Travel for travelling - Bali - Kuta Beach & Made's Waeung Restaurant & Matahari Kuta Square

Kuta 22.03.2014

Temples in Kuta, Bali, Indonesia

The reason why we chose to stay in Seminyak was because we thought this place would have less tourists, however it was not far away from Kuta. It took about 15 minutes from Seminyak Lagoon Hotel to Kuta City by taxi, if the traffic wasn't busy, and the taxi price was about US$5!

This day was our day trip in Kuta. We stared at Jl. Melati and walked toward to the beach, and there was quite a big market on the way selling clothes, dresses and accessories. Every shop was similar just like in Ubud Market. We also bought some clothes here, of course after bargaining!

Map of travels in Kuta, Bali, including Made's Warung, KFC, Matahari Kuta Square, Carrefour

At the end of Jl. Melati was Kuta beach! It was a sunny day, so the beach and ocean view was beautiful! But we only took some pictures and didn't swim in the water, because Australian beaches are relatively clean and pretty, too.

Then we walked along Jl. Pantai to Made's Warung restaurant. We thought it would be great enjoying the beach scenery while walking along the beach, but actually the distance was quite far and it was very sunny... We stopped for a rest and had a cup of Slurpee in a convenience store after walking for 15 minutes, and it took another 15 minutes to get to the restaurant!

Made's Warung Restaurant on Jl. Pantai Kuta, in Kuta, Bali

Made's Warung restaurant is Indonesian cuisine, and they are really an inexpensive restaurant. We ordered Nasi Campur Special, Nasi Goreng Special, and Thai Soup (Tom Yam Soup). "Special" means there was a satay skewer extra. Their Nasi Goreng was very tasty, and the Indonesian fried rice tasted very good, as they all had on the trip so far.

For the Nasi Campur Special, in the middle was steamed rice surrounded by a variety of local tastes, of which I only liked the fish paste stick, dried small fish and the green beans with curry sauce. The other dishes were too spicy for me. Tom Yam Soup was a Thai seafood with spicy and sour soup which tasted very rich, and came with quite a lot of ingredients like fish, shrimp and vegetable. Also too spicy but tasted good. This restaurant had good foods and services, and the only defect was no air-conditioning! By the way, we found there was another branch in Seminyak later on.

Nasi Campur, Nasi Goreng Special and Tom Yam Soup at Made's Warung Restaurant, in Kuta, Bali.

Matahari Kuta Square is like a department store selling clothes, shoes, bags, perfume and some jewelry. The ground floor sold mainly sarongs, with Bali style jewelry and local decorations, and there was a supermarket on the right hand side. The second and third floors were more international, with some shops here selling very famous brands. D bought a backpack, and although it was not a famous brand, the design and materials were quite good, and it had a very special discount - 20% off after 50% off, so it turned up only US$16!

One of the international brands - POLO, had their clothes and bags really cheap here, and like a lot of backpacks had the same consecutive 20% off and 50% off discounts (ie 60% off).

There were many stylish clothes, make up, cosmetics and shoe stores around Matahari Kuta Square. It was really busy! We saw a couple of  DC Shoes stores, and D likes their shoes for a long time. But the prices here were not really cheap even though they all had quite a discount for the old versions of their shoes. However D didn't get any of them, because he didn't like the style or couldn't find his size.

We walked slowly toward the beach when it was close to dusk and we were very lucky to just catch the sunset in time! Although it was not the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen, I still felt very happy and pleased! Near the beach there were some water sports, and we saw some little girls with lovely hair braids. Next time I would also like to try that! 

Sunset at Kuta beach, Bali

Carrefour is very common in Taiwan, but Bali only had two of them! So we were looking forward to visiting, and we asked several drivers the price from Kuta square to Carrefour. They asked for about US$7-10, but we didn't think it was a good deal so we decided to walk there! 

We came on Jl. Pantai this morning, so we walked on Jl. Legian back this time at night. This street was lined with shops and restaurants, and we thought it would be crowded in the night but it was surprisingly quiet. So we enjoyed looking around at all the shops and it was very relaxing. Plenty of restaurants were deserted, maybe because March is not tourist season? 

Compared to Taiwan this Carrefour was much smaller and simpler. Although they had most kinds of goods, they didn't have many choices for each kind. But the good thing was that we found the beauty products, such as facial cleansers, cosmetics and skin care products, and even the well-known brands are much cheaper in Bali!