Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan

A teak footbridge leaves the road at Sayan, a village on the ridge west of Ubud, and crosses thin air to land on an oval pond planted with lotus. The pond is the roof. Beneath it, Four Seasons Resort Bali at Sayan, in Ubud, drops storey by storey down the side of the Ayung river gorge, and the rice terraces, the river and the coconut palms open up as the guest descends. Nobody who has walked that bridge forgets it.

History

The resort opened in 1998, five years after Four Seasons had opened its first Balinese property at Jimbaran Bay on the coast. The Sayan site was chosen for the opposite reason: no sea, but a river valley in the hill country around Ubud that was then just becoming the island's centre for art, yoga and the kind of traveller who does not want a beach. The resort was renovated in the mid-2010s and has stayed small.

Its best-known guests arrived in June 2017, when Barack Obama and his family stayed at Sayan during a holiday in Indonesia, where the former president had lived as a child. They rafted the Ayung from the resort's own landing.

Architecture and design

John Heah, the Malaysian-born architect based in London, designed the building, and it is one of the few resorts in Asia that is talked about as architecture. The main structure is an elliptical, three-storey block set into the hillside, its roof a pond, its lower floors opening to the valley. The approach over the bridge and down a stair through the middle of the building was conceived as a procession from the sky to the river. Villas sit further down the slope in their own gardens, each with a plunge pool and a view of the river or the rice terraces. The materials are local stone, teak and thatch, used plainly.

Rooms and suites

There are 60 units: 18 suites in the main building and 42 villas on the slopes below, which matches the figure on file. The suites have terraces over the valley. The villas are walled compounds with a bedroom pavilion, an outdoor living area and a private pool, and the river villas at the bottom of the gorge have the sound of the Ayung all night. The largest, the Royal Villa, has several bedrooms and a long pool above the river.

Dining

Ayung Terrace, on the upper floor of the main building, serves Indonesian and Balinese dishes with the valley below the tables. Riverside Café, at the bottom of the gorge beside the main pool, is the daytime restaurant, with wood-fired pizza and a Balinese grill at night. Jati Bar takes the evening drinks. The resort also runs cooking classes in the village and a chef's table in the rice fields.

Wellness

Sacred River Spa is built along the river at the base of the valley, with treatment pavilions on the water and a programme that includes Balinese healing and the Dharma Shanti yoga bale, a pavilion dedicated to meditation and yoga. The main pool is a long, two-tier pool on the river bank. The resort employs a resident wellness mentor, a former Buddhist nun, whose sessions are part of the programme.

Weddings and events

Weddings at Sayan are held in the rice terraces, on the lotus pond or in the villas, and the resort is used for small retreats and incentive groups rather than conferences; there is a meeting room for executive sessions. Capacities are not given here.

Location

Sayan is about ten minutes by car west of the centre of Ubud, the town of palaces, markets and the Monkey Forest. Ngurah Rai International Airport at Denpasar is roughly 90 minutes away by road, depending on the traffic through the south of the island. The resort sits in the hills at about 300 metres, which keeps it cooler than the coast. It is the resort on Bali whose building, not its beach, is the reason to go.