About us

Amarta Jiwa sits on a limestone shoulder of the Menoreh Hills, where the land falls away to a patchwork of rice terraces, coconut groves and, on the horizon, the grey stupas of Borobudur. Thirty-six domed suites curve around the hillside in a single crescent, each built from hand-cut paras stone and teak, each turned towards the plain so that the first thing you see in the morning is mist lifting off the paddies and the cone of Merapi catching the sun.

The resort is laid out like a Javanese village. At its heart is the Pendopo Agung, an open-sided dining pavilion under a soaring joglo roof, where breakfast comes with gamelan and dinner ends with a rijsttafel of twelve small dishes. Below it, a forty-metre pool of black terrazzo runs out towards the view. The Sukma Spa works with lulur, boreh and jamu recipes from the courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, and the Menoreh Lawn hosts weddings of up to one hundred and eighty guests beneath the hills.

Days here start early. Our guides walk you to the temple in the dark, before the gates open to everyone else, and back through villages where batik is still drawn by hand and clay is still turned on the doorstep. Afternoons are for the pool, for a silver workshop in Kotagede, a jeep up the slopes of Merapi or simply a long lunch on your own terrace. Evenings belong to the sky over the plain.