Kuta Beach

Probably Kuta is the most famoust beach resort in Bali. It’s well known for its long sandy beach and funtastic sunsets. The calm wave and a lack of dangerous rocks or coral, makes Kuta as a perfect place to surf, especially for begginers surfer. Many surfing course from an accredited school are available here. The 3 days surfing course costs approximately USD 100, include surf equipment in a good condition and surfing introduction in swimming pool. Otherwise, you could rent surf equipment from locals on the beach for Rp 50,000 until Rp 100,000 (USD 5 until USD 10) per half day, depends on the quality of the equipment. Generally, the equipment are worse than in surfing schools. You can also learn some basic surfing lessons from these guys.

Shops, boutiques, bars, restaurants and hotels are lined up in Kuta. The accomodations in Kuta start from cheap hostel to five star hotels. If you are a backpacker, try to find some budgeted cheap hostel in poppies lane. It’s internationally well known among backpacker. In the north, Legian and Seminyak is the place for many expat crowd live. It is somewhat quiter suburbs with cottage style accomodations. In fact, as one of Bali’s and Indonesia's major tourist destinations, some people thought that Kuta is to crowded now.

The Garuda Wisnu Kencana Cultural Centre

The Garuda Wisnu Kencana complex are located on a limestone hill in Jimbaran, Bali. This complex are planned to be an integrated cultural centre equipped with a 140m-tall Wisnu Statue as its landmark. The stautue itself consist of 70m-tall statue of Wisnu (believed by Balinese as the god who gives protections)riding the mythical bird Garuda and 70m-tall base. Currently, Only the torso of Wisnu and the head of Garuda have been completed due to budget constraint. When it is fully completed, the Garuda Wisnu Kencana statue will be the tallest statue in Southeast Asia. The park was also to be equipped with a performance centre with 7,500 seats, and amphitheatre, restaurants, galleries and other cultural artistic attractions as well as a spacious parking lot to accommodate visitors.

This park was initially the idea of I Nyoman Nuarta, a Balinese contemporary sculptor. Under the auspies of Soeharto, the former Indonesian president, he was commisioned to create this huge statue. Although it have not been completed, the park has been open to the public since 2000, drawing in a crowd of about 500 visitors daily. Nowdays, the park completed with art musseum, open air stage and amphitheater. As it located in a limestone hill you could enjoy the wonderful view of bali from high place.

Jimbaran Bay

Jimbaran located in just at the south of Ngurah Rai International Airport and also near to Kuta Beach. Formerly just a fishermans village that now has become a popular tourist resort. The Jimbaran bay is famous for its beach front grilled seafood restaurants. Due the location of the bay towards facing the west, it is a perfect place to enjoy the beautiful sunsets. Come at arround 5.00 PM, take a seat in one of the seaside restaurants. Order some grilled seafood and enjoy this beautiful sunsets while waiting for your orders.

Restaurants are packed all in a row along the beach. The tables of the restaurants are set up right on the sand. Choose your favourite fresh seafood such as various fish, squid, crab, shrimp, lobster and shellfish from the seafood tanks near the kitchen and choose the number and type of creatures you want to eat. Prices is depend on the weight of the seafood.

The beach itself is mostly calm, so it’s not suitable for surfing and motorized water sport. Finally, just like other beach resort in Bali, Jimbaran is surrounded by five star beach resort hotels.