Wow, Bali, what a place, eh? We’ve been there a few times now and it’s always quite a time. Hot and busy and kind of cheap but not really cheap and good food sometimes but not all the time and, man, that traffic, it’s really something. Even on a scooter, which is what they call mopeds, because those roads aren’t very wide and people park, like, everywhere, so being on a scooter definitely helps, but don’t get your hopes up too much because, hey, there’s just not a lot of room, in the end, not even in Legian Beach.
When people talk about Bali they always talk about Kuta and Canggu and Ubud and places like that, which makes sense, because that’s where you find all the best remote work cafés, right, so it’s kind of a “write what you know” sort of situation. Like, the way I always write about pizza, and how it’s so easy to find pizza around the world but, you know, hard to find GOOD pizza, if you know what I mean, and how tourists are always just expected to eat a whole pizza by themselves. Because they usually do, I guess. But is it really necessary? Like, why are there never different sizes of pizza? It’s a mystery, that.
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The point is, you never hear much about Legian Beach. Where, you ask? Exactly, I answer. Because it is a very popular beach in Bali. Close to the airport, full of bars and shops, some pretty wild beach statues, a funny smell that you can’t quite put your finger on but that is always just sort of there. Not quite beer, not quite urine, not quite blood, I don’t think, but maybe a combination of all three. Or maybe it’s rat feces. Could be rat feces, now that I think about it.
So maybe that smell thing doesn’t sound great but, believe me, Legian Beach has plenty going for it. Loads of Australians, for one. Like, those blokes LOVE it there. Can’t get enough. I mean, not all Australians, obviously. But a certain kind of Australian, that kind of super casual, budget-conscious, chain-smoking, fun time Australian, the kind with 3 kids and 2 strollers and no sleeves on their shirt. “Bogans”, I think they’re called. Which I think is kind of meant as an insult but also kind of not, depending on who is saying it and how, sort of the same as words like “redneck”, “bougie” or “Greek”.
Anyway, those bogans are everywhere in Legian Beach, they really seem to dig the vibe. I mean, for starters, they seem to love tattoos and there are tattoo shops everywhere. So that’s a plus. They also enjoy a drink or two, apparently, and around Legian there’s a bar every 50 metres or so, which is handy, I guess. And usually every bar has Victoria Bitter on special and Australian Football League playing on all the TVs. Lots of them even have accessible ramps, too, so it’s super-easy to get your stroller inside without having to put down your beer.
The Aussies aren’t just there for the bars and tattoos and whatnot, though, there’s a lot of good shopping around, too. All the convenience stores (“bottle shops”), have discount beer and Bundy rum and usually a whole shelf just dedicated to every kind of cigarette you can imagine. Plus, there are loads of places to buy tank tops (“singlets”) with beer logos, or cheap flip flops (“thongs”), or knockoff sports jerseys, or hilarious (and maybe useful) penis keychains, or sometimes just a cool hat that says “TITS” on it. Lots of choices, I guess, is what I’m saying.
And there are also a lot of places where you can get laundry done cheap, some of them even advertise “SAME DAY” but then if you ask if you can get your laundry done that day they’ll probably just laugh for a bit and then when they’re finally done laughing say something like, “Tomorrow. 4 pm. We close at 5.”
Of course, the beach itself, man, that is something, too. Another bit the Aussies seem to love, because maybe don’t have much for beaches back home or something. Because Legian Beach is pretty nice, I guess, sort of brown and long and flat and super-packed, and always full of people selling stuff, day and night. Beer stalls, food stalls, massage ladies, massage dudes, loungers for rent, towels for sale, always at least a few guys selling inflatable toys. For kids, probably, or the kid inside all of us, maybe.
The massages are very popular, obviously, because, hey, who isn’t stressed about something, right? And there are lots of different massages, some of them just normal massages but some are those ones that seem like a really good idea at the time but then just end up causing a big fight with your wife and, wouldn’t you know it, she always seems to want to bring it up right when you’re watching an important part of the game.
Oh, the main thing, though, is that Legian Beach is a surf beach. I totally forgot about that part. Mostly because I hardly ever saw anybody surfing. But apparently the surfing is good, at least for beginners. Which is also why the swimming sucks – too much current and undertow and stuff like that. Which makes it kind of a weird place for so many families to hang out but, hey, you gotta make choices right? Cheap beer – in a beer cozy!! – brought right to your cheap lounger. So what if some of your kids need to yell for help now and then, isn’t that what growing up is all about? Exactly. Nobody never learned nothing from playing it safe. Or in a pool. Besides, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Except for polio, I guess. That shit’s nasty.
Anyway, as you’d expect, there are LOTS of surf schools along the beach. Like, so many. Although, maybe “surf school” is a bit of a grand description. They’re mostly just guys with long hair hanging out under a tent with a bunch of surfboards leaned up against a fence nearby, and maybe one big surfboard kind of jammed into the sand with the name of their place written on it in big letters. Like, “King Surf Bali” or “Bali Da Waves” or just “Ron Surf School”. Which I guess is where you go for surf lessons by Ron, I assumed but, you know what, not necessarily. How crazy is that?
