THE PUNCH • STORIES
Buahan, A Banyan Tree Escape
No Walls, No Doors, No Pretence
Curated by The Punch Editors
Punch Commitments: 15/15
Category: Luxury Boutique Hotel
Location: Payangan, Gianyar, Bali
Structure: 16 Private Pool Bales
Design Philosophy: Naked Architecture
Certification: EarthCheck, Travelife
Local Team: 80%+ Balinese / 100% Indonesian
Distance: 90 min from Airport
The road north from Ubud doesn't ease you in. It climbs through rice paddies and village temples, past warung smoke and school children on motorbikes, until the world as you know it starts to feel like a memory. By the time you reach Payangan, a highland pocket of Gianyar regency that most visitors to Bali never find, you've already started to let go of something. You're just not sure what yet.
Buahan, A Banyan Tree Escape, sits at the edge of this altitude like it has always been there. The Ayung River valley drops away below. Seven volcanic peaks rise in the middle distance. The jungle doesn't frame the property so much as absorb it. There are no gates to speak of, no grand lobby, no fanfare. You simply arrive, and the resort receives you.
That openness is the whole point. The philosophy behind Buahan, as resort manager Hengki Adnyana describes it, was never about creating a retreat from nature. It was about removing the barriers, the invisible ones, that keep people from feeling genuinely present in it. No walls. No doors. No air conditioning. What remains is the jungle itself: the Ayung murmuring below, a hum of unseen life in the trees, mist settling into the valley before dawn. The resort was conceived as a space where guests wouldn't observe the environment but become embedded in it.
Naked Architecture
Accommodation at Buahan is organized into 16 private pool bales, the Balinese word for a communal gathering structure, each measuring 160 square meters and oriented to dissolve any real sense of interior and exterior. The Rainforest Pool Bale sits among mountain and jungle canopy; the River Valley Pool Bale gives a front-row position above the Ayung. The Seven Peaks Pool Bale opens out toward Bali's volcanic horizon. Every bale is the same generous footprint, same king bed, same private pool. The differentiation is entirely in what the landscape offers.
The property calls this the 'Naked Experience', and the name earns its keep. Each bale comes with a private pool, gazebo, fire pit, and open terrace designed to make the surrounding jungle the actual amenity. Wake to fireflies at night and cold mist off the valley at dawn. There's nothing between you and Bali except intention.
The materials tell their own story. Over 80 percent of the resort is built from recycled timber, including Ulin wood salvaged from old boatyards, a hardwood prized for its durability, now given a second life in the highlands. Hand-carved wooden beds and mirrors, ceramic sinks by local artisans, and handwoven, plant-dyed fabrics from Tarum all carry the mark of specific hands. Hengki is clear on why this matters: design should carry meaning and memory, not just aesthetics. When guests trace their fingers along the grain of a reclaimed beam, they're touching something with a history, and that history belongs to Bali.
The Kitchen as Compass
Open Kitchen, the resort's main restaurant, operates as its name suggests: open to the elements, open to the eye, a five-course dinner experience where the gap between the farm and the plate has been made as small as the geography allows. The kitchen follows a zero-waste, farm-to-table philosophy, drawing on ingredients sourced from local producers and the resort's own organic garden. Heritage recipes surface in unexpected ways, dishes that don't announce themselves as traditional so much as taste like they know something you've forgotten.
The Botanist Bar extends this logic into drinks. Kombuchas, sodas, local ciders, and house-made infusions are built around freshly picked herbs and botanicals from the resort garden. Nothing here comes from a bottle of syrup. A loloh, the traditional Balinese herbal tonic made from plants like pandan, ginger, and turmeric arrives with the kind of weight and warmth that a decent gin and tonic genuinely cannot compete with.
Dining at Buahan is gradually opening up beyond resident guests; a growing number of experiences at Open Kitchen and Botanist Bar are now available to non-resident guests by advance reservation only.
