Customer Reviews

Bali and Lombok (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

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During our recent trip to Bali in july 07, we used this book along with the lonely planet travel guide to Bali. Both these books served us very well, many a time one complementing the other in terms of information provided about an attraction. Since I have good things to say about both books, let me compare both, in order to help you decide which to buy, should you need to make the choice.

Eyewitness is not as detailed as LP, however its much much more colorful and faster to read. You are at a destination and quickly need to look up something, Eyewitness is the book you want. If you however want to plan an entire day, get more details like vegetarian restaurant should I go to in Ubud, Bali? In which village will I find the best deal on woodwork, then opt for LP.

Eyewitness gives pictorial diagrams for a lot of places, making it easier to navigate around without guides. There is a handy list of restaurants provided to quickly choose a place to eat.

The book is sectioned conveniently, and its easy to go from one part of Bali to another. If you are buying two books, I recommend a combination of this and LP. If you are only going to buy this book, you wont get lost and will still enjoy Bali like everyone else!

I love the beautiful photographs and (especially) the 3-D illustrations of villages and temples. If I were to write a guide book about Bali, it would look awfully similar to this one!

Biggest problem I had with this book is the lack of detail to the nightlife of Bali. This is a big party island and the few pages this book devotes to bars and clubs is completely inaccurate. The only two bars which were always packed and crazy were the Sari Club and Paddys (since destroyed by the blasts) and these were not even mentioned in the book. Instead it told us to go to the Bounty which had about 5 people on a saturday night. Pretty weak. Pictures are awesome though, gives you an idea of what to check out while you're on the island. My buddy had the Lonely Planet book and it was on point about everything.