Jimbaran Puri stands on the sand of a working fishing bay in the south of Bali. Outrigger boats pull in at dawn. The pool sits a few steps from the water, and the market grills fire up as the light goes.
The bay curves for a couple of miles along the western neck of the island, sheltered from the surf that draws the crowds elsewhere. Fishermen have kept it for generations. Their painted jukung boats still line the shore in the mornings, and the catch goes straight to the warungs that cook it over coconut husk at night.
The hotel sits inside that world rather than above it. Low garden cottages and pool villas spread through a stretch of palms and frangipani that runs down to the beach. There is no tower, no glass wall between the rooms and the sand. You cross a lawn and you are on the shore.
The cottages
Thirty-two rooms and suites in all, each a cottage or villa of its own. The build follows the island: bamboo, teak, and roofs of alang-alang thatch that keep the rooms cool through the heat of the day. Inside there are marble floors, high beamed ceilings, and doors that open onto a private garden.
The pool villas add a plunge pool behind a wall of green. Some sit a short walk from the water, others deeper in the gardens where the loudest sound is the geckos after dark. The design has not chased fashion. It reads the way a good Balinese house reads, timber and stone and shade.
Jimbaran Puri, A Belmond Hotel, Bali — Courtesy of Belmond
The water
The pool is the heart of the place. It runs long and green, cut from Javanese stone that turns the water a deep emerald in the sun. A thatched bar stands at one end, the beach and the bay at the other. Loungers line the edge under the palms, and past them the sand takes over.
Down on the beach there are timber daybeds and thatched umbrellas set among the trees, close enough to the tideline to hear it. The spa sits on the sand too, treatments run to the sound of the water. Afternoons here do not ask much. Swim, read, watch the boats, wait for the light to soften.
The luxury is the quiet. A working beach that never turned into a resort strip, and a hotel content to sit low among the palms.
The Splendid EditThe table
Dinner tends toward the sea. The open-air restaurant and bar sit on the sand, and the kitchen leans on what the boats bring in that morning. Grilled fish, sambals, rice from the terraces inland. You eat with your feet near the beach and the sky going from gold to dark over the bay.
The village does the rest. Jimbaran's fish market runs a short walk down the shore, centuries old, loud at dawn and again at dusk when the grills come out. The famous seafood warungs line the sand beyond the hotel, plastic chairs and charcoal smoke, some of the best eating on the island.
The island
The setting keeps the rest of Bali within reach. The clifftop temple at Uluwatu sits a short drive south, its kecak dance staged against the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Tanah Lot, the sea temple on its own rock, lies up the coast. Ubud and the terraced interior are a run inland when the beach has done its work.
The hotel began as Pansea Jimbaran, built to pair with a sister property in Ubud so guests could take both the coast and the hills. Orient-Express took it on in 2006, and it became Belmond in 2014, now under LVMH. The bones stayed the same. Two or three nights here at the start or the close of a trip set the pace for the rest.
Jimbaran Puri, A Belmond Hotel, Bali sits on the sand at Jimbaran Bay, about twenty minutes from Ngurah Rai International Airport. Details at belmond.com.
Photography courtesy of Belmond — © Belmond, Jimbaran Puri, A Belmond Hotel, Bali