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On a personal tour of my accommodation in Bali, I would start with the secret garden tucked against the villa walls, a sun-dappled space devoted to the joyful simplicity of jungle and an outdoor shower. Whisking you through the marble bathroom, past the double sinks and free-standing soaker tub, I would show you the bedroom, its king-size bed sensuously veiled in mosquito netting. I would direct you to the louvred doors that point toward the South China Sea.

Come, step out into the walled courtyard, I would say, to the open-air, thatched-roof living and dining room. And there, outside, is the plunge pool, its surface scattered with random frangipani petals. Feel free to rip off your clothes, I would tell you, and fling yourself in.

Welcome to the Four Seasons Bali at Jimbaran Bay. The well-heeled readers of Gourmetmagazine have recently annointed this as Southeast Asia’s top hotel, ahead of Bangkok’s Oriental and Bali’s Amandari. Even more significantly, they have crowned it the most romantic resort on the planet. Both Travel and Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler have named it Asia’s top resort. For once, I applaud their judgment. In two decades of travel writing, this is as close as I’ve come to hotel heaven — to hotel as destination .

This is my second visit here and I see changes. The landscaping around the 147 Balinese-style villas, banked on a hillside over the blue of Jimbaran Bay, is lusher than ever. The spa has been greatly expanded to incorporate the esthetics and rejuvenation treatments suitable for tropical paradise. Canadian Marc Miron, formerly of Four Seasons’ Nevis and Vancouver properties, has taken over as executive chef. There is a new restaurant, Warung Mie, a noodle house. The Ganesha Art Gallery is showcasing Bali’s indigenous and expatriate artists.

The villas are as romantic as ever; I’ve met people who’ve flown all the way to Bali and never left their villas except for meals. I am still finding my way among the 500 Hindu shrines, oriented by local sages and a testament to the sustaining faith of the Balinese in their spiritual fusion of Hinduism, Buddhism and animism. If the resort’s class and efficiency are business-as-usual for the Toronto-based hotel chain, the Balinese staff of 600 has always been the soul of the place. These people are as fundamentally different from other Indonesians as the French are from the Germans. They don’t know how to fake a smile.

We spa — yes, it’s a verb now — in the sunny new facility. The most arresting treatment on the spa menu is the RainShower massage and scrub, which incorporates a personal monsoon from overhead jets. But this is the romantic resort, so we choose the spa’s Royal Lulur for two. Based on the wedding rites of Indonesian royals, lulur is signature Bali. The two-hour treatment begins with a herbal massage and follows with a full body scrub utilizing a coarse paste of turmeric, sandalwood and spices. Just as we begin to take on the aroma of a fragrant curry, we move to the adjoining garden. We shower, are slathered in chilled yogurt — a marinade that opens the pores — and are left to soak in a double tub afloat with flower petals. In the market for a dreamy meld of sense and sensuality? Step right up.

Card-carrying foodies, we check out the restaurants. At the Taman Wantilan, recently installed chef Marc Miron marries scintillating Balinese flavours — lemongrass, galangal, chilies, coriander — with Western cooking techniques, elevating the resort’s kitchen to unprecedented levels of artistry. Seafood sausage seems the essence of the Indies, enlivened by a citrus-infused tomato “jam.” Lobster spring rolls sit like a trio of silos in a swirl of sweet-and-sour something.

Mains prove equally adventurous: Indonesian tuna, marinated in candlenut and ginger and grilled to pink perfection, lounges against a tangle of crispy sweet potato threads. Rack of lamb is sauced in tamarind and plum, and roasted until its flesh is rosy. Dessert is coconut crème brûlée in macadamia nut crust, with phyllo cups of bittersweet chocolate on the side. Talk about a gilded lily.

PJ’s is a beachside eatery with a breezy atmosphere to match a menu rife with Southeast Asian touches: Our daily catch is steamed in ginger and drizzled with sesame oil. Northern Thai chicken comes with wok-fried morning-glory greens. Barbecued jumbo prawns are basted in piquant red chili sambal. Even pizza takes an Asian turn with mozzarella, wok-fried duck, mixed chilies and coriander leaves.

Warung Mie, the noodle house, proves a mélange of high-ticket talent, high-ticket ingredients and low-ticket prices. Designed by Made Wijaya, a.k.a. Michael White, the resort’s landscape architect, it might be the most opulent noodle house in the world: a thatched pavilion with its own floodlighted water garden, the interior aglow with an open-kitchen, Javanese tiles, crystal lamps and marble-topped tables.

The menu is pan-Asian: Indonesian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese. Indonesian egg noodles arrive heaped in a massive earthenware bowl, topped with bok choi, chicken, mushrooms and crisp, pork wontons. The server then douses everything in a tsunami of seafood and mushroom broth. Fried sang mee noodles sit under a collage of shrimps, snapper, squids and scallops, with half a dozen spicy condiments at your disposal. Waiter, make that a couple o’ chilled Bintang beers.

