Activities at the Royal Pita Maha — Local Experiences in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

Activities at the Royal Pita Maya — Local Activities Experienced at The Royal Pita Maha in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

We traveled to Ubud, a rainforest region in Indonesia’s Bali province. The name Ubud comes from the Balinese word for ‘medicine,’ a nod to the area’s fame as a source of medicinal plants and herbs. Just as healing herbs treat the body, Ubud is said to clear the mind, and it has gradually become a destination for restoration. Here are a few activities at The Royal Pita Maha in Ubud that helped us find deep rest.

Words Park Jinmyoung
Materials provided by · In collaboration with The Royal Pita Maha
Resort Holiday Korea, Korean PR Office for The Royal Pita Maha

[Stay] A Glimpse of the Ubud Dynasty’s Artistic Taste

Most travelers to Ubud begin their trip at the Ubud Royal Palace, formally known as Puri Saren Agung. Indonesia was ruled by royal dynasties until the mid-1940s, then declared itself a unitary republic in 1950 and switched to a presidential system. Traces of the dynasty’s rule, which lasted until relatively recently, remain throughout Ubud, and the Royal Palace is the most representative. It was home to the last king of the Ubud kingdom, and part of it near the entrance is open to the public free of charge during the day. When we visited, preparations were in full swing for a royal funeral a few days away, which made it all the more real that Ubud was once a kingdom. The area around the palace is crowded with cars and people even on ordinary days, but with the funeral, practically a village festival, approaching, the traffic on the roads leading to the palace was worse than ever.

The Royal Pita Maha (hereafter Pita Maha), about a 20-minute drive from the Ubud Royal Palace, is another place where you can see the legacy of the Ubud kingdom. A resort set in the rainforest along the banks of the Ayung River, the longest river in Indonesia, it was founded by the royal family to carry on the splendor of the dynasty. The name Pita Maha comes from an art association founded by the fifth king, and it means ‘great radiance’ in Balinese. The king was such an art lover that he ran the association himself, so it is no exaggeration to regard Pita Maha, built according to his wishes, as a work of art in itself. After all, the roughly 54,000-pyeong (about 18-hectare) grounds are filled with grand, ornate stone sculptures and native plants. Made up of 84 pool villas and seven Royal Villas, Pita Maha has every villa set along the mountain slope, and the uppermost villas are surrounded by rainforest so dense that the Ayung River is out of sight. Not only the buildings but all the furniture in the villas is handmade. Each standalone villa has a bedroom, bathroom, dressing room, lounge area, and outdoor pool, and its glass walls on all four sides make you feel as if you were wrapped in the rainforest.

[Yoga] Communing Deeply with the Gods

The dry season had officially begun, yet rain poured down on an Ubud morning, leaving the whole world damp. Breathing in the scent of grass and trees, deepened by the humidity, we headed to the resort’s yoga studio. Pita Maha offers a free one-hour yoga class at 8 a.m. every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and for guests who want to experience Ubud yoga properly, it also offers private lessons (IDR 375,000 per session). A stretch of the Ayung River and the jungle spread out in front of the open-sided studio. As we moved slowly and steadied our breathing under the instructor’s guidance, a fresh breeze wrapped around us, and we could hear raindrops tapping on the leaves.
Ubud has been famous for centuries as a place where yoga practitioners gather. Having experienced it firsthand, we could easily see why. The peaceful natural setting, with lush vegetation, wide plains, and a calm river, must have drawn them in. Yoga, born in ancient India, is regarded as a tool for training the mind more than the body. Its true purpose is to enter into deep communion with the Hindu gods through a flow of asanas (yoga poses). Ubud has many yoga studios built with natural materials so that practitioners can train in genuine nature. Most are designed with the front of the building open so that the hot, humid air can flow freely. As you move your body in a space made of natural materials, relying on nothing but your breath, you will find yourself thinking about nature and wanting to care for your body and mind.

[Cooking Class] Learning the Secrets of Balinese Cuisine

In Bali, where three harvests a year are possible, life brims over everywhere. Joining a cooking class (1 hour 30 minutes, IDR 650,000) and touching and smelling Ubud’s abundant ingredients firsthand lets you feel this vividly. At Pita Maha, you learn four traditional Balinese dishes, including a dessert, with Chef I Made Suama. “Except for the dessert, every dish we make today is built on Balinese seasoning, so how you make it matters most,” Chef Suama says, stressing the importance of the traditional paste. He chops locally harvested scallions, shallots, ginger, garlic, chili peppers, coconut milk, and assorted spices, then pounds them in a mortar. “The reason we use a mortar instead of a blender is that the flavor and aroma become richer.” Sauté the carefully chopped vegetables in olive oil, and the Balinese seasoning is done. It is not much of an exaggeration to say this seasoning goes into everything you taste in Bali, from soups to sate (Indonesian for skewered meat). In a word, it is the indispensable ingredient of Balinese cooking.
Once every dish is ready, we fill our stomachs with what we made. The saying that hunger is the best sauce seems to hold true in Ubud too. Everyone in the class agreed it was the best food they had eaten in Ubud. We casually ask Chef Suama whether there is a story behind the dishes made today. He jokes that whenever he caught a cold as a child, his grandmother would make him Gerang Asem Ayam (chicken soup with young papaya), and that today’s dish rivals her cooking, and the room bursts into laughter.

[Hiking] Meeting Everything Ubud Has to Offer

The Campuhan Ridge Walk, a quiet 12-kilometer trail, is practically the neighborhood’s playground. This winding, sloping route is a trekking spot that takes about an hour, and early in the morning and around sunset you can exchange nods with people faithfully keeping up their daily routines with jogging and bodyweight exercises. Walking the serene, seemingly endless path, you pass clusters of tall, layered palm trees, ravines, and flooded rice paddies. At the end of the ridge, galleries run by Balinese artists and cafés serving organic food come into view. Go farther and the path leads to the approach to the Ubud Royal Palace, tangled with travelers and villagers and busy with funeral preparations. In other words, it is a place where you can meet everything that symbolizes Ubud.
Dewa Made Arimbawa, Pita Maha’s general manager, who joined us on the trek, named the Campuhan Ridge Walk as one of his favorite places in Ubud. “It’s the most Ubud place there is. Ubud has changed a great deal over the past decade as tourists have increased, but here you still find beautiful nature and people living in the old ways.”