Just a quick note to say: don’t go to Kuta. Don’t even go near the place. Stay far away for your own safety and sense. I had been warned about Kuta before I came, but in no way was I prepared for what lay in store. As my flight was from Depensar airport (10 minutes from the centre of Kuta) I decided to spend my last two days of my 7 month trip, in Kuta. Boy what a mistake that was.

When we arrived, I shuddered in disgust. This place was just one large street filled with everything every tourist or holiday maker would ever need in one place, well a certain type of holiday maker anyway. The people that holiday here, don’t want culture or originality, uniqueness or character, or even anything related to Indonesia. In fact they just want everything from home to be there, half price and walking distance from where they are staying.

The street is swarmed with mass produced expensive chained restaurants from America, large shopping malls and shops that are all expensive indulgent chains one can find anywhere in the world. Large resorts rub shoulders with more large resorts and for half a second I felt I was in Koh Samui, another dreadfully tourist place. But no, walking a bit further you walk into ‘the strip’. Garish strobe lights pound the night away, loud commercial music whines in your ears, drunk teenagers swing on poles in bars, and fight one another outside clubs. I have walked into Magaluf for Australians. At that moment I couldn’t think who or where was worse, British teenagers or Aussie teenagers, Magaluf or Kuta? Tenerife or Kuta? Koz or Kuta? Koh Pi Pi or Kuta? I kept firing these questions in my head whilst paralytic young people threw up around me. I quickly decided they were as bad as each other, and I needed to get out of there. Although being a young person myself, a party animal and having had a similar experience on the strip of Ibiza, I could not compare any of my wild nights to this horrendous display and behaviour of people.

I left immediately and went to the beach, hoping to find sanctuary in the sandy shores and quiet waves. I didn’t. What makes Kuta an unbelievably more ugly destination? The disgusting beach. At least with expensive and resort filled Koh Samui the beaches are nice, or messy and wild Koh Pi Pi the views are breathtaking, but in Kuta? I have been to nicer beaches in England, land of continuous rain then what Kuta had. I decided then and there, that Kuta is the ugliest place I have ever been to. And yes, I’d take Birmingham over Kuta any day.