Tri Hita Karana, Applied
The Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana, harmony between people, nature, and spirit, is invoked often enough in Bali's hospitality industry that it risks becoming wallpaper. At Buahan, Hengki describes it as a framework for operational decisions rather than a cultural branding exercise. The distinction is worth taking seriously.
In practice, this means regenerative farming partnerships with local growers, not just sourcing agreements. The Bring Back the Light campaign, developed in collaboration with conservationist Wayan Wardika and the community of Tegal Dukuh, promotes organic, chemical-free farming specifically to restore the firefly populations that once defined the “Payangan” nights. Fireflies are ecosystem indicators, their return signals a healthier surrounding habitat. Dimmed and timed lighting across the property supports their revival, even when guests are sleeping.
Through the Ngadas Project, Buahan operates a circular farming model in which the resort provides livestock to local farmers in a profit-sharing arrangement. Organic waste becomes compost, compost enriches farmland, farmland supplies the kitchen. The loop closes, and the community grows stronger inside it.
The Dukuh Asri regenerative center, run in partnership with local farmer Ketut Sunarka, extends this further into foraging experiences and pop-up farm lunches. Guests are introduced to the people carrying these practices: farmers, healers, traditional tempeh-makers, artisans, not as cultural exhibits but as the actual hosts of the place. Hengki is deliberate about this positioning: local knowledge-holders shouldn't be background texture to a luxury stay. They should be its center.
Stay for Good
The experiences curated at Buahan have the texture of genuine exchange rather than packaged activity. A Tri Hita Karana walk leads guests into village life and the relationship between Balinese communities, land, and spiritual practice. The Soul Freedom Journey includes a purification ritual at the resort's waterfall, beginning with the making of canang sari–the daily offerings of woven palm and flowers that Balinese Hindus leave at temple gates and roadside shrines throughout the island. The Sandikala Walk at twilight, sandikala being the sacred Balinese hour between light and dark, follows the path through jungle as fireflies begin to appear.
There's also an Ibu Workshop series that teaches coconut oil and palm sugar making, the Art of Loloh herbal tonic preparation, and earthy heritage cooking in a traditional Balinese paon. These aren't demonstrations. Guests make the thing, take the knowledge home.
For those who want to move in the landscape rather than simply receive it, the options include Mount Batur sunrise treks, highland cycling on the Ride for Resilience route, rice field walks in the surrounding Buahan heartland, and foraging sessions through jungle terrain. The resort is 100 percent adult-only, which shapes the atmosphere in quiet but meaningful ways. There's no particular pressure to do anything. The day allows for it.
Recognition That Doesn't Perform
The accolades have followed, not led. Buahan holds Two MICHELIN Keys, has appeared in the Condé Nast Traveler Readers' Choice Awards, and been recognized by Travel + Leisure's Luxury Awards Asia Pacific and Tatler's Best 100 Hotels — together earning it a place in Condé Nast Traveler's Triple Crown, a distinction held by only a handful of properties worldwide. EarthCheck certification and Travelife accreditation sit alongside these, providing independent verification of its environmental and social commitments.
The staff are overwhelmingly local, the resort is 100 percent Indonesian, with over 80 percent of the team coming from Bali and the surrounding villages. This isn't incidental. It shapes every interaction guests have with the place, every story exchanged over a meal, every small detail handled with quiet knowledge of where you are and what it means.
What the Jungle Keeps
The most useful thing Buahan offers is also the hardest to describe. It's not the spa, though the Toja Spa is thoughtful, and the treatments are rooted in local tradition. It's not the food, though the kitchen is doing something genuinely interesting. It's the quality of attention the place requires. Without walls or the insulation of air conditioning, you register everything: the temperature shift at dusk, the particular acoustics of rain against palm, the way the mist over the Ayung catches the first light and then disappears as if it was never there.
Most resorts try to manage nature. Buahan lets it happen. Hengki describes this as a kind of surrender. Guests arrive with their familiar definitions of comfort, and over a day or two those definitions quietly renegotiate. What initially feels unfamiliar becomes the thing remembered most deeply. That's not a wellness pitch. That's just what happens when you stop separating yourself from where you are.