Introduction
Buahan is the hotel with no walls. No doors, no windows, no glass anywhere. Sixteen villas, which they call bales, sit on a hillside of forest and rice terraces north of Ubud, and each one is a roof on wooden posts with a bed underneath. You sleep in the open air, halfway up a mountain, with the jungle about a metre from your pillow. I know that sounds like waking up with mosquitoes in the morning - but to my suprise I saw very little bugs when I was there.
My verdict first: it is the most memorable place I have stayed in Bali, and though I'm not particular fan of remote hotels - this is definitely worth an experience.
Location
Buahan is 40 to 45 minutes past the centre of Ubud which means about two hours from the airport if the traffic behaves. The last stretch climbs small, twisting lanes that barely fit one car, to an entrance so modest you would drive past it.
Nothing is walkable, which is the point. A free shuttle runs into Ubud a few times a day but it only goes one way. Getting back up the mountain is between you and whichever driver you can find. Sayan and Mandapa are close enough to Ubud to pop in for dinner. Buahan is not. Once you arrive, you stay.
First Impressions
The car drops you at a thatched pavilion at the top of the property. There is no reception desk anywhere. Instead, someone hands you a wooden striker and asks you to hit the kulkul, a hollow wooden bell, three times to announce yourself. In the village, other numbers of strikes mean a wedding or a call for everyone to gather. I stopped at exactly three, in case four summoned the entire valley.
A short walk downhill brings you to The Living Room, the open-air, two-level heart of the resort. Upstairs is The Botanist bar, where you check in on a sofa with a cold towel, house tea and chocolate while staff come over one by one to introduce themselves. It has the best view in the hotel: valley, rice terraces and a volcano in the distance. Downstairs are the restaurant and open kitchen, and below that the pool.
The Bale
I tried two bales, one high up near the arrival pavilion and one further down the hill, and the layout does not change at all. All sixteen are identical. You are choosing the view, and higher is better. The staff will tell you Bale 12 has the best one. There is a seventeenth bale visible from the lobby that has never been sold, because everyone at breakfast could watch you get dressed.
Outside
The official 160 square metres includes the pool. The part with a roof is closer to 80. The courtyard gate has no lock. It exists so staff have something to knock on.
Inside the gate is a proper lap-length infinity pool. It is unheated, which is a shame because at this altitude the cold makes it uncomfortable for long swims. Beside it are a covered daybed for when it rains, which is often, and a fire pit, which someone lights for you at dusk with a blue alcohol flame.
Inside
Up a few steps is the bale itself, one long open rectangle: sofa, then bed, then bathroom. The minibar is free, with water, tonic, beer, unwrapped snacks, teas and ground coffee for pour-over. The welcome gift includes a handwritten card, fruit they refill whenever you ask and a jug of house Negroni made with Balinese arak. It is strong. One glass on an empty stomach at altitude sent me to the daybed.
The bed sits inside a netted canopy, with a single air-conditioning unit mounted right above it, blowing into the tent. It gets cool enough for the jungle but never cold like a hotel room at home, although the mountain nights are cool anyway. The mattress is soft.
The Bathroom
This is where the lack of walls pays off: a heavy hammered-copper tub that takes an age to fill and does not always run hot, a double vanity, twin rainfall showers and a wooden toilet seat I did not expect to have opinions about. It is good. The lemongrass toiletries come in big bottles with spouts so narrow that a firm squeeze fires shampoo across the room. The wardrobe holds robes, straw hats, raincoats and a pair of trekking poles, which tells you what the rest of the property involves.
At Night
At turndown, staff lower the curtains and the net around the bed. You can leave it all open. I could not. Credit where it is due: the hotel treats the grounds for mosquitoes and leaves coils and repellent oils in the bale, and I got far fewer bites than a room with no walls deserves. What does get in is harmless, mostly moths. "Harmless" is doing a lot of work, though. My census for one afternoon: a hornet big enough to make me put my drink down, a wasp that patrolled the living room like it paid rent, a tiny spider shaped like a scorpion that did a little dance on the floor, one fly and one bee. Then bedtime begins with a hunt. You climb inside two layers of netting with a phone torch and crouch on the mattress like a very tired safari guide. By the second night I worked out that the moths were not sneaking in. They had been in there all afternoon, waiting, and turndown just locked me inside with them.
The forest at night is loud, with insects, frogs and birds starting well before dawn. The first night was hard and the second was fine. Bring earplugs, and expect everything to feel slightly damp. There are no monkeys up here, and in a room with no doors that is the most important fact about the property.
Then you wake up with fog lying in the valley and rice terraces in view from the pillow, and forgive all of it.
