“Sitara in the Sawah”
Sitara Padi Villas
NiceView
Melbourne, Australia
Jan 9, 2008
Pool at Kahyangan
Peace
Infinity edge
More photos Christmas in Bali for a family group of 18 people lead us to this beautiful group of villas in Umalas. Reached via a tiny track barely a car's width snaking through rice fields, we passed many expat and tourist villas dotted along the way - in fact our driver joked that this area is really a 'western village' and not Balinese at all.
However on entering the villas there could be no mistake we were in rural Bali, the vista from the main villa, Kahyangan, was simply superb. The amazing emerald rice fields at the front of the villa looked like someone had strewn a giant pack of playing cards across the landscape, each with it's own little picture of a sawah at various stages of growth - lovingly tended by workers day in and day out, in sun and torrential rain, from dawn to dusk. Over our 10 days there we watched them harvest, weed, flood, plough, plant and tend and couldn't wait to open the blinds in the morning to see what they were doing next.
The night calls of the insects and frogs was an orchestral cacophany and wonderful to drift off to sleep to, however two of my brothers became very frustrated with the deafening, monotonous and incessant, bellowing croaking of one ( or two ) resident bullfrogs, which after the third night were hunted down in the villa pond and promptly and perhaps rather unkindly, despatched to rice padis somewhat further afield.
Sitara Padi comprises four walled villa compounds with each of them offering one, two or three separate bungalows. Each bungalow has a large, modern, yet 'I know I'm in Bali' bedroom with a comfortable king-size, mostly four poster canopied bed and a lovely, large outdoor bathroom. Communal living areas within each compound provide couches, dining table, tv, dvd, kitchen and either a plunge pool or swimming pool. The pools were lovely but there was no shade and for both poolside and for outdoor dining, some umbrellas to sit under are badly needed. It's extremely hot when the sun is out and most of us Aussies are sun smart enough to know that tropical sun particularly, is ferociously dangerous.
Included in the tariff were staff on hand to assist with maintenance, security, advice, arrangements such as bookings, and driving us to nearby locations for sightseeing, shopping, entertainment and dining. As we had booked out the whole villa complex (all of the 9 avilable bedrooms) there was some flexibility with the cars and drivers - but what is actually provided is only a 3x day shuttle service which could be very limiting. The villas are quite remote and there are no shops, restaurants or taxis close by. We also had the use of two extra cars with drivers for 8 hours every day (courtesy of the agent we booked through) but even then we found that at times some of us were stranded without transport.
The only food provided was an American style breakfast , prepared for us each morning, however after a few days of eggs, bacon, awful sausages, toast and UHT juice we craved some variety - an option of fresh juices, indonesian dishes, pancakes, cereals, yoghurt and good bread would have been most welcome indeed. We all eagerly devoured the fruit platter each morning, often leaving the rest. Other meals could be ordered as take-away through the three or four restaurants with which the villas had an arrangement, but some dishes just do not travel well. Otherwise you had to make the 20 minute car trip to go out and eat, which was not always convenient when you just wanted a quick snack.
To sum up, yes it is remote and not easy to get to. The staff however were very obliging and always eager to attend to our requirements. Our appreciation goes particularly to Made, who drove us, organised us and ran around after us with more willingness, patience and good grace than we probably deserved.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
Is this the one ,
Pablo 
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