"Walking into Hotel Tugu Bali instantly transports you to Indonesia of the past. In the dimly lit lobby, you suddenly realize you're standing under a massive carved wooden pagoda of sorts, which is in fact a 150-year-old sacred ceremonial hall that was transported piece by piece from a village in central Bali. It is one of literally thousands of priceless pieces that the owner, the biggest collector of Indonesian antiquities in the country, has installed here on the edge of Batu Bolong beach in Canggu. It’s all part of the intention to preserve Indonesia’s near-forgotten cultures (Tugu means “monument”). And it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Rooms are comprised of different villas, many of them based on Javanese wooden houses, and each of them utterly unique. (The Rejang Suite, on the upper floors of a Javanese house, for example, has rich antique wooden floors, a carved four-poster bed, a kind of rustic sun porch lined with wood-paneled windows of colored glass that overlook the garden.) —Alex Postman" - Chris Schalkx, Juliet Kinsman
