Kuta - Page two - By travel authority Howard Hillman

Bali's
Kuta Experience

page 2

More Kuta
tips and insights

Dining

It's usually easier to find foreign food (Chinese, Thai, pizza, etc.) than local cuisine. Two good bets for Balinese and Indonesian food are Kepupat and Made Warung.

Surfing

It's popular. You can do it on the waves near the beach or on those that break well beyond the shoreline at Kuta Reef.

Shopping

True, most of the shops stock tacky goods. However, Kuta has most of Bali's chic upscale designer boutiques - and prices are half those found in Paris and New York for equivalent style and quality.

Hotel accommodations

Lodging ranges from home stays (very inexpensive) to full service hotels (moderately expensive). You have to go elsewhere in Bali to find the island's luxury resorts.

Legian

This town adjoins Kuta. Like the latter, it's an overly developed beach resort town. The two have effectively (but not politically) merged into a single community. It's now difficult to tell where one town ends and the other begins

Though Legian is less known and slightly quieter of the two, much of what is said in the above paragraphs applies to both towns.

Tourism

The blasts in Kuta of October 2002 and 2005 put a heavy burden on the local and the overall island economies, which deeply depend on tourism money. Because the island has so much to offer travelers, I am confident that tourism will eventually bounce back to its former level.