Kuta and South Bali

I suppose it all depends how old you are, which in turn determines what you want from a trip to Bali. Remember that Bali to Australians is as Spain is to the English. And Kuta is the Balinese Magaluf. It’s a large, busy, touristy, built up area with unbelievably bad traffic, and a pretty stupid one way system. But it has a very long beach stretching from the Seminyak area all the way up to the Discovery Mall, an American style shopping centre which has pretty much everything (there is a little bakery in the discovery mall which sells hot savouries and sweet stuff, really cheap. It’s amazing). It’s true that if you fly to Bali and stay only in Kuta, then you have not really been to Bali, and you won’t have experienced the real Bali and all it has to offer. But Kuta does make a good base for the south of the island, for all ages and personalities, and I recommend at least two nights here just to experience it no matter who you are. 

Kuta beach is the main attraction and has a good vibe but it’s not that great. There is always quite a lot of rubbish on the beach, but it is wide and it is long. It’s really easy to rent crap surfboards on the beach front and have a surf lesson but if you want to ride something good you should look across the road from the beach, to the little surf shops. You can get up early and join the joggers on the beach at first light, running barefoot along the warm waters edge and dodging the washed up coconuts. And at sundown the beach becomes packed, waiting for some of the most beautiful sunsets you will ever see. Sun worshippers line up along it all day, and there are plenty of surfers in the water. Kuta beach has a couple of breaks all along the beach but in monsoon season, the waves tend to be a bit of a beach break close out, and the wind will be on it by midday so early surfs are the way to go here. The break in front of the lifeguard station isn’t bad, and airports reef is worth experiencing, just for the Jumbo’s going over your head and feeling close enough to touch, whilst you are dangling your feet off your board in the warm Indian Ocean. No sharks to worry about here either. In fact you don’t have to worry about sharks anywhere in Bali. They just don’t come close to shore due to the lack of food stuff.

There are several areas along the beach, like the slightly pricier and upmarket Seminyak and beyond that, Echo beach. But I stayed in the Legian area. It’s pretty cool. And there are a few little gems to be found here. One is the Balcony Restaurant, above Un’s hotel. Food is amazing. And across from it, is a Circle K that does surprisingly good machine coffee. This is a great tip if you hanker after a European like latte. In all the restaurants a Bali coffee (which is good) will cost you between  5000 and 10,000 IDR but a latte or cappuccino can cost 30,000 IDR (as much as your meal). You do have to keep remembering that 50,000 IDR is only £3.50 though! In the Circle K, a cappuccino is a large one, and costs 8000. And outside the shop are a few tables and chairs with free wifi. I found it a great place to meet and chat with interesting locals. These Circle k’s are all over kuta. Two minute’s walk towards the beach from the balcony, you will find the surfers café, which is really good, and also rents boards. They have a couple of guitars you can play too. Opposite that is a little laundry that washes clothes for about a quid a kilo. And you can have it back in the same day. 

Other top tips for places in this region include Poppies restaurant on Poppies 1, which is a little more expensive, but still dirt cheap by European standards, and the Bali summer restaurant which murders well known pop and rock songs after 7 pm every night. The gay waiter loves to dance to this on the street to entice people in and it makes for a great atmosphere.  A good meal in any of these will cost between 30,000 and 100,00 IDR depending on whether you go Indonesian or western. But you won’t find locals eating here. Walk away from the beach and the more built up areas and you will find the little local warungs. They look pretty rudimentary, and they are. But here the food is great and you can get all of the Indonesian dishes as good or better than the restaurants standard fair, at a quarter of the price. I spent a month eating at least one meal a day as a local, and never experienced any stomach trouble. I even drank their drinks with ice. So don’t be a pansy.

Jalan Rya Legian, the main street, is where you will find all the night life. It’s lined with gift shops etc, restaurants, and bars and in the rainy season, they are all relatively empty and desperate for your clientele.  The two most famous night spots here are the Bounty, which is to be honest, usually a pissed Aussie cock fest (full of 18 – 25 year old aussie men) and the Sky Garden, which isn’t bad. It has four floors, an all you can eat £5 buffet and a lounge as well as the club area. Remember that Legian street is the seedy area of Kuta, and the pretty Indonesian ladies dressed in red are the high end prostitutes that work out of these clubs. And any other Indonesian girl that expresses interest along this street is probably one of the slightly cheaper Kuta bar girls. It’s not all fun just for men here either. Kuta is also famous for the kuta cowboy, a group of young long haired, tattooed (mostly Javan) men who make themselves available to the middle aged and upward western women, turning the stereotypical south east Asian sight of fat old white skinned pensioners with beautiful Indonesian 25 year old women on its head. Some middle aged women watch eat pray love, and want to cut out 87 minutes of it and go straight to the ending I suppose, and why not. It’s a crap movie and Julia Roberts gets fat while she stays in Italy. Step away from the pasta Miss Roberts.

