Nicole arranged that a driver pick me up to take me to the airport at 4 am and then wait a whole day and bring me back at night when I fly back again from Singapore….and at a reasonable price. So exactly to the minute the car drove up and a friendly driver introduced himself in Indonesian “namasayah gede” and then translated it into English; my name is gedi, I thought that was so nice that I answered him back in Indonesian “namasayah eileen!” and giggled and said that was the first time I was speaking Indonesian to someone and now when all the kids yell “what is your name?: I can answer them “namasayah Eileen” and they will laugh even more!
We drove in the dark for two and a half hours, arriving at the airport a little after sunrise. The road we took was one that i hadn’t been on before, one of the 7 that go from the north to the south, which means climbing up the mountain side to where the volcano is and then going back down the other side to the southern coast where the airport is. The road goes through many little villages as it steeply winds itself around the mountainside climbing higher and higher at which point the fog settles and the driving becomes much slower, thankfully there isn’t a lot of predawn traffic and also this road is not too busy in general.. so the slow pace with turning the brights on and off and trying to see the road was not too nerve wracking . in spite of the fact that there are no reflectors on the sides of the road or even white or yellow lines showing you a border that you can follow. Every now and then someone is walking on the side of the narrow 2 lane road, or a dog is wandering by or a motorcyclist tuns the curve and suddenly appears, and at the top the rain drizzles constantly, the people that live in that area live in fog the entire time and all year have a drizzle even when it isn’t monsoon. Tangerines and cloves were harvested along the way.
As we got closer to ubud after 2 hours the spa signs began to show up in amongst the forest and slowly the shops and houses became closer to each other and less forests. Eventually arriving to the city, but I was happy to again have a peek at all the rice fields around ubud, since I hadn’t since them ever since I left my other resort where I had enjoyed watching the growing cycle. And then, arriving at the bigger cities of Kuta and Sanur which are already filled with huge billboards and wider streets and street lights, and tons of traffic.
We parted at the airport planning to meet again 12 hours later when I land and he will take me back home. When I returned from Singapore and exited the airport there were so many drivers with signs and tons of people waiting and I thought; oh god, he doesn’t even know my name, and I hardly looked to see his face and how are we going to find each other, do I have to start reading all these signs and looking at the hundreds of Balinese to see which one is him?? And I just continued to walk out giving a general glance without changing the pace of my stride and suddenly I saw a hand waving above the crowds from the back and knew we had found each other quite quickly and was happy. We both were happy to see each other again, he is a very peaceful and friendly man,..
On the 3 hour drive home I decided to ask him more questions than i did on the way in since it was such an opportunity to get to know someone and learn a little more about Balinese life. And together with that, I didn’t feel the need to keep up a conversation with him all the time, just whatever flowed naturally . and also just trying to understand this interesting way of people driving on the road,…no one is angry or blaming or pushing or honking or impatient….so strange…and the driving is far from easy since the road s are narrow, and there are a combination of trucks, vans tons of motorbikes, people walking and dogs and all on the opposite side of the road than what I am used to, and only a handful of traffic lights in the city itself, and the rest of the way, none, not speed limits no stop signs, no policemen, trying to catch you with their cameras behind a curve, no regards to lines on the street, no lights on the roads….and it all flows.
How does it flow?? That is what I tried to figure out on the way home, because it just flows. And I remembered something ketut had told me the day before about one of the rules to success: keep moving. And I saw that this is something real here.. everyone I saw was all the time moving. You do not stop, you can slow down but you keep moving and everyone is just in a kind of flow…moving together, maybe we stopped once or twice for a truck that suddenly parked on the road to deliver something, so everyone first just stays behind it and if after a minute or so you see that it really has stopped, then you just slowly went around it, since overtaking it immediately would show disrespect, impatience, intolerance. There is no honking no anger, no impatience, no pushing, just a merging of motorbikes and cars, and people, forming a new path , and when I asked gede about it he said that they have tolerance for each other. And that it is understandable that everyone can make small mistakes on the road. and that if someone is in a hurry then they may take a little bit more of his side of the road so he is wiling to move over to the side so that they can get by, when I asked how come there are no speed limits..he laughed and said that everyone just drives from their heart, if you can go faster you do and if not then you don’t, hmmm so simple…but what he said was that no one thinks the road is theirs, and becomes possessive, they are all in it together.
There were so many times I thought that we were going to hit another car or kill someone on the side walking in the dark or run off the road a motorcyclists. but no…all the time everyone was calm, no one touched each other ever n a hairs breath away and I never saw an accident or a dead animal, on the road. Or a police man. I was so happy that it is a few days before the new years and it was night time so all the villages were having a gamelon practice in the temple and the big floats of the ogoh oogoh were there too, all lite up so I could see all the wild creations… and then after going through that it got again, very foggy, in the dark we began the long wind back down to the northern coast, and I had had enough already, I didn’t know whether I had been on he road for years or minutes and I just wanted home….and he took it so gently and sensitively and I was sure that he was aware that if he didn’t I would start getting nauseous. And it was that same sensitivity that they have for other drivers on the road that he has towards his passenger….very touching. I had asked him earlier on how much he takes to go to ubud, since I need to get there in another 2 weeks, he told me his price and that there is a nice route and I can see the volcano if we leave at 8…and i said I would check out with another drivier that lives nearer and let him know.. he asked that if the other driver wants the same price if i can please call him to drive.
By the time we arrived safely at the resort at 10:30 at night, I knew that no matter what the other driver wants, this friendly kind good driver that did an amazing job in the dark of pre- dawn and the return night sky to bring me back and forth all in one day, deserves another job, and I told him we will meet again in 2 weeks time. Thank you gede!
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