Villa Mahesa

Villa Mahesa is all about the pool: a striking fifteen-metre ribbon of water running the length of a lush tropical garden, with a bubbling jacuzzi at one end and thatched bales and daybeds along its edges. Set in Umalas, the quiet, rice-field-fringed neighbourhood between Seminyak and Canggu, it is part of a small private villa complex yet feels like your own Balinese hideaway.

Everything opens towards the water. The open-sided living pavilion, with its high traditional ceiling, deep L-shaped sofa and television, flows straight onto the garden, and blinds roll down when the afternoon sun is strong. A six-seat dining table and a fully equipped kitchen sit alongside, and on a balmy evening dinner by the pool, lit up beneath the garden trees, is hard to beat. The team can cook lunch or dinner, and breakfast can be added each morning.

Three bedrooms each have a four-poster king bed, timber floors, armchairs and a window seat, and every one has a partly open-air bathroom with a freestanding bathtub, twin basins and tropical planting. Guests also enjoy complimentary entry to Finns Recreation Club, with its water slides, gym and lap pool, while the cafés and boutiques of Seminyak and the surf beaches of Canggu are a short drive away.