Ubud Tourist Traps

I visited the Sobek website www.balisobek.com before I arrived in Bali and booked rafting at Telaga Waja river.. the price was $68 and I was offered 10% discount for Internet booking, so US$ 61. When I arrived there, I found my driver could offer me the same trip on Sobek for $45! I called them but they said they cant reduce the price. I cancelled the booking and asked my driver to book, they refused to accept my booking. Finally I went rafting with another company, bahama rafting, on Ayung river - which is closer by and more picturesque, and paid only $31 plus transportation costs to and fro, since I was a single passenger.

Unique Suggestions: book it locally via an agent, driver or by calling them .. do not book from outside Bali, via the internet

Fun Alternatives: go to bahama rafting or any other company, there are plenty of brochures at the airport, listing many of them. Some of them even throw in a free one hour balinese body massage after the rafting!!

Telaga Waja river is further away from Ubud, plus there is no tree cover for the river, can get very sunny and hot. Ayung river is closer by, lots of tree cover, very beautiful.. i enjoyed rafting on it..

2 more images

Im not exactly sure if this tip is really a tourist trap or a shopping tips. .... You may be surprised to see several Dolce & Gabana and Polo all over Ubud and Bali for that matter, and prices are really cheap. ....Its not the real thing.

I gather its not related to the D&G and Polo Ralph Lauren overseas, more of only available for Indonesian market...Hmm copyright not working?

Think again . Well we were dropped off at a Batik/wood carving shops in one of those tour and my fren bought several packet of Java Beans ...after so called discount he got it for Rp 25,000 . Happily we finished our shopping spree and when we met up at night at a small mall called Matahari (Sun) in Kuta Area ,we were shocked to see the same Java Beans are being sold at Rp 8500 per packet only , and it comes with a wooden box with wood carvings !

Lesson to learn - dont shope where your tour guid e is gonna drop you , instead just look and compare prices , usually you can get better price in downtown like Kuta , coz there are plenty of shops selling the same thing ...needless to say you have the bargaining power !

Good luck on your shopping spree !

Believe me , they are everywhere ...and there is no way you can runaway from them ! Despite being warned by other VTs to think and think before I open my wallet , I still ended up buying one ( thank god just one ) unnecessary thing !

Well best way is to say no to them ..its difficult to make good decision when your emotions are involved ! feel pity for them ? then think about children in Africa and you wont feel so bad !

Just say no firmly and walk straight , many times i have to pull my sis and mum away from them !

When you get a scheduled shuttle to a place, you reasonably expect that it will drop you there and not over two miles away at the mercy of a horde of locals hawking their hotel rooms and hassling you for rides on their scooters!!!

Well, more fool us for not actually pinpointing where we were going to get dropped off with the driver before paying the fare... *sigh*

He was perfectly friendly until it came to the point of jettisoning us to his accomplices and then he became very stubborn and unhelpful - so there we had to get out and be swamped by the rabid crowd eagerly awaiting our arrival...

We didn't actually even know exactly where we were to begin with except that we were in Ubud.

Faced with this crowd and wanting to get my bearings I focused on one boy who was offering hotel rooms just to get away from the rest. Mission accomplished, I asked him to show us where we were on the map and suddenly I had the upper hand again as there were several recommended hotels just up the road.

Seeing as we wanted to go in the direction of his hotel we went his way gathering some info about Ubud in the process as he was currently eager to please in the hopes of making a booking...

Once we got to where we wanted, we checked the recommended places but they were pretty ropey, so just for the hell of it we thought we'd have a look at the place young Ketut wanted to show us and ended up booking into Brata III...

All's well that ends well, eh? ;-)

Unique Suggestions: The usual: Agree stuff up front! We sorted the cost, but not the exact drop off point...

Fun Alternatives: Maybe you like a face full of people hassling you - but I prefer thinking for myself...

Everyone at every shop was ready to bargain...the prices seemed so inexpensive to start with, we felt like we were cheating them...so bargaining was really hard.

Unique Suggestions: Understand how to bargain and don't be afraid to..once we thought it was all over and turned away...only to have the shopkeeper say OK, OK