Stories about departing guests are legend. Security guards are required to escort them out — weeping. I can only speak for myself. It’s absolutely true. But this time out, parting is easier: We’re on our way to Four Seasons’ second resort at Sayan, near the arts-and-crafts centre of Ubud.

Unveiled last year, the Sayan property is the flip side of Jimbaran Bay. If Jimbaran reaches out to the shining sea, Sayan reaches into the rice terrace, the rushing river, the jungle. Its design is the most radical in the Four Seasons worldwide portfolio of 42 hotels. Guests invariably liken it to a flying saucer of the Close Encounters variety, its situation on a valley floor suggesting a perfect touchdown.

We enter on the roof level, a giant lotus pond, and descend throughreception, restaurant and spa to 46 sumptuously appointed villas with outdoor living rooms, spacious sundecks and extra-large plunge pools. Ours has a view encompassing bamboo, ginger, papaya, eggplant, lemongrass, corn and the green fire of tiered-rice terraces. The stand of bamboo, aflutter with bats at dusk, presents a vision in keeping with such eerie Balinese spirits as the skeletal Memedi and Kumang-mang, the fearful floating eyes.

We decide to explore this island known for its unsurpassable beauty, and find that beauty in the rice country on the outskirts of Ubud and again on the highway between Denpasar and Pupuan. Bali produces 7 per cent of the world’s rice crop, a sustaining force for millions. Sprouting anew from paddies in the late afternoon sun, or steamed with infusions of ginger and lemongrass, it is a beautiful thing. Through the camera lens, I dream the impossible green.

On another occasion, we happen on a mass cremation, a celebratory public event to which all visitors are cheerfully invited. Vendors peddle soft drinks and chubby Buddha carvings. Towering funeral pyres whoosh into flame. Turbaned, saronged figures dart through billowing gusts of smoke. Children boogie in front of statues of fire. Bewildered foreigners trip over their own feet. I swear I can hear skulls popping in the flame. Ashes blow into our hair and up our noses. The atmosphere is simultaneously euphoric and macabre, a wild send-off for the souls of the dead.

Later, we spa. At Jimbaran Bay, treatments derive from the ocean, utilizing marine algae and sea salt. Sayan, by contrast, is mountain clay, a place built on rice and spice. I submit to suci, an Ayruvedic (Ancient Indian) treatment whose literal translation means “the awakening of body, heart and soul.” I lie on a massage table. Hot herbal oil drops rhythmically onto my forehead. I fall into something akin to a trance, a curious harmony of body and mind that lingers on through massage and soaker bath.

Afterward, we attend one of the twice-weekly, hour-long performances of Balinese dance by the lotus pond. The dancers come from nearby Sayan Village. It is a testimonial to the intensity of Balinese culture that it turns out to be a full-throttle spectacle of 40 elaborately costumed musicians and dancers demonstrating style, grace and infinite energy. The program ranges from a traditional welcoming dance to legong keraton , a court dance created in the 18th century.

My wife signs up for the Balinese Cooking School with chef Simon Purvis. Costing approximately $60 (U.S.), it includes a detailed tour of a local market, a traipse through the hotel kitchen, and hands-on instruction in preparing a four-course Balinese meal, which you get to eat.

“The chef explains everything in the market,” my wife tells me breathlessly. She has learned to distinguish between wild and blue ginger, which is actually galangal — a plant with pungent aromatic roots used for both medicine and as seasoning — and between greater and lesser galangal. “He found Bali limes, which are no bigger than gumballs and which explode with citrus flavour,” my wife continues.

Back in the hotel kitchen, they were introduced to a gas-fired wok, a contraption that bears a distinct resemblance to a blast furnace. In just over an hour, they made four spice mixes, starting from scratch with mortar and pestle, and then sautéed the spices to release the fragrance and flavour. They skewered and wrapped, steamed, grilled and deep-fried. “I came away with a real sense of how the cuisine works,” said my wife, “and how it works within the context and history of its culture.”

The open-air Ayung Terrace is the principal restaurant at the Sayan property. The great Southeast Asian spicebox at his fingertips, Purvis goes into overdrive. Wok-fried garlic prawns on smoked eggplant, and hefty Thai crab rolls with crisp bean curd wrappers are fine starters. How do you say no to lemongrass-scented lobster satay with sweet basil sauce? Easy: The chef’s signature dish is Balinese roast suckling pig, its aromas wafting, its spices roaring, its juicy flesh toppling from the bone.

After dinner, we practically roll downhill to our villa. We hop into the plunge pool. The night is clear. Tropical stars, hanging above us like lanterns, render Sayan a five-billion-star hotel. We understand why Europeans and occasional North Americans, even Canadians, forsake their homes and flee to such a place. We float on our backs, vowing not to budge until security comes to carry us out — weeping.