Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison, which housed Schapelle Corby for almost a decade, is about to be exposed as a cesspool of corruption and lawlessness in a new book.

I Survived Kerobokan, by Australian resident Paul Conibeer, describes a jail where some guards were willing to turn a blind eye to illegal activity as long as they were paid off.

''Kerobokan is one of the only jails in the world where the prisoners are in control,'' Conibeer writes.

In June 2012, the then 43-year-old Blacktown car salesman headed for the island paradise to party and ''disappear into the alcohol-fuelled haze of the Bali bar scene for a couple of months'', as he had done more than 30 times before.

By August, following a series of unfortunate events - including being robbed outside a nightclub which led to a dispute over an unpaid hotel bill - the New Zealand-born Conibeer found himself in ''Hotel K'', surrounded by rapists, murderers and paedophiles. He shared a 33-man cell with 51 other men for 10 months before returning to Australia.

Conibeer has now settled in Queensland and his story will be published by New Holland in April.

''I wanted to write this book to warn people that the real Bali is not the one advertised in the tourist brochures. It remains dangerous and corrupt: a trap for the young, the naive and those, like me, who wanted to have a good time at the expense of common sense.''

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Source: Brisbane Times, Jo Casamento, March 30, 2014 (local time)

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