The Prani is about a 2 star hotel in a very good location for limited budget tourists who want to delve into the shopping/eating districts of Legian. It is even handy to Kerobokan, Seminyak, Kuta and Tuban.

To get to it easily, go up the well known Melasti Street from the beach at Kuta and cross straight over the intersection with the equally well known Jalan (Jl.) Legian.
At this intersection Jl Melasti changes its name to Jl Sriwijaya.
About 100 paces on the left up the slight rise of Sriwijaya is a small street, Jl Bunut Sari. Another 100 paces up Bunut Sari, again on the left, is the entrance to the Prani Legian.

The entry to the hotel is up and then down short flights of steps (which, for Bali, are unusually regular in height) between the hotel's restaurant and a small internet shop that proved to be quite unreliable during our stay in March ’04.
In the centre of the long, rectangular property is the well tended garden with the usual array of exotic plants and flowers, including brilliant orchids just hanging around on the trunks of trees. There is also a small but clean pool, quite adequate for the dozen or so units of the property which surround the pool and the adjoining reception area.

This reception area was commonly un-attended during our stay which left the safety deposit boxes quite un-safe in my view and also meant that the answering of phone calls to the hotel was a bit of a hit or miss affair.

Each unit has a front wall consisting of a secure, solid door and a large window. On the inside, the window was well covered by draw-string curtains that ensured privacy but which allowed the porch light to shine through a small gap at the top. I could not find any way of turning this light off and if I couldn’t sleep because of it I would have been tempted to break the globe with a shoe or something.

This reception area was commonly un-attended during our stay which left the safety deposit boxes quite un-safe in my view and also meant that the answering of phone calls to the hotel was a bit of a hit or miss affair.

Each unit has a front wall consisting of a secure, solid door and a large window. On the inside, the window was well covered by draw-string curtains that ensured privacy but which allowed the porch light to shine through a small gap at the top. I could not find any way of turning this light off and if I couldn’t sleep because of it I would have been tempted to break the globe with a shoe or something.

Enter the door and you are in a fairly large, carpeted bedroom. There is a queen size bed with bedside units and a single wardrobe/dressing table with drawer/mirror unit. The quality of the furniture, unlike the quantity, is quite good. The owners also own the old Holiday Inn, now the Balihai Resort, and the furniture is hand-me-downs from that property when it was renovated in ’03. I don’t think that the linen was changed during our 5 night stay. The towels were not plentiful but more were supplied if you asked.

Off the bedroom is an empty annexe room and from this is the door to the bathroom/toilet. If only the annexe had some simple shelves, or even a rail of hooks to hang stuff on, the space would be so much more valuable than just a place to put down suitcases on the bare floor.

The bathroom was a reasonable size, hand basin and mirror to the left as you entered, toilet to the right behind the door and the shower alcove (no bath) across the far wall from left to right. The tiling of the shower alcove was typical low grade Balinese work. Where the white tiles met there was a narrow bead of grey cement grout and where they didn’t meet or where they had cracked there was a larger expanse of grey cement grout to fill the gap. Where the grout had fallen out the water had soaked behind the tiles and the tell tale grey stain spoke of mould. The shower curtain hung on a long rod that ran from wall to wall across the middle of the bathroom. The first time we touched it, it fell down. Well, it fell as far as the cheap and hardened plastic shower curtain would allow it to fall. A close inspection decided me that I really didn’t want to touch it to put it up again. It was fixed during cleaning the next morning but we had learned our lesson and left it well alone for the remainder of our stay. The shower area was really the only black (or grey) spot in the whole hotel and really should not warrant such a detailed disparagement, but you couldn’t ignore it for too long. The shower worked well, as did the drains (The shower water actually ran downhill all the way to the floor sump!) and the water was always hot when it was needed.

The lighting throughout was quite adequate (in the front rooms but not in the back rooms - see comment further down) without being brilliant. There was no fridge when we moved in but a bit of insistence produced a small one which worked really well after it was defrosted with the hair dryer. Mentioning the hair dryer reminds me that its use produced instant blackout if more than one light and the TV were on at the same time. On the first occasion that it goes, follow the repair man to find out where the circuit breaker is so that you can turn it on yourself without delay the next time it goes off.

The restaurant provided breakfast and the food was quite good although the service was slow. It really seemed as if the place was a bit understaffed all round. The staff, by the way, were helpful and polite at all times.

A short walk down Bunut Sari, past a small warung, was a tailor who did brisk business while we were there, a shoe and sandal maker, a plastic bag seller who also claimed to run a laundry but who could not return clothes dry and pressed, and a right turn at the end of Bunut Sari, along Jl Sriwiljaya, produced a Wartel (government telephone shop) which was also an honest, reliable, almost all-hours money-changer, where photocopies of your passport were adequate for changing Travellers Cheques.
What more could you want?
In the locality there were other money changers who were not honest if reports from other guests were to be believed. Some hair-raising stories were told and wept over.

Would I stay there again?
Yes, (and we did again in October '04) if the rate was reasonable, and there was really nowhere else to go, particularly if they could only offer rooms 11 to 17 at the back of the property. This is where we had on our second stay in October ’04. These rooms are against the back fence and all you can see out of the window is a grey concrete block wall about 2 hand-spans from the glass. We resorted to buying 3 x 60 watt globes from the little shop across the road and replacing the 25 and 40 watt ones that were in the ceiling and bed-side lights of the room. The result was amazing and the cost was less than Rp10,000. They also have no annexe rooms before the bathroom that we found handy for storing bags and purchases.
Again on this occasion the hotel was part of the cheap tour package that allowed us to holiday 6 months before we (and the bank manager) reckoned we would otherwise have enough cash saved up, so it really cost us nothing.
All in all I think it was better than the Bali Agung Village where we stayed on the previous trip.
The advertised rate is US$35 (about Rp275,000) for a standard room. This includes a standard Indonesian breakfast and 21% government taxes. A surcharge of US$10 or 15 is added for peak times.

I think I’d want to bargain this down a bit if I was to return without the benefits of the package deal, maybe to something under US$25 or Rp200,000.

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