In Reply to: Advice please Padangbai/Amed posted by balireturn on Wednesday, 7. October 2009 at 08:49 Bali Time:
Our last trip to Bali in July we spent 2 days at Padang Bai and 3 nights Amed. Padang Bai is quiet but a couple of restaurants have live bands on different nights during the week, the same in Amed.
We were pleasantly surprised how much we liked both places. We stayed at Puri Rai in Padang Bai the official website is www.puriraihotels.com if you do a search the 1st site that comes up is puriraihotel.com which is actually a travel agent and when I tried booking the agent said there was no vacancy, I then found the official website and low & behold there was vacancy. The rooms were clean but basic but a couple of nice pools and central to everything.
We then stayed in Blue Moon Villas which was lovely but you really need transport if you want to eat out as there are only 2 other restaurants within walking distance in the dark.
All the bays at Amed offer something a little different snorkelling wise, we really enjoyed the wreck which is south of Blue Moon.
Padang Bai, the beach to the north you can snorkel off and has a couple of restaurants, beach to lay around on (as long as it isn't high tide),massage ladies, sarong sellers. And there is a great beach to the south which is lovely white sand a bit of surf and a couple of warungs, it is a bit of a walk to get there but definitely worth it.