Ubud - Monkey sanctuary...
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2008
1
8
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Umalas,
Indonesia
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Hope you are well - honestly I witter on in thease blogs and never think to ask how you are! How rude! So... How are we? Bagus? Baik? Or Jelek? Ayo! Spill!
Myself I am recently back from a fascinating trip to Ubud, which I shall relate now. As usual the more interesting parts of the trip involve not the craft stalls, not the monkey jungle temple, not even the surprise independence day fate we happened upon in the town square but the logistical nightmare of getting there!
We started off with no map attempting to find a supermarket called Carrefour which is like the equivalent of Tesco's here... They have the only, relatively, reliable road map of Bali on sale, for 130000 Rp!! Which is about £7 - £8 admittedly, but I can eat for a week on that! I don't but I could if I tried! Honestly charlatans! However fate had decided to have some fun and so within about two minutes of starting a vehicle darted in front of us with a blue light flashing - Oh fuck-a-duck! The police and I don't have a valid Indonesian driving licence... My mind fades out to the day in Britain when I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed to the post office:
'Hi I am moving to Indonesia for an amazing adventure teaching and need an international driving licence, do you have one please?'
(Please imagine at this point a slightly less helpful version of the coughing woman from little Britain, ok I may have been a teeny bit gloating but did she have to roll her eyes quite so high?)
'Sorry we've run out of the 1949 international driving licence and only have the 1929 version... Would you like that one?'
'Does it work in Indonesia?'
'Oh no!'
'Um... then no thanks! When will you have some more in?'
'Oh could be weeks and weeks! Then again it could be tomorrow.'
A strange premonition of how things work in Bali? Or simply that our national post office runs to the equivalent standards of a corrupt, third world, beurecracy?
Suddenly I wake back to my nightmare with a knock at the window. I roll down and the police officer asks me for my reg doc's, which of course I have. Asks for my licence, which I hand over with a sunny smile. He informs me that this is not the UK and my licence is not valid, he must now write me a ticket to attend court and they will seize the vehicle. In normal circumstances this would throw me into a mild panic - luckily I was prepared! 'Oh that's bad news!' I say with a beaming smile, 'It's not my car so you can't have it, but I will happily have a ticket' - please insert here a colourful misunderstanding about the possibility that I have stolen the car that is hampered by the fact that we cannot communicate these ideas to each other and that the police man does not really care -
'Ok, Ok, you give me 150000 Rp and the problem goes away' Says the upholder of law and order with a generous smile. Interesting non?
'150000 Rp! That is a lot of money, no I had better take the ticket' I reply with another stunning, sunbeamer.
'You will go to court and they will give you big fine! They will take your car!' He warns with yet another goofy like grin.
'Yes, I know... It's just too bad' I respond with a more dower and regretful shrug and smile.
'Ok, Ok, 100000 Rp and the problem disappear!' The officer looks much as I remember my father looked on presenting me with my first bike on Christmas day, chuffed!
'100000 Rp! But that is still too much! No, no. I am not on holiday here! I work here at Canggu and they tell me that the 'fine' (cough) is 50000Rp!' This time I practically dazzle the officer with my teeth... Perhaps this is why his smile lessens slightly for a moment before returning broader than ever?
'But that is in Canggu! Here is Kuta! More expensive!' However his smile tells me he knows he has lost. With one more mild refusal he settles for the 50000Rp bribe and allows me to drive onto the duel carriageway heading for the capital city.
Just to put this final amount into context it is the equivalent of about £3. The average Balinese earns about 500000Rp a month - so he regularly pockets the average monthly wage in a day, just from bribes... sometimes more! However you have to view it from his point of view - His salary cannot support him and his family let alone afford a house and marriage gifts. Plus every other official seems to take kickbacks to bolster their wages so it is not seen as outrageous an incident as you may at first think. Luckily for me, I had been briefed on this odd, social, dance beforehand and knew that the most important thing was to keep smiling and never, ever become annoyed!
Having secured the map and had my first fast food in Bali - Yeuch, forgotten how vile it is! Started off to Ubud. Got lost several times but luckily people in Bali are quite happy to come and knock on your window and point you in the right direction. In fact you can barely pull uo without people clustering around to help. One of the things I love about being here is how friendly and helpful everyone is. Bless them, they are so eager to help that even when they don't have the slightest idea what we are talking about, they will gesture emphatically and repeat the place name you have mentioned and nod sagely. This is a lovely trait, but does have a slightly disorientating affect after the third or fourth time and as with the policeman, the best way to cope is to smile, follow their advice, never, ever get cross and hope that someone eventually will know where the hell Ubud actually is!
We eventually head off into the jungle. I feel that wherever we end up will be fun and luckily Helena agrees. We finally reach a massive, hundred meter high, marble, statue of... possibly Vishnu? He had more than one set of hands but not the full seven sets... I think. Have to say in my defence it was hard to be sure as I was weaving through the traffic which was arriving from four different directions and then randomly making their way around the statue which was helpfully acting as a kind of roundabout. As usual the best approach was simply to keep driving - slowly but never actually stopping.
Suddenly and I have to say with very little forethought, we pulled up outside a sign which claimed we had arrived at the monkey sanctuary in Ubud! Yay for the limited road network meaning that all roads really do lead to everywhere! We had great fun exploring the sanctuary and the monkeys were interesting and dangerous to a very fulfilling level, particularly the soaking wet one which kept trying to jump onto Helena, heehee! We then walked up a hill covered with craft shops and antique shops... talk about heaven! It was like mecca had shifted location just for me! Luckily I was skint and so could not singlehandedly rape Bali of it's entire cultural heritage, this trip. Settled for as tourist mask and a chessboard which are delightful and very useful, (cough). There should be some photo's on facebook but not sure as it takes me bloody ages and can't be bothered spending my life watching a blank webpage... too dull!
The journey home took three times longer than the journey up. This is due to the time difference between the two places and nothing to do with Helena's poor map reading or my frustrated decision to 'follow where all the other cars are going because at least that's not dark, empty or fucking one-way after seven o'clock!' on three separate occasions. Got home very pleased with myself at the first major jaunt out from base camp! Yay! me and the motor industry, but not so much them as me, you know because of all the pollution of the planet stuff.
Speak to you soon!
Ixxx
