Bali & Lombok (Lonely Planet Travel Guide)

 (19 customer reviews)

This is a good guidebook and fairly accurate. In a country like Indonesia, however, things change quickly so use this book as a reference not as a bible. Do you own research and talk to other travellers. Since the LP Bali is the default travellers' guide to this region, most of the restaurants and hotels covered are not the best values. Many get a steady stream of customers just because of a good review and never bother to maintain the facilities. The best deals require a lot of footwork and bargaining! Learning some bahasa indonesia always helps. The language section is adequate but the phrasebook is much better. Nightlife is making a big comeback with the reopening of Paddy's Reloaded (did they really need the weapons terminology?) and the return of the young aussie crowd. Check Bounty for the college age crowd, Seminyak for the posh/club crowd.You can also avoid the moneychangers altogether by going to the BCA ATMs. Look for the ones that give you bills in 100,000 Rp...Read more

We spent three weeks in Bali using this book as a guide. For overviews of different parts of the island, we found it very helpful, and we relied on the maps to sort of get our bearings. However, I suspect we could have gotten those things from any travel guide. The Lonely Planet book in specific was recommended to us by our travel agent, and because of the witty and intelligent writing, we thought it would be well-researched and trustworthy.

Not so! We were very disappointed with a lot of places reviewed well by the authors of this book. We stayed in the hotel marked "our pick" in Seminyak and it was much more expensive, we couldn't get hot water, and we got eaten alive by mosquitos. It recommends an "art market" in Ubud that is probably worse for rabid hawkers than Jalan Legian in Kuta. It hugely understates the presence and tenacity of hawkers and touts. The authors seem unaware of Bali Belly, traveler's sickness, Montezuma's Revenge, whatever you want to call it, and...Read more

I'm just back from Bali and took three guidebooks. The Lonely Planet guide was far and away the best. It was funny and in the best guidebook tradtion, it did a great job of stearing me away from popular places like Gunung Agung and Besakih Temple - which are two of the worst tourist traps on the island. The author seems to have actually spent time posing as a tourist in these places to uncover all the scams. The rest of the book does a good job of finding all the new places to go for dinner and drinks in hot places like Seminyak. Make this your only Bali guidebook.