There were so many surf schools, I honestly don’t know how you’d choose. Although one had a sign that said “free soft drink with every lesson”, so that’d be pretty hard to beat, I guess. Or maybe that was just a way to get the surfers-in-training to drink something besides beer for a bit. Not a bad idea, but not so popular, from what I could tell. Because the beach bars, they were always hopping. Most of them have a bunch of beanbag chairs out on the sand and great deals on beer and got really packed around sunset. Warmup drinking sessions, I think.
Some also have pretty cool names, things like “The Naughty Pineapple” or more functional, like “The Primary Bar”, or maybe deeper, more confusing names, like “Tiger Itchy Bum”. I don’t really know what that means. I mean, I guess I know that logically tigers get itchy bums just like we do, maybe not quite as often as your average Australian, but still now and then, you’d think. But how does that tie in with those $2 Bintangs, that’s what I’d like to know. A “sand in the ass crack” joke, maybe? But then where does the tiger come in? Tiger beer? Could be. Tiger balm? I mean, that’s certainly interesting, food for thought, for sure. Because of the beer. Maybe there were serious layers to these names, for real. There’s also a place with axe-throwing.
Now, you may have heard that Legian Beach, and all the beaches on Bali, really, are sometimes covered in trash. Well, you heard right. It’s a real problem. Not THEIR problem, necessarily, it’s definitely because of those shitbags in Java, or sometimes the Filipinos with all their garbage and annoying ocean currents and shit, or some other island, I guess, definitely not because Bali throws tonnes of their own trash in the ocean, definitely not that.
However. One nice thing is that every morning a big crew comes out to the beach with trucks and tractors and those pointy sticks that help you pick up trash without having to bend over or get, say, condom juice on your fingers, or whatnot, and they make their way all the way down the beach, cleaning up all the trash and raking the sand and just kind of sprucing things up, making it all neat and tidy like. Even though it’s just totally covered in crap again the next day. Troopers, man.
Although I think maybe the main reason they do it is to get rid of all those obnoxious sand sculptures the kids made the night before and just left behind because, yeah, sure, you think you’re an artist little fella? News flash, that castle SUCKS. Nobody even builds castles like that anymore, like, what, you think dukes and barons and viscounts and shit are still worried about catapults and trebuchets or whatnot? Grow up. So talk to me when you’ve got a real castle, kid. Like, with floor to ceiling ocean facing windows and a full set of solar panels and a proper mortgage. Now that’s a castle.
One of the hardest things about taking a beach holiday in Bali, though, is trying to keep your new tattoos dry. Because that’s key. You spend the wee hours of the morning getting budget ink at a 24-hour tattoo shop, then just throw caution to the wind and start cleaning your junk in the ocean and next thing you know, your bicep barb-wire runs and starts looking like a piece of licorice, or the letters of your tramp stamp run together and instead of “Made in Australia”, now it just looks like “Man o rail” and, like, what the hell does that even mean? Something sexual maybe, but probably not in a nice way, I wouldn’t think. So you should probably try to stay out of the water, at least until you’re good and hammered and it’s not really worth caring any more, maybe then it’s ok.
Although usually by the time people get to that point they prefer to rent a scooter and explore a bit. There are a LOT of places to rent scooters in Legian Beach, and without a whole bunch of paperwork or anything like that. Cash is the main thing. If you’ve got cash they’ll for sure rent you a scooter. Some of the scooters even have baskets to carry your towel or beer or bags of chips, or maybe even your helmet so you don’t need to look like some careful loser wearing it on your head. And, yeah, the traffic is pretty bad, but if you wait until you’re good and drunk it’s easier not to care so much, especially about things like driving on the sidewalk or yelling at your old lady for letting the kid almost fall off. All that cheap beach beer just helps you feel less tense about things, which is sort of the magic of it, I think.
So, all in all, I guess Legian Beach is just a fun place to be. I mean, no, it’s not exactly clean. Or very quiet. And it’s not beautiful or anything like that. Unless you really dig fluorescent bar signs, because it has lots of those. Most of them have some burnt out bulbs, but still. Either way, thought, cheap food, cheap booze, tattoos any time, day or night, and none of those bullshit liquor laws that are always getting in the way of a good time. When you think about it that way, Legian Beach is kind of paradise, I guess. Or A kind of paradise, I guess. YOUR kind of paradise? Only one way to find out.
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About the Author
Dean Johnston
Dean Johnston quit his job as a financial planner in 2008 to travel the world, and has now visited all 7 continents and more than 85 different countries. He wrote his first blog entry in a sweltering internet cafe in Bali in 2000 and has been writing about their travels ever since, including publishing 3 travel books.
As Routinely Nomadic, Dean remains focused on providing informative travel guides, entertaining stories and useful social media content to readers from all over the world.