The Hill
The property drops about 100 metres along winding stone paths and a lot of steps, and there are no buggies. From a high bale to the restaurant is seven or eight minutes each way, uphill in one direction, three times a day. An inclined lift runs down the slope with stops for the rice fields and the forest. Some days it works. Some days guests are told it is for luggage.
After rain the stones grow a film of moss. I went over properly on the way back from breakfast one wet morning. The manager apologised, paid for the broken screen protector and by the next morning a man with a pressure washer was scrubbing the path outside my bale. Good recovery. Still, anyone with bad knees should book somewhere else.
The Pool
The main pool sits just below The Living Room, and it is the best-looking thing at Buahan: a long, heated infinity pool, comfortably over 25 metres, lined with red loungers under fringed red umbrellas and pointing straight across the valley at a row of volcanoes. Your own pool is too cold for more than a dip, so this is where the actual swimming happens.
It is also nearly always empty. With sixteen bales and most guests out on a walk or asleep in their nets, I rarely shared it with more than one other person. Because the hotel is expensive and two hours from anything, nobody was filming themselves on it either.
Dining
Breakfast and dinner are included, which is just as well, since there is nowhere else to go. Drinks are extra, water at meals included. The kitchen was set up with AgencyX, the group behind Locavore, and most of what you eat comes from gardens around the property or farmers nearby.
Breakfast is the better meal. Ignore the small buffet of bread and fruit and order from the à la carte menu, which changes every three days and is plated like fine dining. One of everything is a full meal: coconut French toast, tomatoes with a slow-cooked egg, jackfruit, and butter whipped with local herbs.
Dinner is five courses, with a menu that changes every four days. One night ran from lamb sate and soto ayam through winged beans with peanut miso butter and a millet porridge with moringa pesto, to fish in a torch ginger and coconut dressing. So, was it good? The first two nights, yes: clever, very fresh and light on salt and oil. By night three the leaves had started to blur together, and meat is scarce. Ask for an extra protein course, which they do happily, or swap to a starter and main off the lunch menu.
The Botanist is the strongest part of the food and drink. Rudy, the bartender, asks what flavours you like and builds something on the spot, always on arak and with no added sugar. I had mangosteen with pressed cucumber, and pineapple with a red jalapeño vinegar that has a real kick. His family made arak the village way, and he now infuses his own with spice, rosella or butterfly pea.
Spa, Waterfall and Things to Do
The spa is two open-air pavilions at the bottom of the valley, beside a loud river. The oils are made from local plants and the massage is up to Banyan Tree's usual high standard. So is the price, at roughly US$110 to US$170 a treatment. It is still the one paid extra I would book.
The free daily programme runs from morning yoga through a midday workshop, such as cooking a local snack over a wood fire, to an evening cocktail with storytelling or dance. The paid trips are expensive for what they are. A free rice terrace walk takes about an hour and explains the subak irrigation system properly.
The walk to do is the waterfall, about 40 minutes there and back, down steep stone steps with no handrail and water running over them, past fresh offerings on the path every morning. It feels like the jungle scenes in The Jungle Book, with the added fun of climbing back up. This is what the trekking poles are for.
Kids Club
There is none, because Buahan is adults-only. Given a room with no walls, an unfenced pool and 100 metres of mossy steps, that is the right call.
Service
This is the best thing about Buahan. Staff clearly outnumber guests, and most come from the surrounding villages. Everyone knows your bale number from day one, so you never sign a bill, and several remembered my name, my drink and what I do not eat. When something went wrong, as with the moss, it was fixed by the next morning. At check-out you ring the bell again and half the team waves you off. It is corny, and it still got to me.
The Verdict
Overall: 8/10
Is Buahan comfortable in the usual luxury-hotel sense? No. Is it the most memorable stay in Bali? For me, yes. Every other Ubud resort puts a pane of glass between you and the view. Buahan takes the glass away and makes you live with the consequences: moths, frogs at 4am, a cold pool and a hill three times a day. The morning fog makes up for all of it.
Book it if you want a Bali stay you will talk about for years and can sleep through a forest. Ask for a high bale, get it in writing and keep it to two or three nights. Skip it if insects are a dealbreaker, if anyone in your group struggles with steps, or if you want to wander into Ubud for dinner.
Nothing between you and the jungle except a mosquito net and your own optimism.
Booking Buahan With Perks
As a Accor HERA advisor, I secure exclusive benefits for my clients at Accor properties worldwide, at no additional cost:
Complimentary daily breakfast for two adults
$100 USD property credit per stay
Priority room upgrade, subject to availability
Early check-in and late checkout priority
VIP recognition and exclusive promotions
Booking is simple: find Buahan on the client portal and book with these perks attached, in a few clicks.
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