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Published: October 17th 2008
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Our Friend The Bemo
Karen pays the driver after another exciting ride down Lovina's main drag. Transportation around the island is comprised of a hodge podge of choices. The kids who visit Kuta in the south prefer scooters. They find them more suitable to the spontaneity of their vacation lifestyles. There is no waiting for a bus and the scooters are always ready to take you where you want to go at any time like 4 AM when you roll out of the Hard Rock Hotel three sheets to the wind and if you’re only two sheets to the wind there’s always that lady who will sell you a jib. The scooters are also better able to navigate the narrow lanes that pass for streets in Kuta and at $7 a day any surfer will find them affordable.
For the affluent, rental cars are readily available. There is a wide array of cars to be rented. The old Volkswagen ‘Thing’ can be had if you like that sort of thing. Before coming here we hadn’t seen a ‘Thing’ in over twenty years. I guess people prefer the ‘Thing’s convertible aspect though in a roll over accident its limitations will quickly evidence themselves. Another issue encountered with the auto is parking. In the north of Bali it
Not Exactly Standing Room
KJ perched on the bemo's bench. This is a rare time when we were the only riders. is dear in the south it is near non-existent. Gas in Bali sells for $2.70 a gallon, which seems a bargain unless you’re making thirty cents an hour. $25 a day is the rental fee for the average auto but keep in mind that they drive on the left side of the road here and in an accident the richest participant is always considered to be legally at fault. There are roads in Bali where the intensity and speed of traffic approaches that encountered on the first lap of the Daytona 500.
You can hire a driver with a car for $35 a day. This is the best choice if you have the money and can find a driver who has a modicum of care in the way he operates a vehicle. Always check the car for A/C to preclude any possibility that your day will be spent sweating onto the back seat’s duct tape upholstery. Also be advised that you will be expected to buy a meal for the driver if you stop to eat. Usually not a problem unless the guy has lousy table manners or dental issues.
If you are not a biker or a
Karen Enjoys Another Great Sunset
In the distance you can make out Java. NASCAR driver or somebody who has fantasized about the services of a chauffeur your choices become more interesting.
Travel between the various towns can be accomplished by buying a bus ticket. The cost to cross the island is about $13. The buses here are not of the Greyhound variety but more like mini-vans. They hold no more than eight passengers. In the slow season (anytime outside of May - September excluding Christmas) you could very well find yourself traveling with only one other person, as the bus companies require a two-passenger minimum. During high season you are well advised to reserve your seat a day in advance. The biggest company here is Perama with offices all over Bali. Be advised that the bus drivers aren’t in the sightseeing business. When they get behind the wheel they haul ass. On our way to Lovina Karen and I found ourselves on more than one occasion staring at our feet and quietly saying a prayer. Mine was the Catholic favorite ‘Hail Mary’ while Karen’s was some Protestant thing that I do not want to know about less I be sentenced to eternal damnation by his Holiness.
If you are lucky some
Our Internet Hosts
We favor an internet place presided over by this gentleman and his daughter. Very pleasant people and a great rate of 80 cents an hour. local resident might take mercy on you and drive you around. Sandy, the owner of our hotel has on a couple occasions has shown us the area in her car. A beat up SUV type of thing that is a dozen years past its prime but still serviceable. Sandy is a very nice person but her driving abilities are suspect at best. The car has a five speed transmission but Sandy is only familiar with two of them, those being first and fourth. The result is that you either find yourself moving in first gear with the engine screaming for release at 40 MPH or the car’s frame is shuddering in fourth gear at 10 MPH. There seems to be no happy medium. Sandy is a bit of an air head and has to constantly consult a ‘list’ of things to do to keep her on course. Her list is scrawled across a spiral steno pad that she keeps on the floor next to the gearshift. This means she spends less time looking at the road than she should and leads to more near misses than I like to think about and if she ever has to back up close
Sandy and Karen
Sandy describing another near collision on the road to Karen. I'm just guessing of course. your eyes. After two rides with her Karen and I have become very adept at making up excuses as to why we are unavailable to help her with her errands. To be fair I must tell you that I have an International Drivers License and even with substantial experience driving in SE Asia I would never consider driving myself around Bali. The traffic here is insane with scooters making up the rules of the road as they go along and speeders being more common than not.
If traveling short distances, say from your hotel to a bank with good exchange rates, then the ‘Bemo’ is your choice. A Bemo is a Daihatsu micro-van that has had the side door removed and bench seats installed. The color of the Bemo designates its route. Our Bemo is blue. If we want to travel farther, say into Singharaja, then we transfer to a beige Bemo. It’s easy to do. You stand by the side of the road and when you see a Bemo just flag it down as you would a cab. Bemos come by about every five minutes. Like a bus you just get in and when you reach your destination
Typical Road View
This is what a traffic jam looks like in Lovina where scooters make up over half of all vehicles. say “Stop Stop” where the driver will stand on the brakes. After you fall back into a sitting position exit the bus and pay the driver. Karen and I pay 5,000 Rupiah (about fifty cents) though I am sure you could negotiate downwards. I would think that ‘regular’ customers might pay as little as 2,000. Throughout SE Asia there are two fee schedules. One for natives and one for foreigners. Foreigners, of course, pay more. At first this offended my sense of fairness but after some thought I could see the logic of it. In the US the top ten percent of wage earners pay over fifty percent of all income taxes. The Balinese make thirty cents an hour. We don’t. We love the Bemos.
The Bemos are small. They remind you of a Fantasyland ride at Disney. The Bemos are small which means everybody inside sits really close together. If you don’t like to be touched, patted or petted, do not ride the Bemo. The concept of personal space is unknown to the Balinese. The Bemos are cheap. In the Bemos you will meet people that you will never encounter sitting in your hotel or lounging by the
The End Of The Day
The sunsets are always beautiful. So much so that you find yourself taking them for granted. And we've only been here a week. As close as we are to the equator the sun sets very quickly so it's a matter of 'Be There Or Be Square'. pool and they will be happy to see you, as most foreigners don’t ride in Bemos. The Bemos are cheap. Local business people; the lady who sells soup, the man who sells soft drinks, the girl who cleans your room and the boy that fixes your broken light ride the Bemo. Every time you get in a Bemo there’s a surprise. The other day we rode with a lady who had two big bamboo baskets of uncooked noodles. Yesterday we sat next to a young mother with a beautiful two-month-old baby who grabbed my arm and didn’t let go until I got off. Two days ago the Bemo pulled off the road to deliver groceries to an elderly man. He thanked us all for the help. The Bemos are everywhere. Every time you get in one you will meet somebody new and kind and gracious. We love the Bemos.
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