Bali Notes I: The Villa

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be writing recollections of our Bali trip oriented around subject areas. This is gonna be mostly for our recording purposes so in a few decades’ time when we’re all old and forgetful, at least there will be entries that help us remember what the stay was like.:)

The first entry in this series is on Tepi Sawah Villas. The villa is rated #9 of 90 places of stay in Ubud at Tripadvisor. The published room rates for the Padang Tegal villa on the villas’ web site is SGD152 per night, but booking through Asiarooms netted us a very nice 25% discount with the room rate at SGD115.

The best thing about the villas were its tropical Balinese gardens. Given how small the compound really was, it was especially amazing how optimized the use of space was. There’re perhaps just slightly over a dozen villas, an L-shaped swimming pool, an art gallery, numerous small ponds and water fountains, and two restaurants all packed into a small compound.

The villas are accessible via the main road, and face rice fields separated by low and high walls. The villas are adorned with flora, many of which surprisingly looked even better than the ones we saw at the Bali Botanic Gardens. On two evenings when we weren’t too spaced out by the day’s visits, I carted out the D300 with wired remote and mounted on the Manfrotto tripod and did the night shots of the villas. And the villas look even more stunning at night than the pictures show.

I especially also enjoyed the privacy afforded by the villas’ location. There was the occasional roar of a loud motorcycle nearby, and every morning the hyperactive roosters situated at the villas’ entrance would start their chorus at 4 am. But the villas were sparsely occupied during our stay. During the first two days we perhaps saw just two other units occupied, and at any time I’m guessing that the place saw a maximum of just 50 percent occupancy. The villas are just off the main Ubud town, and Ubud itself is in the center of Bali. That substantially helped reduce our traveling times each day as we traversed the length and breadth of the island.

Possibly also because of the low occupancy during our stay, our villa was pretty well-maintained by staff. They did their rounds twice a day, and each evening at about 6 pm they’d come by our villa for a third time to fire up the electronic mosquito-repellent devices. They worked in three-person teams and could do cleaning pretty quickly. On several occasions we’d have morning breakfast, and 30 minutes later the villa was all tidy and clean again with all the amenities replenished. Ling did note on one occasion that they’d forgotten to replenish tea bags though. Maybe they saw that we were about finishing breakfast and they had to sneak out double-quick time.:)

The wireless Internet access was also a nice bonus, though access was somewhat intermittent with occasional dropped connections. I think I was the villas’ heaviest Internet user during our 6 day stay, with most of the 400+ pictures totaling 180 MB space uploaded to our Flickr album during our stay. I wouldn’t be too surprised if this few days I get a bill for excessive Internet use.

The shuttle bus service was very useful too. The service was on demand, and the villas’ staff worked fine with just a 10-15 minute advance notice. The service ferried us to the Ubud town for a couple of our evening dinners and also to the Ubud Monkey Sanctuary.

The daily complimentary afternoon tea was the last little amenity we enjoyed. On two days we were back in the villa in the late afternoon but in time for tea nonetheless.

Now for the not so great things. Our six day five night stay included daily breakfast. I have some notes about the breakfast sets which I’ll write in a later entry. The short version of it is that breakfast was serviceable but not great. The quality of customer service was also a mixed bag. The reception staff were unfailingly polite, but they could have exhibited a little more warmth, and also been more attentive and accommodating.

Here are two examples. Upon checkin, I requested for a late checkout by just an additional hour on our last day. No go on that one. Ling also asked then if it was possible to change our villa to one that was facing the rice fields. The reception promised they’d check it for us. They never got back to us. On that, we reasoned that since we were out for most of the stay and back fairly late in the evening each day, it wouldn’t have mattered much anyway so we didn’t follow through with our request either. I supposed we were thoroughly spoiled by the amazing hospitality demonstrated at the Ayara Hilltops Resort in Phuket.

There were also ‘visitors’ of the creepy and crawly kind to our villa too. I wasn’t bothered by these insects since they’re an expected part of the stay when you staying in what’s really a tropical Balinese garden. But Ling more than a few times squealed “DARLING!!!! THERE IS A _________ (fill in your choice of cockroach / spider / fly / mosquito) in the _________ (fill in your choice of toilet / bathtub / bed / mosquito net)!!!”. Fortunately, the electronic repellents kept the most of the more bothersome crawlies i.e. mosquitoes away, and the mosquito net over our king-sized bed kept them out when they somehow managed to sneak in.

So what’s my rating on the villa? If I were to take a cue from Tripadvisor, here would be my upon * * * * ratings based on these criteria:

Environment: * * * * . Gardens are beautiful, compact and well-maintained.
Rooms: * * *. The Pedang Tegal villa was large though the one we stayed in didn’t have a great view. Also, the villa was a little spartan and we had a few unwelcomed visitors nightly.
Service: * * . Polite, but could be a little more accommodating and attentive.
Value: * * * *. Very attractive rates from Asiarooms.
Cleanliness: * * *. Rooms were efficiently cleaned twice a day. One would have to accept a mite bit of grime, soil and dirt though as the villas aren’t sanitized and carpeted hotels like the Bali Hyatt.
Breakfast: * *. Barely passable. The lunch and dinner ala carte menus were much better though (more on that later).

Our photo collection of Tepi Sawah Villas is right here. My next entry will be on the Bali places we visited, starting with Temples, Palaces and Monuments.:)