The river house

THE perfect holiday hideaway is in the Balinese village of Cepaka.

Sungai Gold is set in a more traditional tropical environment to Bali's busy beaches.

IF one were to draw a picture of the idealised Balinese holiday villa, sketching in the pitch-roofed pavilions, the wet-edge pool and the almost mandatory frangipani trees, then it would look like Sungai Gold.

What such an illustration could not convey, however, would be the level of service and style to be found at this diminutive hideaway in the village of Cepaka in southwest Bali, about 40 minutes by road from Denpasar's Ngurah Rai airport and 20 minutes from the fashionable beach haunts of Seminyak. And no drawing could impart the sweet scent of stems of tuberose in tall vases and scattered frangipani petals.

There are just the two of us for this sojourn in Bali. Earlier in this holiday, and for a memorable getaway two years ago, we travelled as a house-party pack, renting big villas and all pitching in for meals and rather making fools of ourselves playing games in uniformly delightful pools. Once at the Alu Bali villas in Seminyak, a member of our party turned 50 and to cheer him up we swam in a garden pool filled with rose petals and made water bombs from plastic shopping bags. We thought we were ever so clever, until the following morning's headaches.

At Sungai Gold, the staff outnumber us and we have roosters for company each dawn, cock-a-doodling for all their worth. The first morning we curse the roosters in fruity language and get up for an early dip in our private pool; by the end of the week, we find the reveille comforting and resume sleeping with a smile.

Sungai Gold is a one-bedroom retreat adjacent to the original, and much larger, Villa Sungai. Both are airy and open-sided with vaulted alang-alang grass roofs and are set down a gorge in an embrasure of bamboo and palms over a bend in the Penet River. They are reached from the road via fairly steep stone steps. Enter through ceremonial double wooden doors to a retreat of celadon-coloured pool, linked pavilions, statues and myriad cushioned places to sit, lie down, sleep.

There is a clutch of other villa rentals perched along the ridges of Cepaka and the location is proving popular with holidaymakers who want a more traditional setting away from Bali's busy beaches.

Sungai Gold has a cliff-walled bathroom with orchids and feathery ferns sprouting through rocky cracks, an outdoor shower and tub, and luxuries such as Bulgari toiletries and hillocks of bath and pool towels. Every conceivable detail has been considered, from reading spotlights by the netted four-poster bed to a choice of pillows, the softest bedding, high-spec tableware and provision of magazines, DVDs and CDs. There are sarongs and slippers in the wardrobe and petals in the bath; vodka cocktails stirred with lime and palm sugar appear as the sun goes down.

  THE BALI DILEMMA IN the wake of the July 17 Jakarta bombings, the Department of Foreign Affairs travel advisory to Indonesia states, "There is a possibility of further terrorist attacks in Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia, including Bali. In past years, terrorists have attacked nightclubs, bars, restaurants and hotels in Bali and Jakarta; we judge that these types of venues are still targets of interest to terrorists.
      "We continue to receive credible information that terrorists could be planning attacks ... You should exercise great care, particularly around locations that have a low level of protective security ... If youdo decide to travel to Indonesia, you should exercise extreme caution."
      The overall level of travel advisory has not changed; Travel & Indulgence advises readers to monitor the situation carefully.
www.smarttraveller.gov.au  

The palette is almost French provincial - whitewashed walls, fabrics in creamy white and caramel, and furniture streaked with milky lime paint - and presents a light, summery take on the more classic teak-and-batik villa dressing. There are cool terrazzo floors and a daybed at almost every turn.

The Australian owner, Pamela Hayes, has been wise, and very fortunate, with her choice of staff here. In charge is Little Made and he speaks excellent English peppered with the Australian colloquialisms that he has collected from guests.

The advantage of staying in what amounts to a serviced holiday house is the daily contact with the Balinese staff. Unlike hotel employees, they have time to stop and chat, to explain the ways of village life and invite guests to festival events, to their nearby homes or for a walk through rice fields.

Every day we talk to Putu, Iluh, Trisna and Wayan as well as Little Made but otherwise we stay tucked away in our river house, reading and, at night, watching on our bedroom's plasma-screen television the stash of DVDs we have been saving for months.

A dog fight breaks out in the village high up the ridge during Gran Torino; we take an intermission midway through The Reader and go for a midnight swim, the pool's tiled edge lined with rows of tealights.

