Spending all of our Bali holiday in beach resort towns we started thinking to make a change. Introduced as the center of fine art and cultural heritage, Ubud offers a different kind of tropical bliss. Instead of the mainstream sea-sun-sand, it features rice-field, lush tropical forest, and river valley.

It was a bit discouraging to find that nearly all travel agents advised that different from other tourist areas in Bali, Ubud does not have moderate holiday accommodations they are either cheap motels affordable for backpackers or super-luxury like the Amandari with guest-to-staff ratio of 7. Imagine, seven well-trained staffs dedicated to serve each guest. I started wondering on what I want to order them to do if I am rich enough to taste the such luxury. At the price ranging between $700 to $1,100 per room, I did not even dare to imagine.

On the other side we are now addicted to the new style of holiday experience, private villas. The last time we spent our holiday in Sanur we learned that renting a private villas is not expensive at all. With less than $200 a night we got a villa with two en-suited bathrooms with AC, private pool, garden gazebo, spacious living area with large LCD screen, modern kitchen, and dedicated maids. We wondered if we would find something similar up there in Ubud.

Thanks God that we live the age when we have the wizard of unlimited resource: Google. Our research leaded us to talk to some holiday rental agencies offering wonderful options. It was a surprise to learn that renting through agents not a dime more expensive than directly talking to the owners. Finally through Ubud Villas Online we found a huge private villa with 700 square meters building sitting on a 2,200 square meters plot of land. I fact, as we were not seeing any neighbor, we actually got the whole world solely on our own.

Perching on a river valley Villa Isabella features unobstructed view of the river, valley, tropical forest, and rice-field. Without any other premises through the distance of our sight, we truly felt complete seclusion to dissolve ourselves to the nature. The two storey house was composed in a way to enjoy the view from almost every corner. For $250 a night we have three spacious bedrooms with terrace overlooking the valley, a salon with daybed which can serve as a bedroom as well, living and dining areas, kitchen, private swimming pool, and staffs which include a dedicated in-house cook.