In Reply to: The traffic is horrendous posted by Heatherbelle on Sunday, 18. September 2011 at 15:40 Bali Time:
The best route is to turn right at Antosari and take the Sanda, Pupuan, Seririt road. It is a very scenic drive, with little traffic. The traffic from Tabanan and Antosari can be very heavy.
There are some good options to stay in Permuteran.
There is no town life as such, but the bay is beautiful, and a walk around it, passing through the little fishing village is good.
There is Ganesha Villas, Taman Sari, Pondok Sari, Taman Selini and Amertha Villas all virtually next to each other lining the bay, with Adi Assri a little further around.
We really like Taman Sari, the grounds are beautiful, the staff very friendly, and the restaurant is almost on the beach, in fact a couple of tables ARE on it. Breakfast under the trees on the beach is great.
The restaurant there is excellent, especially the Bebek Betutu.
Of the others, Ganesha is more secluded, and expensive, Amertha is owned by the same people as Taman Sari, and a little more expensive. It is reasonably new, so the grounds are not quite as established as the others, but the rooms look good. Taman Selini and Adi Assri look about the same as Taman Sari in quality and price, with Pondok Sari not quite as good, but cheaper.
The boats leave for Menjangan from in front of the hotels, and it costs about 450,000Rp including boat, equipment and light lunch. They leave about 9 am and back at 2pm. The snorkelling is brilliant, with plenty of coral and fish, and an amazing vertical dropoff about 30 metres from shore. The snorkelling in Pemuteran is not bad either, since their reef revitalisation scheme.
It's a very relaxing place to stay, we have stayed there 3 times now , and will definately go back
Hope this helps, if you have any mopre questions feel free to email me