Bambu Indah Ubud

Galungan marks the victory of good over evil. Every 210 days in the Balinese calendar, the island celebrates with ceremonies, decorated bamboo poles, and family gatherings. This year, Tembaga is hosting a Galungan buffet dinner with traditional entertainment.

The buffet features dishes cooked over open fire in the stone kitchen. Expect Balinese specialties, grilled meats, and the kind of food you'd find at a temple ceremony. The Barong Dance tells the story of the battle between good and bad, and Tirtala Band plays traditional music throughout the evening.

Dinner happens under the copper roof and you experience what Galungan means to the people who celebrate it every year.

June 17, 2026.

On the island of Sumba, traditional houses rise tall, the roof reaching toward the ancestral world above. IBUKU built this one in 2013, following the same proportions and logic, entirely from bamboo. The roof peaks at 15 metres.

Inside, a bamboo ladder leads to the upstairs bedroom under a cathedral ceiling. Downstairs opens wide. Hand-woven Sumbanese textiles line the walls, tribal swords, fiber baskets. A wraparound deck with hammocks faces the village.

One of the hardest houses to leave.

108 steps to the river.

The staircase cuts through the forest, steep enough that you watch your feet. Ferns crowd the bamboo handrail, the canopy closes in, the air cools, the river gets louder with each turn.

Some guests take it as cardio before breakfast. Others take the bamboo elevator down and walk back up after. Either way, you earn the river.

Twenty-four houses. Twenty-four patios.

John and Cynthia Hardy built this place with IBUKU over years, and no two outdoor spaces repeat. Each patio faces something different: forest, river, garden, or canopy. Some are open on all sides with bamboo columns and the treeline running through. Others are reclaimed teak verandas with deep shade and a chair that takes about ten minutes to leave.

Private and shaped around wherever you happen to be.

A day here tends to end the same way. The river in the morning, the thermal area in the afternoon, and then the ridge as the light goes warm.

Our staff grill the skewers at sundown: jackfruit grown on the property, chicken, mushroom, charred and served as the kitchen winds into its evening service. The cocktails at Sunset Bar are mixed by hand, built around local spirits and fresh ingredients, the kind of drink that takes its time and doesn't need explaining.

The valley does the rest.

Morning at the ridge, before the valley warms up.

The rice fields spread out below, terraces stepping down toward the forest. Tables sit on boulders, the taller ones turned from bamboo. Coffee, the view, and the farms working their way through the early light before the day takes hold.

A different hour on the same piece of land.

John and Cynthia often say it's impossible to walk around Bambu Indah with a phone in front of you. The stone paths are some of the reasons why. Each one is placed where your next step wants to land, but only if you're watching. Look down, find your footing, cross. The spacing is easy once you commit to it.

A small engraving on the first stone tells you which foot leads. After that, the path does the rest.

The roof curves like it belongs here. IBUKU designed it to follow the ridge rather than fight it. The roofline arcs across the structure, dark tiles weathering with the seasons, edges lifting at the perimeter.

Below, a bamboo balustrade traces the same curve, holding to the contour of the land.

From your seat, the valley opens out. Rice fields stretch wide, the light moving across them through the afternoon.

A bamboo elevator descends through a mud shaft to the riverside, twenty metres below.

The rice is ready.

The field in front of Tembaga was planted months ago. Now the stalks have turned gold and the heads bow with the weight of the grain. Time to harvest.

The work happens by hand. Guests can join if they want to: cutting close to the root, bundling what the field has produced, hands in the soil with something that has fed Bali for centuries.

The cycle continues on the same ground.