Hotel review: Como Shambhala Estate in Bali is redefining the path to wellness

From the get-go, I am introduced to Ayu, my personal assistant who will assist with anything I need, from spa appointments to food orders and special requests. She takes me down to my room, which requires walking down a grassy amphitheatre—past the spa and its electrotherapy pool and down to the row of suites. If you’re too tired, however, there is always a buggy to drop you off at your room. 

At Como Shambhala Estate, there are five residences of four to five suites sharing one swimming pool, and nine villas. I am staying at one such residence called Bayugita, which means “windsong” in Balinese. My suite is really a small Balinese hut with a generously high ceiling, which can only be unlocked with a brass key adorned with charms. The suite itself is accented with details dating back to colonial Java—take the Venetian bed for example, which swaddles me to sleep. Meanwhile, the toilet is outdoors, fitted with a Victorian bathtub and a shower built into the stone walls that surround the suite.

I could stay in my residence the entire time if I wanted to. Right outside my door, there is a terrace with two chaise lounges, overlooking the forested terrain below. A short walk through old stone corridors reveals a communal living space, including a pavilion decked out with sofas and tables perfect for spending time with family, and an infinity pool with a glorious view of nature. 

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Como Shambhala Estate has launched five Wellness Paths in its new wellness programme, designed to “redefine wellness by focusing on ‘unease’ instead of ‘disease’, and on prevention over cure”. Selecting the right Wellness Path will depend on your priorities and needs—someone looking to restore their gut health might choose the “Detox to Restore” path, while those looking to improve their fitness might opt for the “Fit to Perform” path. I arrive at the estate feeling unmoored from the rigamarole of modern life, plagued with short-term memory issues from digital overload and gut problems, so I choose the “Connect to Rebalance” path, which promises to “reconnect” you with “nature’s healing power” and “build a renewed sense of focus and joy”.

My journey begins with a private consultation with Kimberly, the director of wellness at Como Shambhala Estate. Kimberly is trained in traditional Chinese medicine, so the consultation is structured around the five elements of the body in Chinese medicine: fire, earth, metal, wood, and water. A quick glimpse of my tongue, for instance, tells Kimberly that I have issues with my spleen, which lies in the earth element of my body where the dominant emotion is worry—it’s a spot-on diagnosis.

Part of the Wellness Path includes a body composition analysis scan by InBody, which flatly tells me that I am dehydrated, underweight, and nutrient deficient. The good news is, I now know what gaps in nutrition I need to fill—which is where the Como Shambhala Kitchen comes in.

Nutrition is an essential part of wellness, and to address this, Kimberly has come up with the “REAL” diet, which consists of principles such as eating things resembling those found in nature, eliminating problematic and highly-processed foods, achieving optimal nutrition through a diverse diet, and longer times without food—in other words, intermittent fasting. Not all of these principles will work for everyone, of course, and through further discussion, we personalise a strategy that works for me. 

There are two dining concepts at Como Shambhala Estate: Kudus House, which focuses on Indonesian cuisine, and Glow, which focuses on healthy, nourishing meals by the Como Shambhala Kitchen. (You can enjoy dishes from both restaurants at either concept.) And since the Wellness Paths provide full board meals, I make sure to fully enjoy myself at these dining spots.

My mornings are spent in the corner of Kudus House, which is actually a 150-year-old former Javanese house with adornments and architecture to prove it. Here, I am able to enjoy coconut yoghurt pots stirred with honey and topped with nuts as I look out over the valley, still fresh with dew and clouded with morning mist. In the afternoon, I head over to Glow, where I opt for dishes from the Como Shambhala Wellness menu, which are prepared without gluten, dairy, soy, or corn. The result is not tasteless or strange, but quite the opposite—I find great happiness in sipping a spiced beetroot stew to soothe my stomach, and picking apart a Greek moussaka, a dish of roasted eggplant, it is here accompanied by braised lentils and spinach and baked in a roast tomato and almond sauce. 

For dinner, I return to Kudus House, where I indulge in Indonesian dishes. For starters, I have a moringa and long bean salad named urab kelor, which blooms with spice and flavour, thanks to the aromatic galangal and kaffir lime leaf. I particularly enjoy the young jackfruit curry perfumed with lemon basil and papaya leaf, best eaten with red rice, and then sopped up with gluten-free bread. 

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As part of the Wellness Path, I am entitled to yoga and pilates classes at the Yoga Pavilion, which I take full advantage of. I also manage to snag a personal training session, where my trainer, Mudra, takes me through an upper body workout at my request. (Mudra, as it turns out, used to play in the land that the estate now sits on, and was instrumental in getting the resort up and running.)

I look forward the most to my two body therapy treatments, one of which is a foot acupressure massage and the other a Taksu massage, which gets its name from the Balinese concept of energy transfer between two people who connect. In the tranquil therapy rooms, all I can do is relax and close my eyes as my feet are gently washed in warm water and rubbed with salts doused in essential oils before I am led to the massage table, where my therapist firmly releases my muscles of tension.

Excitingly, Ayu tells me that the estate also has three pools at the bottom of the mountain supplied by spring water. To get there, one passes through the Kedara gate, an old elaborate portal, then down steep moss-covered steps through the forest. The journey is perilous, but it is worth it, with panoramic views of the valley, the mountains, and the Ayung River. The spring water pool, of course, is refreshingly cold, and I make sure to frolic as much as I can.

It is along the Kedara route that the estate’s sacred spring is located, where I am invited to participate in a blessing ceremony as part of the Wellness Path. Here, I am given a sarong to wear as I wash myself in the spring water, before a local priest guides me through a series of thanksgiving prayers to a soundtrack of a live Balinese gamelan ensemble. The moment is one of meditation, quietude and gratitude—the priest splashes holy water on me thrice, and my estate guide ties a Balinese tridatu bracelet on my wrist. The tri-coloured bracelet, representing the three gods of Balinese Hinduism, offers the wearer power and protection; it is still on my wrist today.

My three days and two nights at Como Shambhala Estate have been tailor-made to kickstart my wellness journey. The most rewarding thing, however, just might be the natural landscape that the resort sits on. I can’t get enough of the dense foliage that surrounds every inch of the estate, and the serene peace that this place enjoys this high up in the uplands.

After my swim in the rock pool at Kedara, I turn away from the path I came from and continue exploring the rest of the mountainous estate. It is paved with stone rocks all the way, and the entire trek, which takes about an hour or two, reveals the sheer beauty of the Balinese terrain and the rush of its longest river.

At some point I find myself in a little grassy plain—the Kedara Water Garden, where guests may enjoy picnics delivered to them. There I look up at the waterfall trickling from the mountain just across from me, its gently thunderous splash filling my ears along with the chirp of insects. The air is clear and I am heady on oxygen. As the water flows, I feel the troubles of modernity fall away and dissolve into the foam of the river. 

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