BALI, Indonesia--While in Ubud, Bali
for my second daughter's wedding, I
had the chance to observe the traffic
and road conditions in this charming little town up in the hills.
Ubud is about an hour and a half's drive away from Denpasar
Airport, where we landed on a flight direct from Singapore.
Ubud is not a beach resort town since it is about an hour away
from the beach, but it is widely known and appreciated as an
artist's colony full of Hindu temples and family-run batik,
hand-weaving, wood-carving, stone-carving, gold and
silversmith centers and art galleries.
I noticed that in Ubud, every other car on the road seemed to be
a Kijang, which is the original Toyota Tamaraw FX, the latest
model of which is the Revo. There are also a lot of motorcycles
on the road, many driven by women and students. Next to the
Kijang, the Suzuki Samurai and Vitara and Daihatsu Feroza were
the most frequently seen cars. The Balinese also have the Isuzu
Hi-lander, which they call the Panther, and the Mitsubishi
Adventure. I spotted a few Honda Civics, but they were mostly
five years old or older. Many of the trucks and vans I saw were
Mitsubishi.
Driving in Ubud is like driving in Manila: It's every man for
himself. Since Indonesians drive on the left side of the road and
the roads in Bali are narrow, I did not dare to take the wheel.
Outside the center of town, sidewalks are few and far-between,
so it's a bit risky to walk from, say, your hotel to the market. The
risk is increased by diggings and vehicles parked on one side of
the road. But the main roads are generally well-paved and in
good condition.
Getting a taxicab or Kijang-for-hire is no problem. You only have
to step out of your hotel or stroll down the road and Kijang
drivers will approach you. The Kijangs for hire don't have
meters, which means that you'll have to haggle with the driver
over the fare. When four of us rented a Kijang to go to Bali Bird
Park in Singapadu, Batubulan, the round trip cost 125,000 rupiah
(the exchange rate is 7,900 rupiah per US dollar). The driver
waits for you and he doesn't expect lunch money from you in
case the car rental hours go past noontime. On our second day
in Bali, six of us rented a Kijang to go to a restaurant for lunch
and then proceed to the public market, a batik factory,
wood-carving factory and silversmith. The excursion, from 11:30
a.m. to around 5:30 p.m., cost Rp 250,000. One-way fare to the
airport from Campuhan, Ubud is Rp 100,000.
When our Kijang driver backed out of the bird park's parking
lot, the rear bumper of our vehicle hit the side of an improperly
parked Honda Civic. The two uniformed security guards on
duty didn't seem to mind. They guided our driver in
maneuvering out of his parking slot and when the Kijang's rear
bumper hit the Civic again, they didn't appear surprised and
allowed us to drive off. If this had happened in Manila, the
guard on duty would have looked for the driver of the damaged
car so that he could bargain with the offending driver over the
cost of repair.
The public buses in Bali are minibuses. The only big buses I
saw were tourist buses and they were new units. Since Bali is
not inflicted with big, diesel-fed buses and smoke-belching
jeepneys, motorists and commuters don't have to endure dark
clouds of toxic fuel pipe emissions like in Metro Manila. The
ubiquitous motorcycles don't belch that much smoke, either.
The clean air, plus the abundant flora and fauna, make Bali an
environmentalist's paradise, not to mention nature lovers,
botanists and biologists. Amanda Cottages, where we stayed, is
a beautiful villa of houses of traditional Balinese architecture
nestling in the midst of an exotic rain forest dappled with rice
paddies. No airconditioning is needed since the rain forest has a
cooling effect on the weather, especially at night. It is peaceful
and quiet in the daytime and at night you are lulled to sleep by
the sounds of the creatures of the rain forest. Surprisingly,
despite the river running through it, the rice paddies, the ponds
near the restaurant and the huge swimming pool at one end of
the villa, there are hardly any mosquitoes.
The room rates are reasonable, too: US$85 a night for a
three-bedroom (twin beds in each room), two-bathroom family
unit, including breakfast; $40 for a double room with private
bath and a veranda overlooking the wonderful scenery. The
best cottage in the complex, a luxurious one-storey unit with
marble floors, glass walls and an outdoor jacuzzi, rents for $185
a night, or much less than the standard room rate of a five-star
hotel in Metro Manila.
The low-cost hotel rates, plus the cheap but delicious food
(lunch at an excellent resto like Indus, for example, cost us only
US$33 or P1,353 for eight hungry adults) are only two of the
major reasons why tourists flock to Ubud, Bali.
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