First trip was a short mini tour of the surfwear shops and discount places. We walked outside the gates of the Jayakarta Bali Hotel and we found a bemo (people mover, mini-van, whatever you want to call them) that was willing to squeeze 10 of us into his vehicle. We negotiated, with the driver, a price for a trip out to a couple of the surfwear shops with a drop-off at the Dynasty Plaza at the end. We all crammed into the vehicle and we were off.
The first couple of stops were at Surf Shops – not quite the bargains we were looking for but we all got out and had a look anyway, then it was back in the transport and off to the next shop – it was a little surf shop somewhere in Denpasar – this is more the type of discount shop we were looking for – the driver had discount coupons for the store and the store was having a sale anyway so several items were bought and we were on our way again.
This time it was in the direction of the Dynasty Plaza – a huge western/European style, white, shopping mall in South Kuta – it’s not hard to miss from the beach. We were dropped off just outside and made our way up the stairs – Balinese stairs are not your usual stairs, the risers of the stairs often vary in height so if your knees are a bit dodgy they could be difficult to negotiate – we spent a couple of hours browsing the shops with a couple of items being purchased. Once we had a bit to eat from Breadtalk and proceeded to make our way back to our hotel in Legian via the streets.
On the way we passed heaps of shops – there is a shopping precinct in Kuta which centers around the Large Mata Hare Store and the shops are all western/European style shops but the prices are a little less -, we passed market stalls all with vendors offering great bargains and then we passed the Bali Bombing Memorial where we stopped for photos. By this time we had been walking for quite a while so Dale and I decided to stop at a bar for liquid refreshments while the others with kids went back to the hotel. After stopping at one bar we decided that it would be good to stop at every second bar until we made it back – glad we didn’t decide on every bar – might not have made it back.