It's rare these days for me to take a
trip in the car. Problems with my ankle (two botched surgeries a few
years ago), my back (a chronic problem dating back to my fieldwork
days in Northern California) and my peripheral vision (from the first
stroke almost three years ago now) first stopped my from driving the
car and now has made it uncomfortable to even sit in a car for more
than a short ride. So, I stick the my beloved motorcycle unless a
situation arises where I need to use a car. Yesterday, one of those
situations arose when I need to accompany one of my daughters down to
the American Consular Agency in Denpasar.
I'm a driver: I was a cab driver for a
few years, drove a fork lift for a while in a factory and have been
attached to anything mechanical that can move me from one place to
another. I don't trust most of other drivers, especially in Bali
where road conditions are, at best, challenging. But, as I can't
really drive a car, I used my wife's occasional driver yesterday to
take Rebecca and me down to Denpasar. I loved it. I loved it not
because someone else had to battle potholes, lunatic teenagers just
graduating from school and driving like they have some impenetrable
shield around, the clueless textters who drive with one hand on their
motorbike and the other on their handphone (forget about watching the
road, they're too busy getting out that vital SMS to someone
obviously important enough to risk their life and the lives of other
drivers), the tourist-bus drivers who have the biggest vehicles on
the road and make sure everyone knows it, and the mad dogs who run
out into the street oblivious to speeding machines. I loved it
because it gave me a chance to gaze at Bali's natural beauty and its
unique architecture.
Those of us who have been here for a
while, and who don't live in traditional Balinese compounds, tend to
forget about their special beauty. And, there are many along the road
from Denpasar to Singaraja. My status as a non-driver allowed me to
stare into the compounds as we sat in traffic or slowly passed by. My
anthropological imagination running wild imagining live in one
kampung or desa after the next. And as we drove up into the mountains
on the way home, I was dazzled by the late afternoon sun highlighting
the lushness of a Bali just coming out of the rainy season.
Knowing that I won't be making these
trips very often anymore, I avidly accumulated all these visions of
this graceful and gorgerous island for future reflection. Just
another nice day in paradise.
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