Villa Wanakerta

good honest host dewa and his staff took care of us for the 5 weeks we stayed at their villa .we made offer for long term and it worked out well,safe and close by transport to central ubud 5 min. to jln monkey forest if by motor bike( cut through nyun kunning),near bridge and a bit close too road but for us busy being out living life enjoying ubud and other points in bali it was fine.sleep time is nice and a unique option for long term stay,the teak house was way cool and wood under the foot feels wonderful,trusted staff keep eye on stuff as we stayed in amed, kuta,etc.

I had been dreaming our trip to Bali for a long time and so I'd planned it with love and great care. I didn't want to stay in an anonymous hotel like any other and wanted to surprise my partner with a taste of the true Bali. For these reasons, after long and painstaking research, I chose Villa Wanakerta for our 12-day stay. The Suite Anggrek ($80 /night) looked fabulous on the website pictures - a 2-storey bungalow with large bedroom and 2 Queen size beds (which for us with a little girl of 4 was perfect), a small meditation room that opened onto jungle like gardens, a small private pond just outside our bedroom window and a bathroom with sunken tub and open air shower, in pure Balinese style. Downstairs, down a rickety wooden staircase, there was a dining area open onto the private garden....sounds idyllic...on paper! But once there we found a situation of sad abandonment, little or no maintainance to the otherwise beautiful bungalows, ripped dirty curtains and bed nets, dead insects in every corner of the rooms. We were told that the owner is a Dutch living in Jakarta, who also owns other properties in Ubud, but is never there, provides very little money and resourses for maintenance and obviously cares very little about the needs of an establishment meant for receiving and accomodating guests. A real shame because the resort is really nice and the staff were kind and tried to help in every way. Though it has to be said that they'd known we were coming for a long while, so they could have at least given the place a good clean up! The Suite Anggrek is also built in pure local style and though it has doors and a roof, most of it is open to the elements and the insects. That's not a problem and actually part of the beauty, that's until you find them dead everywhere. The bed linen was clean but probably hadn't seen a change since the last guest, which looked like a while, so it was damp and sticky, not nice and fresh smelling. We changed room the next day to a more modernly built bungalow with proper doors and air con, which was slightly better. But it wasn't what I had chosen and the resort, which is right on the main road to Ubud therefore very very noisy with traffic form very early in the morning, was really too far from the actual village of Ubud (certainly not within walking distance like I had understood). So the following day we set off to look for another place in Ubud. Luckily we found Sania's House Bungalows in the village centre and for a mere $30 /night we had a fabulous stay!