Looking for a cheap hotel in Bali

Bali has 20,000 hotel rooms supposedly. Today is December 20th, which is high-season. That means prices are increased and rooms are harder to get. My friends from Oregon wanted to change hotels this morning. The Puri Cendana in Seminyak was nice, but they didn’t want to pay the 300,000rp price tag. Their combined requirements were, a cheaper place, close to the beach, AC, pool, double beds. At 7.30am I took the car back to the shop on Jl. Padma Utara, and walked home. Arriving at the Puri Cendana an hour later, Ollie and I jumped on my motorbike for a tour of the accommodation in Legian and Kuta. I had some places in mind, but he wanted to see the rooms.

We also needed to know the availability and current inflated price. It was an interesting exercise for me. Starting off in the Padma area in Legian and working our way across Jl. Melasti to Jl. Benesari, we viewed maybe 6 places all in the 250,000rp range. When a decent place has a restaurant, hot water, pool, AC and its high season, you are looking at 250,000rp+. I think many backpackers get it in their mind that Bali is cheap and expect 40,000rp a night. You can get that, but for a small guest house with no pool, restaurant, hot water, AC.

I knew the cheaper places would be on further down Jl. Benesari and Poppies II. We checked both of those streets and Poppies I, never really finding the prefect balance between pool, room and cost. Finally we decided to settle for two places, the Suka Beach Inn, that had a pool, twin beds and AC, for 150,000rp, for Toby and Maya, and the Beneyasa, which now has some AC rooms, double beds on the 3rd floor, for 120,000rp per night, for Ollie & Asia.

Having a motorbike allowed us to hit a dozen or more places, check out the rooms, talk about price, and get on to the next place. At this time of year (wet season) its hot and humid. You will be much better off with AC. After May and up to October a fan room will do. On many occassions, Ollie and I talked about price with the staff, them allowing us to leave without going for a cheaper rate. This shows me they know they’ll get customers.

Advantages of staying in these type of guest house rooms, is that you are close to everything. The beach is a 5 minute walk, bars and restaurants are within a 30 second stroll off of the property.