Posted by Sandra on Thursday, 25. February 1999 at 09:40 Bali Time:
We took the Mabua Express to Lombok on a package that we purchased in Bali and found it to be much cheaper than those pre-booked in Australia. Again be prepared to barter for the price and don't accept the brochure price as set, we managed to get them down from $95 USD to $75 per person for tranfers over, a one day tour and one nights accommodation at the Intan Laguna Hotel ( highly recommendable a truly beautiful resort with a good position). Lombok is beautiful and not as crowded as Bali, don't worry shopaholics the bargains on some things are better, the traffic is limited with most of the locals still travelling by horse and cart but the facilities in general were very modern but more authentic.
We also went white water rafting and thoroughly enjoyed it, be prepared to walk about 1000 slippery stairs down and 700 back up, we went with Bali Adventure Tours and our guide was Made, ask for him if you can he is fantastic and really made the experience. It probably is not a course for experienced rafters but was great for beginners and affordable - barter with them again and try to use one of the larger companies as they are more organised, Bali Adventure offers one of the larger course although they all seem to use the same river and they only had four + guide in the raft while some of the others seem to have crammed in eight.
We also went parasailing (one round), jet skiing (15 min) and banana boat riding at Benoa. We bartered for this at the tours desk at Mata Hari Kuta and paid 150 000 rupiah per person including hotel pick-up and drop-off, we were happy with this price and could pay for more extensions when there if we wanted to. The only thing was that it was a little disorganised and took a long time to complete so don't plan to be back at a certain time and make sure when you arrange it that you ask about the tides as they relate to the parasailing.
That's it for now will post more on drivers and restaurants later.