Fun on Kuta beach – Bali

We landed in Bali 48 hours after leaving the UK with a short stop over in Bangkok (see my Bangkok post) and, although I was pretty shattered, the place instantly put a smile on my face. For a start, it had to be the nicest airport I’ve seen in my life! The building was surrounded by gardens and trailing plants and brightly coloured flowers – it was really lovely!

Our first stop was our hotel in Kuta – Kemuning Kuta Hotel – but we were itching to see the place after driving through the bustling streets so we dumped our stuff and headed for the beach via the main strip in this corner of town – Legian. This street is jam-packed with shops, bars, restaurants, and crazy traffic with mopeds and motorbikes everywhere, including the pavements!

With this and the fact that I’ve heard that Kuta is a party town, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the beach, as you never know how much these things may have been ruined by tourists. But, thankfully, Kuta beach is gorgeous – a long, wide, golden beach fringed by a row of palm trees. It’s busy but not packed by any means. I loved it straight away!

For me there are three main attractions for Kuta beach:
1. Baby turtles
2. Surfing
3. Sunset

So first thing’s first – baby turtles:

Bali has several turtle sanctuaries but the one on Kuta beach is the biggest, according to the once Brummy now Aussie guy with the megaphone anyway! They patrol the beach at night to look out for sea turtles hatching their eggs and any they find are dug up and whisked away from those who would eat them into the sanctuary’s sandpits. Once hatched, a load of tourists are rounded up to help release the baby turtles back into the sea!

This was one of the BEST things I’ve ever done. The baby turtles are so tiny, no bigger than the palm of my hand, and just so cute! After being handed my little Squirtle (George named his Dave) in a plastic tub, we were told not to touch them, but he was pretty keen to get out and kept nudging at my hand on top the tub. Then it was down to the edge of the sea to tip him out onto the sand and watch him scuttle away into the sea. Absolutely lush! And completely free to do every single day – although we did make a donation as it’s such a great cause.

And for the rest of the day, there’s surfing!

The waves here are great so you can barely walk five steps without coming across someone selling surfboard hire or lessons. Although we were far too tired on our first day we decided to have a go at learning on day 2! It cost 200,000 rupiah each (about £12) for a couple of hours with an instructor.

George picked it up surprisingly fast but, as predicted, my clumsy ass couldn’t get the hang of it haha! I spent all afternoon belly flopping before George’s instructor pointed out I was pointing my feet the wrong way, and by then I was too tired to get it right anyway. It was good fun the little bits of success I did have, though, and some of my tumbles off the board were pretty hilarious! Since then I’ve got slightly better and can stand up occasionally, and we’re sharing a surf board, which costs around 40,000 rupiah to hire for an hour.

And last, but certainly not least, sunset:

You have to get yourself to Kuta beach to watch the sunset. Now being a rookie backpacker at the moment I don’t have much experience in the sunset business, but the one here is pretty damn spectacular! The sun goes down over the ocean and lights up the sky up in all different colours as it disappears from sight. Sitting on the sand watching this sunset on the first proper night of our travelling adventure was a pretty special moment and I’m sure it will definitely always be a massive life highlight!