Travel Day 655 – Kuta, Legian and Seminyak on Bali, INDONESIA
This day started quite cloudy, so instead of hanging out at the pool, I spent all morning reading the guide-book and planning my trip through Indonesia…
Ornate Black Stone and Gold Temple in Kuta on Bali, Indonesia
As it appeared, in order to really explore Bali besides its tourist centers, some sort of transportation was needed. A scooter seemed to be the best and cheapest way to get around, but it had been at least one year since I last used one. Not knowing much about the traffic situation on the island, the idea came up to simply rent a scooter for one day first to test out the manageability of the local roads on Bali. If all went well, cruising around the island could be fun, but as a first step, a little exploration of the southern tip of the peninsula seemed enough…
Luckily my hotel was even renting out automatic scooters which made me feel more comfortable than doing some shady renting deals on the street. On top of that, the rental rate for an entire week was much cheaper than for individual days and so my plans for the next week started to develop slowly. But in terms of today, I rather decided to use my time exploring the areas north of Kuta, meaning Legian and Seminyak on foot…
Private Hindu Temples in Legian on Bali, Indonesia
The main drag leading north towards Seminyak was Jalan Legian which was hosting a lot of fancy stores, restaurants and clubs. Right there was also the site and the memorial of the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people in a violent terror attack. A vacant lot by the street was all that was left of the former nightclub where one of the bombs went off. Close by stood the tall memorial, listing all the names and nationalities of those unfortunate for whom Bali was the last destination…
While continuing north the areas changed from Kuta into Legian and into finally Seminyak. The transition of the neighborhoods was technically smooth, but everything became increasingly more posh. It was almost funny to see how things got more upscale and exclusive until there was nothing left but big fancy resorts that occupied the entire northern beach while cutting off the normally easy access from the town…
Black Stone Hindu Temple in Kuta on Bali, Indonesia
But my personal highlight of the walk became the many artistically carved Hindu temples that lay sprinkled around in the area of Legian. Some of these black stone and wood temples seemed to be publicly accessible while others appeared to be private, set in the yard of an individual house. Actually it almost seemed that every single house had some sort of small shrine in the backyard, but the well-to-do families displayed some really impressive private stone temple arrangements on their own property…
Strangely enough but these slender temple structure reminded me not the slightest of the many Hindu temples I had seen in India or Nepal. Instead of the big structure where one could walk into, here the temples seemed to be rather set up like a totem, each dedicated to only one of the gods. And while the locals were placing little flower offerings everywhere from the temples to the shops and even the streets, I was already quite curious to find out more about the unique Hindu culture of Bali while cruising around on a scooter…
Find all Kuta, Bali photos here.
Leave a Reply