Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kuta-Legian-Seminyak
The biggest, brashest resort in Bali, the
KUTA-LEGIAN-SEMINYAK
conurbation ex-
pands relentlessly out from its core on the southwest coast, 10km southwest of Denpasar.
Packed with thousands of hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, spas and tour agencies, the
10km-long coastal strip plays host to hundreds of thousands of visitors each year who come
to party, shop, surf or simply laze a week away, and sucks in ever-more Indonesians for work.
It's a hectic place: noisy, full of touts, jammed with traffic and busy with constant building
work. Yet the hustle is mostly good-humoured and there are no strip bars or high-rises (yet).
Even if buildings have long since risen above the height of a coconut palm, they're still low
by international resort standards.
For many travellers, it's not only the crowds and the sensory assault that are a shock. It's that
the place seems so un-Balinese:
McDonald's
, Rip Curl and
Hard Rock
are all here and almost
every bartender, waiter and losmen employee uses some slang-ridden English or Japanese
banter. But the resort is, in truth, distinctly Balinese and not only in its very typical ability to
assimilate outside influences. Villagers still live and work here, making religious offerings,
attending
banjar
meetings and holding temple festivals. Each morning and afternoon women
still place
offerings
, which litter the pavements and streets. All three former villages have
their own
temples
, but none is outstanding and nearly all lock their gates to tourists except at
festival times, when visitors are welcome to attend as long as they're
suitably attired
.
The reason everyone is here is the
beach
, vast and if not quite so glorious as it once was, still
a gentle curve of pale sand that stretches for 8km from Tuban to Canggu, its breakers luring
amateur and experienced surfers alike. It's also the venue for the much-lauded Kuta sunsets;
at their blood-red best in April, but streaky-pink at any time of year and the stuff sundowners
are made of - whether cocktails in a hip bar or just a cold Bintang on plastic seats.
