This adventure I have decided on a blog rather than email, I will still let you know when I post a new blog by email, but it means I can upload photos and it won't overload your email account.
So I find myself, being called Princess Philippa since I have taken up residence in the grounds of the Puri (or Palace in english). It is definitely not a palace like those found in the the UK and Europe, much humbler. I have a comfortable room, kitchen, bathroom and office all in the grounds. I am very spoilt and also have a cook/cleaner Ketut. She cooks the most amazing meals for me, makes my bed, cleans my bathroom and puts flowers in surprising places, but more on that another blog.
It has been four weeks now since I have moved to Amplapura and five weeks since I arrived in Indonesia. A day hasn't gone by without me being completely astounded at the happenings around me. I still think some of the funniest and shocking involve motorbikes/scooters and the people that ride them and the things that get transported on them.
Just last night for instance I was driving to a friends house, two guys on a scooter, in the dark, and the passenger was holding onto his push bike. Or this morning as I was driving home two guys again on a scooter, they obviously wanted to take their wheelbarrow for a ride too, so the guy at the back was holding onto it and it was bouncing along behind them! It is not uncommon at the end of the day to take your harvest home on your scooter - regular scooter width 40cm or so with harvest 150cm. Then there are your scooter salesman, whose shop is on the back of his scooter.
A regular scooter not only transports between one and two people in actual fact it can transport the whole family, including new borns. It is quite often that I see a whole family on a scooter, of course Dad is driving, sometimes there is a small child in front of him, then usually another child behind Dad as Mum is usually holding onto that child, oh then there is Mum. Many mothers use it like the 'Soccer Mom' car, of recent I have noticed Mum will head out to pick up one or more of her children from school and of course she has to take her youngest child along too, seems Dad is at work ... so you ask how does mum drive and hold onto small child/baby... well she does the smart thing and ties the baby to her using a belt/tie of some description. I wish I had a photo of this, but I am always too shocked to get my camera out fast enough.
The other day I did manage to get my camera out whilst driving the horrid Bali bypass. This is a road that I drive regularly to get to see my friends, the 30km stretch takes approximately 1 hour and leaves me feeling like I am still moving once I am out of the car. The road is currently under construction. When I say construction I don't mean like when Australian roads are under construction ... maybe I should say this road is ripped up and they are slowly adding cement! I will attempt to add a short video that I took the other day while driving, unfortunately it doesn't demonstrate well enough the bumps and the lack of speed that happens on this stretch of road, I am lucky to go 30km, no wonder 80km feels like 200km.
The other thing that they seem to love to do in Bali is fix their transport where ever it breaks down. They get out/off, they put a branch with lots of leaves at the back of their vehicle extending out if they are working on the traffic side, so people driving past know that they need to go around at that width, it is actually quite smart, but when the roads are thin and windy it usually means traffic has to stop.
For some reason Balinese regularly receive loads of dirt to their residence, in Australia a truck would normally dump the load of dirt on your front lawn and you then spend the next day or two distributing the dirt, not here in Bali the dirt gets dumped on the road, another hazard on single lane thin roads.
To sum up I have to say I feel very lucky. So far I not have had an accident, not broken down and not killed a family on a 'Soccer Mum Scooter'. I challenge anyone reading who has some awesome photos of people and their things on scooters to send it too me. I am still trying to capture people and their things on scooters!
Coming soon: Water and Indonesian Plumbers!
Fixing the truck on the road
Just two surf boards for this guy
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