Bali Echo Visitor's Guide

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February/March, 1998
No. 033/VI/98

cover story

Galleries Galore
The boom in
contemporary Balinese
art

A Matter of Taste
Why bourgeois Balinese
are collecting art

beyond
bali

From Toraja to the
Togians
Sulawesi's most seductive
parts

Treading Lightly in
Lombok
Tips to being a green
tourist

regular
features

Weekender
The Saltmakers of Amed

Home Grown
Legian's Legend,
Made Kasim

Health and Beauty
The Ubud-based
Bali Utama Spice

Books
The search for the Great
Bali Novel continues

Cuisine
Bumbu Bali cooking
school

Fiction
Marni's Ride by
K. Landras Syaelendra

Jungle Drums

advertising index for
Bali Echo web site

Serene, still and profoundly calming, your biorhythms ease out with a smooth slide into sheer peace even as you enter the grounds of Komaneka Resort just behind Komaneka Gallery. Once past the looming sentry of a mud-walled tower, like some fragment of an ancient gate, you're left behind the chaos of jalan Monkey Forest, Ubud's commercial heart, to move into the sanctuary of a quiet, walled Balinese village.

Cool, smooth mud facades are stepped with geometric precision against a radiant sky. The logic of the ground plan is punctuated with burst of pure white blossoms of stunted frangipani and suffused with the luminous, changing green of the surrounding paddy. At the east, where the ground drops away toward a small stream, the decline is articulated by sweeping stone steps down to a generous, rectangular pool. Throughout, the architecture is stepped and terraced, repeating and reiterating the surrounding rice terraces. Pools mirror the sky and bamboo spigots direct the rain back to the paddy.

If the exterior is an aesthetic re-rendering of the Balinese natural landscape, the interiors are implicitly modern:open, airy, functional and luxurious. Hand-cut stone, pewter-veined Java marble and the lushness of deep, dark, worn teak enhance the air of tranquility.

Banquettes cushioned in hand-spun cotton line the expansive windows and sliding glass doors open onto breezy balconies overlooking the rice paddy. Colors throughout are muted cream, coffee and pewter. Cabinetry and furnishing, fabricated specially for the rooms from old teak and Indonesian hardwoods, are designed with a serene minimalism to compliment the original paintings from Komaneka's own collection.

Tel. (62-361) 976090. Fax. (62-361) 977140
E-mail : komaneka@indosat.net.id