Kuta and Legian in Bali

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Kuta is where all of this began. Surfers arrived in the late 1960s, the losmen guesthouses followed, and by the 1980s Kuta was the template for cheap beach tourism in South-East Asia. It has since been comprehensively overtaken in fashion by Seminyak and Canggu, and what remains is a dense, loud, cheap strip that does three things better than anywhere else on Bali: teach beginners to surf, sell things at low prices, and provide a large night out for very little money.

The surf

Kuta and Legian beach is a long sand-bottomed break where the waves reform repeatedly on the way in, which makes it the most forgiving learning wave in Asia. Lessons are 350,000–500,000 rupiah for two hours including a soft-top and a rash vest, and there are dozens of schools. Board hire from the beach racks is 50,000–100,000 a day. Mornings are better before the wind gets on the water. This is also the island's board-buying centre: the shops along Jalan Legian and the surf factories inland sell new and second-hand boards at prices well below Australia.

The night

Jalan Legian is the strip. Sky Garden runs a multi-floor free-entry-and-buffet model that has been the backbone of budget Kuta nightlife for years; Bounty is the other institution. Around them is a run of open-fronted bars with 30,000-rupiah beers and cover bands. It is cheap, chaotic and overwhelmingly young, and it is not subtle. In the middle of it stands the memorial to the 2002 bombing, which killed 202 people, most of them foreign visitors, at a nightclub on this street. It is quiet, well kept, and worth stopping at.

Shopping and practicalities

Kuta is the cheapest shopping on the island: Beachwalk and Discovery malls at the two ends, Krisna and Joger for souvenirs by the sackful, and a dense grid of small shops selling sandals, sarongs, T-shirts and knock-offs where everything is negotiable. Custom leather — sandals, jackets, bags — is made here in a few days at low prices. The airport is ten minutes away, which is Kuta's other lasting advantage. Accommodation runs from 120,000-rupiah hostel beds to comfortable four-star hotels at 700,000–1,500,000.

Whether to stay here

The honest answer is: for a first or last night before a flight, for a surf trip on a budget, or for a big night out — yes. For a week's holiday — almost certainly not, unless the strip is what you came for. The beach is grey sand with a serious rip current, the traffic is bad, the touts are persistent and the water quality suffers during the January–February rains. Seminyak is twenty minutes north and a different world; Canggu is forty. Both cost more and both are quieter.

Kuta and Legian at a glance

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