Bali’s rice terraces work mountain streams into various channels. The channels feed the terraces, and each village passes the water on to the fields below it. There’s order and community, and all the beauty that comes with them as water passes from mountain to the sea. The subak system has run this way since the ninth century, attaching daily life to the lifeblood of the island, and providing the source of every Instagram photo of fields and waterfalls.
Nirjhara in Tabanan takes its name from the Sanskrit for waterfall, and as soon as you arrive, it’s clear why. After admiring the janur crafts blowing in the wind, hanging from the Balinese timber roofs, and selecting your suite’s toiletries theme from a collection of local scents at check-in, you’re led over huge stepping stones that let the hotel’s water system flow underfoot. Follow it along and it suddenly opens up, revealing that it’s the source of a series of man-made waterfalls, cascading down towards a stunning infinity pool. The pool itself overlooks the true reason for this destination – the wonderful natural river and waterfall that every part of the hotel points towards.
Every suite is within earshot of one or the other. The Canopy Suite is a multi-floored one bed on stilts, its top level opening out among the coconut trees with a freestanding bath to watch the sunset and the rice fields from, the river somewhere below the trees. The River Pool Pavilion sits at ground level and puts you right down on it, with decking built out over the water and a plunge pool deep enough to stand in. Interiors lean on Indonesian craft throughout: woven furniture from artisans nearby, coconut panelling, carved wood, paintings from local artists. Each one also has access to the filtered running water of the hotel.
Breakfast is at Michelin-recognised Ambu, on a terrace set above the jungle with the waterfall below the canopy and flowers coming up through it. There’s an a la carte menu, but the two set boards are the reason to be here, and across a few mornings you should work through both. Each board arrives all at once, nine dishes designed to be worked through right to left. Nusantara is the traditional Indonesian breakfast, led by the egg balado, a whole boiled egg sitting in a pool of red chilli sambal that wakes you faster than the coffee does. Bubur ketan hitam softens black rice under coconut milk as a porridge, a corn fritter adds crunch alongside a pecel of soybean sprouts under peanut sauce. A bowl of nasi goreng bulks things out, with sliced tropical fruit and a jamu shot of raw turmeric to finish on. The Wellness board takes up just as much table, but focuses on health-driven worldwide tastes.
The rest of the hotel spreads down the hillside alongside the water. A well stocked gym sits behind floor to ceiling glass with the jungle just on the other side, and further down a winding staircase, isolated from everything else, the yoga shala looks straight out at the waterfall. The spa deals in full blessings, and they are worth clearing the morning for. We took the Melasti, 120 minutes named after the procession local communities make down to the sea before the new year, carrying everything from the temples to be washed in it. The treatment keeps to that, and to salt. It begins with a foot bath in a black stone bowl of salt and flowers, moves into a Balinese massage worked with warm salt stones and a sea salt compress, then a botanical facial with head massage and a scrub of coconut oil and sea salt, before finishing with a tea ceremony.
There’s a daily list of activities to pick from, if you’re somehow tired of the pool. Bike rides run down to the beach, or over to Tanah Lot, close enough to reach before the coach parties do. The cinema screens films through the week and can be taken over privately. Past that, the team will build whatever you ask them for. We wanted the rice terraces, and rather than the stretches everyone photographs they found a local guide to take us up to Pupuan, where the fields step down below Mount Batukaru with coffee, cacao and clove trees along the edges and nobody waiting their turn with a camera. We ducked between jungle and the same irrigation channels the whole island runs on, talked to farmers about how each variety of rice is treated, had fruit cut down for us that I couldn’t name, and watched a length of bamboo turned into a walking stick. Sandwiches and homemade kombucha came with us. We finished at Pura Luhur Mekori, deep in protected forest between two enormous bunut trees, where the guide walked us through the ceremony of entering and kept the monkeys at a distance.
Dinner at Ambu starts at the bar, where the Nightshades has won a Balinese mixology award. Arak infused with butterfly pea flower gives it a deep blue in the glass until the tamarillo cordial drags it towards red. The Pulau Margarita swaps the usual citrus for makrut lime, sharper and more perfumed than a margarita normally comes.
Bread arrives every night with a rich dark sambal to pull it through. The beef rendang croquettes are where to start, all of that spice paste concentrated inside a crisp shell with makrut lime aioli to cut it, followed by an octopus carpaccio sliced thin enough to see the plate through, pomelo and lime zest across the top. The fish en papillote comes in its own banana leaf, lemongrass and turmeric rising with the steam off whatever was landed that day, with Manado dabu dabu alongside for heat. The Indian Ocean risotto is the richest plate here, shrimp, squid and fish worked through Balinese spice under a parmesan tuile. Banana fritters and ice cream to close.
The water doesn’t stop at Nirjhara. It runs on under the pool and down the valley into the channels the next village opens in the morning, heading for the coast the way everything here eventually does. The Melasti procession takes that route once a year, and so does every terrace we walked through at Pupuan. You just get to sleep alongside it for a few nights.
Nirjhara is a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. To book, visit www.slh.com
Prices start from £270 per night for a Canopy Suite on a B&B basis
