Ketut's Place

For most of our month in Bali, we stayed at Ketut's Place, a homestay on Jalan Suweta (Suweta Street) in northern Ubud. We chose to stay in one of Ketut's simplest cottages. It was equipped with a good ceiling fan over the bed, screens on the windows, a private bath with hot water, and garden views all around. He also has larger, much more elegant rooms with air conditioning, outdoor terrace, and a "ravine" view. We were very happy without the air conditioning as we have been living in the tropics for over 18 months now.

We originally came to Ketut's Place for the Balinese Feast that Ketut and Wayan have been serving for over 20 years. We stayed for the beautiful surroundings and the family atmosphere. Everyone in the large extended family (and the staff) have been friendly and cheerful throughout our stay. They have helped us to learn useful words in the local language(s) — we never know if we're learning Balinese or Indonesian. And Ketut has been a wonderful interpretor of the local culture and religion.

Ketut is the elected head of the local banjar, and is often very busy with his public duties. We were lucky that he did not have any ceremonies, meetings, or other significant banjar activities during our stay. He spent days driving us through the back roads of Bali. Because of him, we were able to explore parts of Bali we would not have seen otherwise. Much of what you see on these pages was possible only because we had Ketut's help, explanations, and guidance. (Ketut's term of office in the Banjar ends this summer and he is not going to run again. Banjar duties take him away from his family and his guests too much.)

Ketut has just finished building a restaurant at the front of his family compound (we were the first customers to eat there.) At this time it is only being used for the Balinese Feasts and cooking classes, but as the tourist volume returns to normal he plans to offer a regular restaurant menu. He already offers simple, family-style meals for guests who wish to stay home after a hard day of touring. We ate here often, and had our last dinner in Bali at Ketut's Place.

For other useful services, we only had to ask. They have dance tickets for sale, bus schedules, laundry service, cold bottled water, car and bicycle rental, etc. They even packed our purchases for shipment to the United States and took us to the airport in time to catch our flight to Singapore.

We had a great time here and highly recommend Ketut's Place for anyone coming to Bali. If you would like to reserve a room, or a place at the Balinese Feast, you can reach Ketut or Wayan at: