Amankila

Below the resort is a private stretch of sandy beach and a beach club which is a five-minute walk or a short ride in an open-air buggy. The beach club includes Amankila’s largest swimming pool, set within a grove of coconut palms, and offers a range of watersports including windsurfing, sailing, kayaking and boogie boards. There are also eight secluded beach pavilions where you can relax in privacy.

Back at the resort itself, facilities include a library with floor-to-ceiling windows and a three-tiered pool that spills down the cliff side in a way reminiscent of terraced fields. Spa treatments and yoga classes are available in the privacy of your suite, in the massage pavilion or down at the Beach Club.

Amankila also has two boats, designed after traditional Balinese fishing craft, which are used for morning and afternoon cruises, snorkelling and diving excursions. Dining options at Amankila include the main restaurant, located above the pool with ocean views and serving Western and Indonesian cuisine. Alternatively, the beach club offers light meals and private dining is available in the suites 24 hours a day.

From Amankila, you can explore the unspoilt eastern part of Bali on guided treks or by mountain bike, taking in local villages, temples and old royal water palaces.

In literal terms this resort does not really qualify for inclusion in the Dive in Style portfolio. The flaw is that there is no dive centre within the hotel grounds and as such you have to endure a 20 minute taxi ride, hardly an issue given that the taxi is an immaculate white seated Aman ride, but then the object of your drive is yet a further 25 minute boat ride away.

However, the quality of the hotel and the diving on offer close by warrants its inclusion. Most importantly, this is one of the only places in the world we know of where you are virtually guaranteed to get up close and personal with the elusive giant Mola Mola or Oceanic Sunfish, albeit that the season is limited to a few months between July and October. Mix this up with a Manta dive en-route and even stay on for a night dive when you could just chance upon the extraordinary Spanish Dancer, the stunningly coloured swimming Nudibranch so named because of the whirling swimming motion and vibrant red colouration reminiscent of the skirts of its namesake, and you could have a day’s diving to remember.

In short, unlike other Original Diving resorts, whilst Amankila does not make sense if you intend to dive everyday, mainly because it deprives you of its spoiling luxury for too long, to include an intensive day’s diving in your holiday plans is well worthwhile.