Day 2: Legian & Kuta – Discovery Day

The only downside of being in one of the ground floor rooms is that people will walk past on their way to breakfast – so as a result we were up reasonably early for our first full-day in Bali.  After a nice outdoor shower we headed to Breakfast.  Breakfast at the All Seasons is pretty much the same as breakfast in almost any other Asian hotel chain – perfectly sufficient.  It has an egg-chef who can cook eggs to order and all the usual buffet fare – Pancakes, Potato, Bacon, Rice, Noodles, Sausages, Break, Pastries, Fresh Fruit, Juice and Coffee/Tea.  Really all you would need.

So filled up with food we headed out to explore the area of Legian and see where we ended up – today was really a day without plans.  As mentioned previously the Hotel is on Jl Padma Utara which I was worried would be too far away from all the action in Bali but it proved to be quite convenient.  Just down the street are a few mini-marts and also a Circle K with a Money Changer inside.  Plenty of Taxis ply this road so if you need to travel a little further you shouldn’t have to wait too long.

This is Jl Padma Utara the street that All Seasons in on. Don’t be put off by what looks like crazy – it is a little but it is safe enough and honestly really well positioned to get to everything in Legian.

First up we headed to the beach, which was really only about a 5-10 minute walk, being reasonably early (around 9:00am) the beach was reasonably empty and most of the sellers and vendors hadn’t even really started setting up yet.  As a result we had much of the beach to ourselves – very few people walking around.

The lovely beach at Legian, the sand was very clean and the water lovely. As you see not many people out at this time of the morning.

Being such a glorious day we wandered along the beach until our skin couldn’t take much more and we headed to the shaded santuary of the street (and shops!) – emerging around the bottom of Jl Pantai Kuta (the main strip the runs along the beach).

This is the lovely entrance gate to the beach area at Kuta. Look at that sky, it was a glorious day.

This would prove to be a terrible mistake as little-did-I-know but only a few short minutes away was Jl Bakungsari – which contains a shop called Bagus Watches.  For men shopping with their wife I can only advise try to delay her finding this shop it will hurt your wallet.  After what felt like many many hours (I am sure was only 30minutes) we emerged onto the street and then almost the next thing we run into is Matahari Kuta Square.  This is a huge shop, selling literally everything a woman (and a man – I will admit) could need.   This again sunk even more time.

The Beach Entrance to the Discovery Shopping Mall – we ate lunch at New York Sports Bar just to the Right hand side of this shot.

We continued on our walk and headed further south until we found Discovery Mall which is just opposite Waterbom Park.  This is a reasonably small mall – we didn’t do much shopping here because I was absolutely famished by this point – the Bali sun as well as my wifes shopping habits had drained my energy and I needed a drink and some lunch.  Now I will admit I had planned on this holiday to only eat Indonesian meals, but for some reason I was craving a nice beef burger so we headed to New York Sports Bar for lunch.  The food was sufficient, service prompt – we were a little early for lunch so the place was pretty quiet.  I certainly notice that Bali takes a while to get going in the morning, most places were quiet till well after lunchtime.

After all that walking before lunch, we were both pretty nackered – so jumped in a Taxi and headed back to the hotel to dump the shopping and recover.  What better way to recover than with some gentle relaxing foot reflexology.  Kenkos Reflexology came well recommended so we went there to aid our sore feet.  I got a 1 hour Foot, Hand, Back, Shoulder, Neck….and whatever else they wanted to hurt massage – it was really therapeutic, and I did fall asleep a few times.  All told I think the total was something like 180,000k for 2 x 1 hour massages (great value, and we did feel much better).

Next order of business was dinner.  Our intention was to head up to Seminyak and try a place called Made’s Warung – so we decided being such a pleasant evening that we would walk.  It was only about a 2km walk.  Unfortunately Made’s Warung was fully booked tonight so we needed to find somewhere else to eat.  Just up the road was Queens Tandoor which is an Indian Restaurant which is quiet well regarded.  The food was really amazing – a little bit hot compared to what I was used to back home in Brisbane – great value, and the service was quite good.  The restaurant was packed when we sat down I saw only 1 or 2 spare tables.  They do turn them over rather quickly though so I would imagine a wait wouldn’t be that long if they were busy.

So that was Day 2 in Bali – our first full day.  Rough figures on our total walking distance are about 5km – so not surpisingly we headed straight to bed!  Stay tuned for tomorrow – Food/Shopping/Drinking – My new Bali Pastime.