taxi?

i woke up this morning and just knew i needed to go to the major city a 1/2 hour away and try and find some brown rice to buy, instead of the white that the balinese eat. there is usually a kind of taxi that runs during the day picking up whoever is along the road. it looks like a 1970's VW van with the side open so you can just climb in when he stops wherever you happen to be standing, and inside are about 10 seats. since i had no other way to go, i decided to wait on the road for the next one that would be passing, usually every 10 minutes or so. as i sat at an entryway and waited, and waited, and waited, and none passed, i started to doubt my decision...."maybe this is not an auspicious day for going far in order to buy rice?" i know i have an impulsive and compulsive streak in me that can drive me to do most anything, and so i started to check my motives. i saw they were simple and clear; i need healthy food. the next couple of days i will be busy with the music festival, so i either need to buy more white rice, or get into the city and try and find some brown. if the taxi comes, it's a sign i am supposed to go, and if it doesn't, i am fine just walking back home. not attached to this mission today.

and then, of course, the taxi showed up. the driver and 2 passengers next to him all smiled, said hello, i clarified my destination, and sat behind them. no one else was in the back of the taxi other than me. a few minutes later he stopped for an old thin, small, frail woman, the typical balinese style. she chose to sit next to me, even though there were 8 other available places. she wanted to know where i was going, as do all balinese, so i told her singaraja. she smiled and said she is going there too. and then she kind of cuddled up next to me, as they often do. i think they just feel at one with everyone, like we are all one big family, so you just kind of cuddle up, and chat, stroking my arm...

after about 10 minutes she opened up the plastic shopping basket she had with her, that had a dish towel covering its contents. she began to show me the 5 sarongs she had with her. i assumed she needed money and had taken some of her old sarongs and was bringing them to sell at the market. she placed the oldest and nicest one on my lap and told me how good it is and that i need it for praying in the temple. all of this was done in sign language, and a bit of indonesian. i was surprised to be in this situation. what on earth is god trying to tell me now?!

i just kind of let things unfold slowly, and she continued to spread out the sarongs on my lap, commenting on the fine points of each one. she also pointed to the sarong i was wearing, which is new, and cost $3, and that i liked, and said that they are cheap and not appropriate for devotional praying in the temple. for that one needs the one she has which was handmade from thick hand spun and woven cotton with gold threads running through it. it was a very beautiful sarong. and i remembered that one of my wishes during the past year when i saw beautiful old textiles, was that i want some too. i had asked one woman where she had found the lovely pieces i saw at her home, and she said at the market in singaraja...just where i was off to. i had also admired the old cotton sarongs that my friends mother in law wore everyday on the farm. where could i find one of the old beautiful handmade ones? and here this woman was placing just those same hand finished, hand dyed batik sarongs on my lap for me to buy.

i asked the price. she wanted $4o each. at first i didn't comment, but as i touched it and thought about it and asked myself if this is appropriate...and is this the reason that i took all the cash i had in my safe deposit box? in order to spend it on some sarongs? why didn't i just bring enough for the rice? well...as we continued to drive together i began to bargain with her. she was a good saleswoman and hard to budge her down. at one point she wrapped them up and returned them to the plastic shopping bag, covering them up again with the dish towel. i wasn't offering her the price she wanted, i thought she was getting off the taxi already and i asked myself if this is something i am going to regret... just the beautiful textiles i had been admiring, and because of the price, i am going to pass them up? it was fun gambling whether she would leave before i had made her an offer she wanted. but i also saw how once they were no longer laid across my lap, i did regret that they weren't mine...and that she would just take them to the market to sell there. she came down in price, i went up a little, and ended up buying two. she was happy, i was happy. and we continued the rest of the ride in silence. at one point, as i was reflecting on how happy i am that i purchased them and that the price was reasonable, she suddenly fingered the thick gold chain on her neck and started to try and sell that to me too....also "appropriate for praying!" she added. i smiled and declined, and realized that she too was reflecting on the good sale and wanted more! as i prepared to pay the driver and took out some bills, she told me that the taxi costs less than what i thought. i appreciated her honesty.i said goodbye and got off at the shop for the rice and hoped that i had enough money for it.

once i finished getting the few things i needed i again stood on the street and waited for another taxi back. if a taxi driver sees someone standing, sitting, walking, running, he immediately beeps his horn or calls out to you to catch your attention and see if you are interested in a ride. these taxis also double as the bus, or public transportation, since it is the only way to get from place to place. they even beep people who are standing on the other side of the street in the opposite direction....maybe they are about to cross the street and want to come in his taxi, no?

