Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok (Regional Guide) [Paperback]

Ryan Ver Berkmoes (Author), Marian Carroll (Author), Adam Skolnick (Author)

Book Description

Series: Regional Guide | Publication Date: April 1, 2009

Nobody knows Bali and Lombok like Lonely Planet, and our 12th edition offers the best of these island paradises. Whether that's trekking through the ancient rice paddies of Jatiluwih, being dazzled by a Legong dance in Ubud, sliking along the sleek bars of Seminyak, or being pampered on an idyllic beach - you decide.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

New color chapter showcasing Balinese architecture
Expanded coverage of outdoor activities and extreme sports
Unique Green Index to help you make your travels ecofriendly

Editorial Reviews

Review

…Lonely Planet, the intrepid traveler's bible...' --Los Angeles Times, April 2005
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Publisher

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At Lonely Planet, we see our job as inspiring and enabling travellers to connect with the world for their own benefit and for the benefit of the world at large.

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* We offer travellers the world's richest travel advice, informed by the collective wisdom of over 350 Lonely Planet authors living in 37 countries and fluent in 70 languages.
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What We Believe
We believe that travel leads to a deeper cultural understanding and compassion and therefore a better world. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Lonely Planet; 12 edition (April 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1741048648
• ISBN-13: 978-1741048643
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #25 in Books > Travel > Asia > Indonesia > Bali

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Reference Material/Starting Point, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Lonely Planet Bali, Ninth Edition (Paperback)

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 denominations. You get a more reasonable maximum with these machines.

The activities sections are good, particularly the surfing one. They do a poor job of covering Lombok however, if you are planning on heading out there for an extended stay, I would recommend the LP Indonesia. Be forewarned though, the constant soliciting outside of the Gili Islands in Lombok is extremely tiresome. For scuba, skip Gili altogether and head to Flores or Sulawesi (or even back to Bali's Menjangen). Many of the sections are blasted out and the whole place is overfished.

Finally, if you want to book a boat trip to the Komodo Islands, you have a couple options, the pricey Perama boats (better and more luxurious boats) or the cheapo independent boats (very basic converted fishing boats). The second option is very very basic - you sleep on dirty mats and the snorkeling equipment doesn't work. The food is pretty good though and you do get to all the major sites with no hassle. If you don't mind all this, you can book these boats pretty much anywhere on Lombok. The dragons are all worth it - we saw a couple fighting over a mate.

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars be skeptical., September 16, 2007

By 

G. Means - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bali & Lombok (Lonely Planet Travel Guide) (Paperback)

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 there's no advice on avoiding that. It neglects to mention anything that I could find about women being barred from temples during "that time of the month" or where sarongs and sashes are required and how they're supposed to be worn.

I don't think this book works as a stand alone guide. It paints a picture of Bali as the nicest place on earth, full of charming this and breathtaking that. We followed its advice and found a version of the island overrun by tourists, rife with scam artists, with culture and history pushed aside by Bintang t-shirts and anything else that could generate a quick buck. We also found amazing places and wonderful people, but only once when we put down this misleading book and started trusting our instincts.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic guide, July 22, 2006

By 

Sam Bronkowitz "Sam" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lonely Planet Bali & Lombok (Lonely Planet Bali and Lombok) (Paperback)

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.