How Our Sami Balinese Arrangement Gets From Seminyak to Their Villa

People ask me this more than you'd think. They order flowers from our shop in Seminyak and then, sometime between clicking "order" and the flowers arriving at their hotel in Nusa Dua or their friend's villa in Canggu, they wonder what actually happened. Did someone just grab a bunch off a shelf and throw them on a motorbike?

No. Not even close.

I wanted to write this because honestly, I think the bit between our shop and your hotel room is the part most florists never talk about. And it's the part where things can go really wrong in Bali if you don't know what you're doing. Twelve years of delivering flowers in tropical heat on the back of a motorbike has taught me a lot, most of it the hard way.

It Starts at 6AM at the Market

Before anyone has ordered anything, Kadek is already at Pasar Kreneng or the Denpasar flower market. He goes early. I cannot stress this enough. By 9AM on a hot day the chrysanthemums that were firm and cool at 6AM are starting to soften at the petal edges. The roses droop. The orchid stems lose that snap you want when you bend them gently. I learned this because I used to go at 8:30 when we first opened the shop and couldn't figure out why my arrangements were lasting three days instead of seven. Kadek, who is annoyingly practical about most things, suggested going earlier. He was right. Again.

For an arrangement like our Sami, which uses purple daisy chrysanthemums, Singapore orchids and pink roses, I need all three flower types in good condition on the same morning. Some days I can't get everything. The orchids might not be great that week. When that happens I'll call you or message on WhatsApp and suggest an alternative. I'd rather have an honest conversation than send something I'm not happy with.

Sami

$47.00

Purple Daisy Chrysanthemums, Singapore Orchids & Pink Roses

Our 17th best seller in 2025 • Same day delivery across Bali

2nd most popular Balinese arrangement ordered to Canggu

View Sami

Building the Arrangement

The Sami is a traditional upright Balinese arrangement. It grows upward, not outward, which is different from most Western bouquets. If you've ever watched someone in Bali build canang sari, the little offering baskets, there's a layering logic to it. Base first, structure in the middle, the lightest and most colourful elements reaching toward the top. My grandmother did this every morning in Gianyar before anyone else was awake. I build arrangements the same way. Greens at the base for structure, the heavier roses and chrysanthemums packed into the middle for density, and the Singapore orchids at the top because they're lighter and their natural cascade gives the arrangement that height.

The orchids at the top are the most vulnerable part. They're beautiful but if they get bumped or compressed they bruise, and bruised orchid petals go brown within hours in this humidity. So the way I build the top matters for what happens next.

The Motorbike Problem

There is no flower delivery van in Seminyak. I mean, there are vans, but have you tried driving one through Jalan Raya Seminyak at midday? You'd be sitting in traffic for forty minutes to travel two kilometres. So Kadek delivers on a motorbike. This is totally normal in Bali but it terrifies some customers when I mention it.

We have a custom box mounted on the back of the bike. Kadek built it himself out of fibreglass with foam inserts, which I thought was overkill when he first made it in 2016 but I've since eaten those words completely. The foam holds the base of the arrangement firm so it doesn't tip or slide. For a taller arrangement like Sami, where the orchids sit above the rim of the box, he wraps the top loosely in a cellophane cone that gives it breathing room without crushing anything. Tightly wrapped flowers in 32 degree heat with 80% humidity is a recipe for grey mould. I saw it happen once on a delivery to Uluwatu, the arrangement looked fine when it left, arrived forty minutes later with faint grey fuzz on the rose petals. That was 2017 and I still think about it.

Route Timing and Why It Changes Everything

Seminyak to Canggu is maybe twenty minutes if the traffic cooperates. Seminyak to Nusa Dua can be forty five minutes to over an hour depending on the time of day and which way Kadek goes. That time difference changes how I prepare the arrangement.

For a short run to Canggu or Kerobokan, the flowers leave the shop in good condition, they arrive in good condition. Simple. For a longer delivery to Nusa Dua or Uluwatu or Sanur, I soak the oasis foam base a little longer before the arrangement goes in. An extra five minutes of hydration buys another hour of resilience in the heat. I also tend to cut the stems a fraction longer for distant deliveries so there's more surface area drawing water during transit. Small things, but twelve years of doing this has taught me that small things compound in tropical heat.

Kadek also knows which routes to avoid at which times. He won't take Jalan Bypass Ngurah Rai between 8 and 9:30AM because the airport traffic is murderous and the exhaust fumes aren't great for flowers sitting in an open box. He'll go the back way through Sanur instead. He has opinions about this and will tell you about them at length if you ask. Or even if you don't.

Wet Season is a Different Game

Between November and March, afternoon rain can arrive out of nowhere. A downpour at 2PM is almost guaranteed some days. Kadek carries a fitted waterproof cover for the box that goes on fast. But the real problem with wet season isn't the rain itself, it's the condensation. When warm humid air hits the cellophane wrap, water pools at the bottom of the cone and drips back onto the petals. So during wet season, I switched to a perforated wrap that lets moisture escape. Took me three ruined deliveries in December 2019 to figure that out.

The Hotel Reception Problem

Your flowers have survived the market, the construction, the motorbike, and the Bali traffic. Now comes the part that is genuinely out of my control and keeps me up at night sometimes.

Hotel reception.

A good reception team will take the flowers, note the room number, and either deliver them personally or call the guest. A bad reception team will put them on a back counter near the kitchen entrance and forget about them for three hours. I've had both. The three hour wait in a warm back room with no airflow will undo everything.

So I started calling ahead. For hotels and resorts we deliver to regularly, like places in Nusa Dua and Canggu where we get orders weekly, I have direct numbers for specific reception staff. Not the general line, the actual person who will be on shift. Kadek also knows which resort entrances to use. The main entrance at some places means going through security and waiting. The service entrance is faster and gets the flowers to the room quicker. We've built these small details up over years of deliveries, dozens of them to the same resorts, learning from each one.

For villas, it's easier. Kadek hands the flowers directly to whoever opens the door. If nobody is home, he calls me, I call the customer, we figure it out. The flowers don't sit waiting.

What to Do When They Arrive

One last thing, and this surprises people. If your flowers are going into a hotel room or villa with air conditioning, don't put the arrangement directly in front of the AC unit. The cold dry air dehydrates the petals faster than Bali's outdoor heat does, which seems wrong but I've seen it happen over and over. Keep the arrangement in the room, absolutely, but off to the side, out of the direct airflow. Top up the water in the base daily if you can, the oasis foam dries out fast in tropical conditions.

The Singapore orchids at the top of the Sami will typically soften before the roses and chrysanthemums at the base. That's normal. If you want to extend the life of the arrangement, gently remove the orchids when they start to fade and the remaining roses and chrysanthemums will still look good for another few days.

That's the journey. From Kadek at the Denpasar market at sunrise, to our small shop on Jl. Camplung Tanduk, to the back of a motorbike with a custom fibreglass box, through Bali traffic, past hotel reception, and into someone's room. Twelve years of refining every step of it, because a $47 arrangement that arrives looking sad isn't worth $47. And honestly, after making thousands of deliveries across this island, I still get a little nervous until Kadek messages me the photo confirmation from the hotel. Every single time.