Denpasar is emphatically not an attractive place. It is Bali’s capital, but few tourists have any need to go there, or any good reports of it once they have been and escaped back to Kuta or Sanur to tell the tale. There are, for instance, numerous small hotels and losmen there, but it is rare that anyone other than Indonesians from outside Bali on business in Denpasar stays in them.

It is a crowded, noisy, polluted town, the very antithesis of everything people come to Bali to find. Like many another Asian cities, it’s caught between two moments in history; it was built for an age of horse-dawn or pedestrian traffic and now endures the full force of modern mechanized transport. So great is the tourist concentration in Kuta, Sanur that even shopping and such services as banks, telecommunication offices, rent car and travel agents are as good there as in Denpasar, or better. A visit to Immigration Office, or the Denpasar Police Office to get a license to drive a motorbike on Bali if you don’t have an international driver’s license, is the most likely reason for paying a visit to the town.The center of Denpasar can be said to be a large grassy square known as Lapangan Puputan Badung. Its only notable feature is a heroic, three-figure statue standing in the pools. As a memorial to the four thousand Balinese how died defending the city against the Dutch on September 20, 1906. It deserves better treatment.

Standing facing the monument from the center of the square, the building on the right is the Museum Bali, with the Jagatnatha Temple next to it on the left. The Jagatnatha temple is a modern temple dedicated to the whole of Bali. Unlike most Balinese temples, it is closed to the public except at festival times. Over on the opposite side of the square is the military headquarters for the island. About 3 km east of Lapangan Puputan Badung there is Bali Art Center where Bali Art Festival take place from mid of June until mid of July.