so, many taxis honked and stopped for me until i thought i had found the one that would return me to my village. but the guy just wanted a quick hit and drove me a few kilometers and dropped me off at another terminal to take a long distance taxi. the "terminal" is just the sidewalk in front of some shops, and the drivers of the taxis all kind of jump on you at once to convince you that their taxi is going exactly where you want to get to. so that's what one did, and i was happy to find one going right to my village. but i should have know by his overenthusiastic response that it was not my style.

as i climbed into the parked, open sided van, i realized that this one was more like from the 50's and not the 70's! a young woman with a little baby was sitting in it, and i chose to sit behind the drivers seat again, since the rest of the place was filled with peoples bags and suitcases, even though no one was inside....the woman tried to get her little 3 month old daughter to look at "the tourist". maybe it is good luck or something. she also tried to make conversation with me, but it was difficult and i let it go. and the two of us just sat there, while the driver was out trying to track down more potential travelers to join us and justify the cost. after waiting around 15 minutes, he finally decided to get going after he kept counting the people outside and inside to see if it was worth his while. i just kept telling myself that everything is perfect, and that there is a reason that i am in this taxi and that things are going slow.

when he turned on the engine i really knew it was from the 50's and hoped the 5 of us would arrive at our destinations. but what began to happen was an intense course in trying to find more customers! he stopped in front of every shop, every garage, every parked car with people in it, honking and offering his services...he even stopped the car suddenly so that the front seat folded up on top of the mother and child that he had moved to there, so that he could run after a woman that was carrying a box in the opposite direction, and see if maybe she wanted a ride. she did, joined us, in the front seat next to the woman with the baby. and even though they did not know each other, she began to play and chat with both of them. another woman that came and sat next to me tried to strike up a conversation when she sat down, but soon announced to everyone in the taxi, in indonesian, that "the tourist" doesn't know indonesian, too bad. it was then that i realized that part of their taxi experience is chatting and enjoying the company of the person sitting next to you, whether it is a baby, or tourist or whatever. i laughed to myself as i thought of an american greyhound bus compared to this, where everyone just sits and looks ahead of them and respects everyones' privacy.

as we finally started to drive i was grateful that the car was so old that he couldn't go speeding with it. the glove compartment kept falling open onto the womans lap and he would try and slam it shut with one hand while trying to drive with the other. i think there was a piece of electric tape that was holding it all together. what i didn't realize though was that he was going to make this the most profitable trip he could. so we stopped at a rice dealer and he went in and ordered 3 sacks of rice, which were eventually placed in the empty passenger seats and on the floor blocking the entrance. then, as we passed a mechanics shop he again stopped, went in and asked one of them to fill the tires with air. we were off again, as he rolled up his window and lit a cigarette next to the baby. next he saw 2 women with big basins and stopped for them, but would only let one in, if she sat on the rice bags at the open door, and didn't place her big basin that had fish in it, on the bags of rice! so she held it out the door as we drove off. otherwise we would have all been smelling from fish by the time we reached our destination. after he stopped on the opposite side of the road, facing the wrong direction, and blocking the lane of traffic in order to deliver the bags of rice to a small shop, we continued on. our next stop was him yelling out to some men on the other side of the road and waving some money at them, as he stopped again, blocking traffic. the man came running over. i figured he was repaying a debt to someone. but soon put two and two together and realized he was just placing a bet on some cocks for the cock fight. each time he stopped he would turn around and again count the people in the taxi. i guess he kept trying to calculate how much profit he was going to make on this trip.

i was glad the bags of rice and the fish woman were no longer on the taxi and that i would be able to exit easily. i saw how the fish woman just handed him some bills when she exited and decided that i was not going to play the naive tourist with him, and ask in my best indonesian, how much it costs. instead i was just going to give him the same price i paid when i came into the city. since they never give you change anyways, i had the 10,000 rupiah note ready ($1) and handed it to him as i exited. i heard him mumble something to the other passengers about how i only gave him 10,000, but decided to pretend that i don't understand and that i may possibly have offended him, but in this case, i felt that it was appropriate. what surprised me was that no one commented or seemed at all concerned with all the stops and the amount of time it was taking. it was all just part of the ride on this auspicious day for taking the taxi into the city.