bedrooms, a full kitchen and livingroom and 2 enormous bathrooms with the best shower heads ever! The villas are furnished with marble floors, beautiful hand made teak furniture, canopied beds and unique Balinese artwork. Before Bob asks (HA!), they also have fabulous air conditioning which was not blasting out at us all the time as in some places we stayed. Fans are also available if that is your preference. There is excellent snorkelling right off the beach in front of the villas (bring beach shoes!), a state of the art swimming pool which uses a British designed UV system to kill bacteria (no chlorine) a small, waterfront restaurant which serves delicious, reasonably priced meals - or you can have these served to you on your own personal bale - and a private, open-aired spa located on the upper floor of the reading room which has lovely views of the water and the fishermen going by. The prices at the spa are very reasonable compared to what we would pay in North America.

The staff at Agung Bali Nirwana is really what puts this place "over the top". They are all local people and have been well trained to provide you with every need and yet remain unobtrusive in doing so. Although the villas are lovely and luxurious, they are not too opulent and we felt very comfortable and welcome here. Every day we saw dolphins swimming by the resort, our daughters were thrilled with the resident ducks and the golf fish in the ponds that surround each of the 3 villas. There isn't much in the way of shopping close by but the staff is happy to drive you to Singaraja (or anywhere else) for this. We took a tour to see a couple of different temples in the area and we also were taken to 2 local schools as I felt that this would be a good learning experience for our daughters. There are NO hawkers on the beach in this part of Bali, the quiet and solitude provided the most relaxing atmosphere for us to get caught up on much needed rest after our long flight to Bali from Canada. There is a good selection of books and movies which can be taken back and enjoyed in the villas when you need a change of pace. Our family got the Experience Bali package ($120.00 US per night plus $15.00 extra for the 2 girls). The rates included a wonderful breakfast served each day to us on our bale. These rates are very reasonable for accommodation and service of this type. We were away for over a month in Bali and Thailand on this trip and our daughters gave Agung Bali Nirwana the #1 rating for places that we stayed at (and we stayed in many other very nice places as well.) The staff will be happy to provide transportation to/from the villas from the south coast or you could hire your own driver. We used Wayan Sueta for our trip to Sambirenteng and for 4 days in the Ubud area. His website is www.hiddenbali.com. and I would highly recommend him as well. Wayan is totally honest and reliable and a virtual treasure trove on Balinese history and culture. We drove through the Sideman area on our way to Agung Bali Nirwana and came back through the Kintamani area, both very scenic routes. Agung Bali Nirwana is very popular with people who have been lucky enough to visit there and many of their visitors now are returnees. Their website listed above is very detailed with even their menu prices so it should answer any additional questions that you might have. I would be happy to give you any more information as well.

We spent the second half of our vacation in the Ubud area which we also enjoyed. We visited a few temples in this area, took in 2 dance performances in Ubud (really loved the Kecak) , went shopping at the Ubud market (OK) and the Sukawati market (much better) with our guide Wayan Sueta. We also visited Wayan's village in Taman, met his family and hiked in the rice paddies outside his village. We visited Lake Bratan and tried to go hiking to the waterfall at Munduk village but got "rained out" that day. In Ubud we stayed at Alam Jiwa, owned by the same people that have Cafe Wayan and Alam Indah Hotel (website for Alam Jiwa is www.alamindahbali.com). Alam Jiwa is a small Balinese hotel located about 10 minutes outside of Ubud in a lovely quiet village called Nyuh Kuning. Our family had one of the deluxe rice field view rooms (ours was the Casuary). The rooms here are large and open aired with beautiful views. They included a delicious breakfast which we had served on our balcony every morning. The staff here is very kind and provided excellent service. Complimentary shuttle service is included to and from the Ubud areas. One night the driver took us to Indus Restaurant (great views, food and service), picked us up promptly at 7:00pm, drove us to the dance performance at the Ubud Palace and then picked us up there following the performance. The staff were all really friendly and did everything they could to please us.

We stayed one night on the southern coast at the Novotel in Tanjung Benoa (we were impressed with this place as well) but otherwise avoided the busier, tourist areas of the south.

Good luck in making your decision, we liked dividing our time with the 2 locations we had in Bali and felt we had just the right combination of rest/relaxation and sight-seeing for our family.

Should read "gold" fish in the pond not "golf" fish. Ooops!

bev---the place in the north sounds fantastic...great mini-report---how about the rest of the trip???
rk