I feel seasick reading Redmond O'Hanlon's Trawler, a completely unhinged adventure full of swaying and surging in the North Atlantic and nets full of things called snotfish and sea bats. Another afternoon, Miss Marple joins me for a swim when I drop her in the water midway through The Body in the Library while balancing a Bintang beer.

Breakfast is included at Villa Sungai and Sungai Gold and each morning we eat in a garden pavilion, with Vegemite provided for toast, eggs every which way and a half-pig pile of bacon. The juice is freshly squeezed and the coffee just right. Other meals are provided at the cost of the ingredients and there's plenty of choice; the French and Australian wines are cheaper than the norm in Bali where there is a high import duty. Two chefs are on standby and Hayes estimates that most Sungai guests eat in for 75 per cent of their stay.

We dine very well on such fresh, crunchy fare as vegetarian rice-paper rolls with tamarind dipping sauce, lime and chilli prawns with green mango salad, and spicy beef salad with soy and chilli pepper. There's the fragrance of ginger, the tang of spice, and we become addicted to kacang polong manis, the local sweet green peas.

Some of the dishes are made from recipes used at the simple Bumbu Bali restaurant near the Conrad Bali Resort&Spa at Tanjung Benoa (close to Nusa Dua). Bumbu Bali's owner, Swiss-born Heinz von Holzen, is to Balinese cuisine what David Thompson is to Thai: a custodian of traditional recipes and evangelist for the preservation of culinary culture. A sortie there is highly recommended if you can be bothered to change out of a sarong.

We are happy as a twosome, but families and parties would do well to book Villa Sungai next door with its three double ensuite bedrooms (and extra convertible daybed and king singles as needed), 17m-long lap pool and huge marble-floored living spaces. We earmark it for a future houseparty and spend hours concocting the perfect guest list, then crossing out everyone's name.

Later we join friends for a stay at Karma Kandara at Uluwatu on the Bukit Peninsula, a fun resort with a beach club and spa shacks all but hanging off the cliff. They are full of talk about shopping in Kuta and Legian and ask what we have been doing at Sungai Gold. Did we play golf (Le Meridien Nirwana Golf and Spa Resort at Tanah Lot is near Cepaka; somehow they know this) or venture to the hill station of Ubud with its galleries and antiques shops, 30 minutes into the hills?

It's hard for us to answer adequately. There has been the distraction of sunsets, I explain, with the sky streaked as pink and gold as a length of sari silk. There's been an orchestra to entertain us. An orchestra? Yes, the tinkle-tonkle of a gamelan group playing on our favourite CD. And, of course, the symphony of the surrounding forest and the village, from the screech of cicadas, the snuffle of rootling pigs and those demanding dawn calls of roosters to the bass-croak of frogs and the uh-oh of geckoes chirruping in mock surprise.

We have bobbed in the pool, arms outstretched along the edge, peering into the dense vegetation on the opposite side of the slender river.

Little Made showed us the bunut bolong trees, a kind of banyan, one evening as clouds of rice sparrows whirled about our heads and orange and brown butterflies settled on branches. It is the wet season but the rain is soft and unhurried and we tell our underwhelmed friends how dragonflies skim the river and squirrels scamper from tree to tree seeking shelter under the canopy of leaves. It takes commitment to do nothing, Iconfess.

Our friends seem sceptical but cannot argue that we look as if we have just emerged from a very satisfactory convalescence. And indeed we have.

Checklist
Villa Sungai (four doubles plus king singles, as required) and Sungai Gold (for couples) come with 24-hour service and chauffeured vehicle on call.

Priority airport arrival service at a small extra cost (and worth it to speed through the formalities, including visa purchase).

Tariff includes cooked breakfasts, airport transfers, laundry and pressing, and unlimited tea, coffee and bottled water.

The Sungai vehicles (which seat eight) are included for up to eight hours a day; thereafter, $30 for four hours or part thereof; petrol refills extra. Massages and spa therapies on request in a double treatment room. There is a special of 10 nights for the price of eight valid to June 30 next year (excluding Christmas).

Villa Sungai is from $US700 ($830) to $US1000 a night plus taxes, depending on the season.

More: www.bali-villasungai.com.  

Sungai Gold is from $US500 to $US700 a night, depending on theseason. More: www.baliluxuryhoneymoons.com.  

The two villas can be combined for a large group stay. More: www.baliluxuryvillacollection.com.