I first came to Bali in 1995. At that time there were
no ATM’s in town (you had to go to Denpasar) and only
one Internet Café! It was up the alley by Miro’s.
They would keep a blackboard out front with the names of people
who had emails waiting for them! By 1997, it was better
– there were several ATM’s in town and several
internet cafes. By the time I moved to Bali in 2001
there were many ATM’s and many internet cafes.
However, only one was high speed. It was Highway!
They had a nice little setup with about 10 computers; a scanner;
printers; and even did computer repairs. But the times
have changed again. Now there are at least four ‘high
speed’ cafes in Ubud. Of course, there is still
at Highway which bills itself as the fastest using IndoSat
M2 fiber optics. Highway has new digs on the mail road,
near the Post Office and has upgraded their computers; printers;
scanners; and has VoIP; web cams; and can download photos
from your camera and burn a CD or DVD! It also has Wi-Fi and
some laptop connection points to make it easy to just plug
in your laptop. In addition to all that, Highway is
open 24/7 with nice discounts for off-hours access. (0361)
972107.
The newer players include Bali3000, which bills itself as
512Kbps and also has the similar feathers to Highway (I don’t
think they do computer repairs), BUT, they use Unix and so
they don’t have Internet Explorer! So, if you
must have IE (some web sites won’t work without IE –
sorry), this isn’t the place for you, but their prices
are good. For instance if you want to download music
(MP3s) it’ll cost you about 6,000 rp/5 minute (5MB)
song! Their hours are 8AM-11PM, 7 days a week and are
located just up the street from Highway. (0361) 978538.
In addition, Ubud Music, located near Casa Luna now has high
speed access. And they are expanding their area to the
second floor so there will be more computers and a little
more room. They have a discount card that is worth a
look if you need to use a lot of hours. Plus they have
a second site (Ubud Music 2) on Monkey Forest Road, near Café
Wayan that has similar high speed access. They close
at 10PM every night. (0361) 972954.
And, lastly, down below the car wash (and next to the delicious
Indian Restaurant) is Ubud Channel. They have a nice
set-up with about 8 computers; a scanner; and a printer.
They are fast and reliable. (0361) 970897.
Sanur; Kuta; and Denpasar: If you know of high speed
places in these cities please email me. I just need
the name and location. I’ll contact them myself
and get all the info and put it in a future article!
