Villa Kaniksa

Outrigger fishing boats bob just beyond the sea wall at Villa Kaniksa, close enough that you can watch the fishermen head out at dawn from your sun lounger. The villa sits right on the shoreline at Candidasa, on Bali’s quieter east coast, and a set of private steps leads from the garden straight down into the water for snorkelling and swimming off the reef.

Life here centres on a sixteen-metre blue-tiled pool set into a broad lawn, with a row of sunbeds under orange umbrellas, a jacuzzi on the veranda nearby and the sound of the waves always in the background. The main pavilion is open-sided under a traditional Balinese timber roof, with deep sofas, a long dining table and wall murals and antiques giving it a gallery-like warmth, all looking across the garden to the sea.

Four generous bedrooms each have their own veranda with armchairs facing the garden and ocean, and their bathrooms are finished in limestone with freestanding tubs and twin basins. A team of seven staff looks after the house, the cook prepares breakfast every morning, and the temples, water palaces and black-sand beaches of east Bali are all within easy day-trip range.