Photo taken of frog pond, Puri Ayu, Villa Diamond

Welcome to Puri Ayu. This is where we spent our first week in Bali and it is only fair to review this Boutique Accomodation after the amazing week we had there.

You know it’s going to be good within the first 30 seconds of arriving at a place. We were received at 10pm with friendly smiles, excellent English (after the Denpasar Visa queue this was most welcome), a very quick check-in and three staff to take our many bags to our Villa where they delivered them to the correct rooms, not just the front door.

It is important to state here that we were upgraded twice in the upcoming months to our arrival. So we ended up in their Diamond Villa. We needed a tour to view the whole house!

Set in a very private part of the complex, the villa (or rather house) had 4 bedrooms, three bathrooms, kitchen, lounge area, two inside dining areas, a Bale complete with another dining table, lounge and the 4th TV. Your own private pool (with umbrella and pool chairs), views over the tree tops, fish pond complete with tropical fish and frogs and a private garden.

Did I forget to mention the two outside showers?

Immaculately clean. Very large rooms. Airconditioners in every room. It would easily fit two families or four couples without getting under each others feet.

Staff came every day to change sheets, clean, tidy, garden and whatever else needed doing. Small things like blown globes were dealt with the same day and everyone was super friendly.

We could have our included breakfast either in the villa (pick a table - we tried all of them), or in the hotel restaurant which is open and overlooks the large and stunning pool (with a smaller pool at the top that the kids loved).

The breakfast at the restaurant was simple. We weren’t inspired to order room service for any other meal but what we did get for breakfast was hot with plenty of Bali coffee.

The complex was very well maintained. Both the older and newer buildings looked as well maintained as our Villa.

The reception staff were always very helpful. Motorbikes and cars arrived for us when we asked and they had plenty of advice when we inquired. If we rang and the English was not so good (it took us a few more days to get our Bahasa going), they would always go and get someone else to talk to us.

The location of Puri Ayu suited us. At the Semawang end of the main Jalan Danau Tamblingan (road) in Sanur it was quiet and barely a 2 min walk down a gang (smaller road) to the beach. Puri Ayu does not show up on any map but it is right next to Puri Santrian which you can see at the bottom of this map.

We were within a 2 minute walk of some really nice places to eat (important with small kids), as well as the many places on the beach. Jalan Tamblingan is not a road to walk the entire length (unless you have no kids with you), and we found jumping in a Bluebird (metered taxi) a very easy and cheap way to get up and down the road.

I would recommend Puri Ayu to my closest friends and family. Apart from all the positives above they also did an offering for us daily which showed me that they cared and weren’t losing their Balinese essence due to tourism.

Stay tuned for more on Sanur….

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