At six the pool surface is still. No wind yet, so the water holds the shape of the sky — grey, then pale gold along the eastern edge of the garden. The tiles underfoot are cool. The water sits a degree or two below its afternoon temperature, which is the point. You feel it at the shoulders on the first length, then not at all.
The sun clears the frangipani at around twenty past six. For the next half hour the light comes in sideways, low and yellow, and the pool floor fills with the moving shadow of palm fronds. Swim east and you swim into it. Swim back and the shadow of your own arms runs ahead of you along the bottom. By eight the light is overhead and flat, and none of this happens.
Sound arrives in order. First the koels, two notes repeated from somewhere behind the villas. Then doves in the rain trees, lower and slower. A gardener works the far end with a leaf net, and the drag of the pole across the water is the loudest thing in the garden. Traffic on Jalan Raya Kesambi does not really start until seven. Until then you can hear the filter, and that is about it.
The smell at that hour is wet stone first, then frangipani, then incense. Staff set the canang offerings out at the garden shrine around half past six — sandalwood and a little smoke drifting across the shallow end. The air is cooler than it will be by mid-morning, heavier if it rained in the night. Later the heat flattens all of it together. Before seven you can still pick out each thing separately.
Until then you can hear the filter, and that is about it.
You will usually have the long side to yourself. Breakfast opens the day for most guests, so the pool stays quiet until about half past eight. That means no one crossing your line, no towels laid out along the loungers, no music. If someone else is in, it is generally the same two or three people, doing the same thing, and nobody talks. The etiquette settles itself.
Towels are stocked in the pool house from six. The cabinet sits beside the outdoor shower on the garden side, refilled before the first swimmer arrives. Coffee starts early at De’ Kesambi — a flask on the terrace counter, and the machine a little later. Take it to the loungers under the rain tree. The kitchen proper opens at seven, so a full breakfast means waiting a little.
Guests in the private-pool villas sometimes skip the walk over, which is fair. A villa pool is four strokes end to end. The main pool gives you a proper length of clear water, and enough depth at the far end to push off properly. It is a short walk from the furthest villa, along the stone path past the lily pond. Sandals, towel, nothing else.
By half past seven it changes. The sun is over the roofline, the loungers begin to fill, and someone turns the terrace speakers on low. That is the signal. Swim a last length, take the shower by the frangipani, and sit with the second coffee while the garden warms around you. The pool will be busy by nine. It was yours for ninety minutes, and it will be again tomorrow.