Kuta

Today we all took the free hotel shuttle bus to Kuta. I haven’t heard many good things about Kuta. I’d heard it was an overdeveloped, low cost tourist spot and I have managed to stay clear of it on both my previous trips to Bali. So why go today? Well, we wanted to climb a mountain and needed to find a tour company to arrange a driver and a guide for us and we were certain this could be done in Kuta. Kevin wanted to arrange a mountain biking trip too, so the first thing we did when we got to Kuta was to sort all this out. We found a company called MBA who seemed professional and competent and made all the arrangements. We were to hike that night. Kevin was biking the following morning.

Kuta was OK. Yes, every building was a hotel, restaurant or shop serving the needs of the foreign tourist, but it was quite tastefully done. I still think we are better off at Tana Lot however as it was a bit noisy. We had nasi goreng for lunch, found the beach and the mall for a bit of a wander (and a donut!) and then said goodbye to Dawn and Kevin who were going back to the hotel. We had a few hours to kill before we would be picked up to drive to the start of our trail and spent them in a massage spa. Hard life.