Serene swimming

Ubud Hanging Gardens is a beautiful paradox: a modern resort built in the traditional style; a large hotel designed as an individual hideaway.

This Orient-Express-owned hotel is perched on a gorge with an exquisite temple (Pura Penataran Dalem Segara) on the opposite cliff. Its luxury pool villas have been designed to replicate a Balinese village.

Each villa has its own private plunge pool, where you can be enveloped by nature – looking over the jungle-covered mountains, breathing the aroma of the exotic gardens, taking in the peaceful ambience of the surrounding rice paddies. All the pools are heated infinity plunge pools, set high in the rice terraces overlooking the Ayung river.

The property’s architect is Popo Danes, and his roots remain firmly planted in his native Balinese culture and community.

He maintains his roots by reinvesting in education and supporting young talent for the benefit of the island and its future generations. He always strives to ensure that any development blends into the surroundings, the community and the spiritual aspects of the space it occupies.

Ubud Hanging Gardens has 40 pools – 38 of them individual pools attached to the villas. Each pool is sanitised using an ionisation water treatment system, without the additional use of chlorine or salt.

There is more on this resort in the December 2010 printed issue of SPLASH!