Poppies 1 and Poppies 2 are now famous streets that run parallel to each other, from Jl Rya Legian down to the beach. These two tiny streets are lined with bars and warungs, and also the street vendours selling the bintang t shirts and vests, and wooden penis shaped bottle openers beside the fake Raybans and Rolex watches. Wander down at your leisure and have a bintang when it all gets too much. You will also be offered many opportunities for “sexy” massages by women with no teeth, a quick way to lose your wallet or take a little more home than one can buy in Kumbasari art market. Weed is just not worth buying here even if you get offered it. The penelties can be as severe as 25 years in prison or even the death sentence for trafficking, and the locals are a wiley bunch. They are not going to risk that just to make a tenner out of you so 99.999% of the time they will be offering you some dried up leaves they picked off some random bush. My advice, don’t bother. Mushrooms are the legal high in Bali and you can just walk into one of the many shops and buy them quite legally. As a local told me, you don’t get in trouble for taking mushrooms; you get in trouble for the people you kill while you are on them.

Hotels here range from grandiose, like the Stones, and the Hard Rock hotel, to positively luxurious around the discovery mall area. But for the budget traveller, Un’s and the POP! Hotels are pretty good. Around £20 a night gets you breakfast, a pool and aircon, and the POP! Is exceptionally clean. But you don’t see that many westerners staying at the Pop!, although that was fine by me.

Once you have had your fill of £3.50 all over body massages and the bars and cafes of Kuta, there are some great places within easy reach and renting a moped is pretty straight forward. Without doubt, a moped or a motorcycle is the best way to see Bali. Hire one and explore the whole island. Everyone offers them, for 50,000 IDR a day, but haggle. You can get 20k knocked off easily. Make sure you have an international driving licence and check that the documents for the bike are in date. The police here pay a lot of money to become a policeman (the price of a quarter of a house) and need to recoup the money somehow. Traffic is crazy here, so just be as crazy as everyone else and you will be fine. The petrol cap is under the seat and petrol is ludicrously cheap. Its easy to fill up at a petrol station here, you get in your little que with the seat up and the cap off and when its your turn the guy fills it up for you. Alternatively, these crazy Balinese can be found all over the island with a little rack of twenty, 1 litre glass bottles full of petrol on the side of the road in the baking hot sunshine. Stop and let him do all the work. It’s more expensive and a lot more of a fire hazard I suppose, but a bottle is around 5000IDR and you will only need a maximum of three.

Places to see from Kuta:

Uluwatu

Amazing spot with a temple on the cliff overlooking the famous surf break. Well worth a visit, some great photo opportunities, and also it’s cheap. Plenty of monkeys knocking about too so no sunnies and no water bottles on show. After you have seen the temple, go down to Uluwatu proper. Head down over the concrete steps to the little surf village. It’s cool and laid back. Find some good music here on a Sunday night too; everyone who is everyone in the surf scene descends on Uluwatu for Sunday evenings. Head south from Kuta following the signs for Nusa Dua and you will pick up the signs for Uluwatu.

Nusa Dua

The spot for the rich and famous. This is where the Clintons and Obahma’s go when they visit Bali. Super expensive plush hotels (not my scene). But, at the front of the beach entrance is an awesome little warung to eat, and squirrels run up and down the trees beside your table taking the food out of the local children’s hands. The Pacifica Museum is here, and Balinese dance for the tourists in the theatre. The beach is a beautiful golden / white sand mix and the swimming is good here. Walk out to the tiny headland in between the two beaches for a great view of surfers getting barrelled, and mangled, on the Nusa reef.

               

  

Sanur

I have to admit I thought Sanur was pretty lame. It’s where middle class or old people go when they are either not adventurous enough to explore, think they are above kuta, or too cheap for Nusa. Quite an average beach but quiet, lined with local stalls. Do yourself a favour and stay home, or go to the garden centre. Unless you want to fly to Bali to sleep. But that’s just my opinion. 

Tanaha Lot

Yea, quite cool. A temple on an island that gets cut off by the sea. Go take some photos of it and wander around the huge tourist market by the car park there. Head west from kuta through Seminyak and towards Echo beach. You will pick up the signs for it.

 Kumbasari Art Market

This is a must. Everything you find in the tat shops of kuta or the arty shops of Ubud, but at a tenth of the price. You have to haggle quite hard though! It looks like a 5 story concrete car park when you pull up, and smells like a fishmongers knickers, but when you get inside, you will be pleasantly surprised. From Kuta head up the main road to Denpasar, past the fire station, past the hospital, then it’s on your right. This is seriously the place to buy all your gifts and mementoes.

Get tattooed.

I met so many Aussies who were over in Kuta just for the week, didn’t go anywhere, but went home with a big fat tattoo. Apparently it’s pretty cheap, and a half sleeve can cost under £200. Buy a bintang wife-beater vest while you’re at it, and try to grow some tits. Then all you will have to do is say Sheila occasionally and you will be able to get Australian citizenship! ( I have to say here though, I met some seriously nice Australians on my trip, some with tattoos, and some without).