The weirdest things I've seen in Bali
November 17, 2016
Bali has been often described as beautiful, peaceful, or unspoiled. And it most certainly is, but let's be honest—it can also be very weird. To a person having grown up in Europe, Balinese way of life can feature hilarious as well as horrifying habits and occurrences. Here is my list of things I have seen or experienced, compiled over the course of my two months in Bali.
Animal-related
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| Crazy traffic in Ubud |
Animal-related
- a man walking a huge pig on the main road (probably transporting it to be slaughtered)...
- ...and other animals on the road: monkeys, chickens, or stray dogs
- roosters casually strolling in the classroom
- rooster fights, a long tradition of Balinese men betting on the winners, when they attach little knives to roosters' feet and under their wings so that they could kill each other in a fight
- a little boy riding in the back of the scooter and holding a live chicken in his tiny hands
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| Weird but hilarious Balinese statues |
Day-to-day life
- haggling for the price even at the hospital
- men repairing roads with jackhammers barefoot
- water bottles always filled all the way to the top so that you would spill it all over yourself
- walking into a store only to find it empty, making it extremely easy to shoplift
- policemen shouting at you to offer a taxi ride or scooter rental
- after you say to one person that you don't want a taxi, the man standing just two meters away from him will offer you a taxi ride again
- no communal benches or bins
- nothing ever goes on time
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| Cars and scooters blocking pedestrian paths |
Driving
- people gearing with the right hand (cars drive on the left side here)
- cars can park anywhere, for instance casually block the whole width of a pedestrian path
- cars are allowed to have sirens and blue lights, making them practically indistinguishable from police cars
- our three-year-old Putu sitting on a scooter with his grandfather (without a helmet, of course)
- kids as young as 8 years old riding scooters without shoes or helmets
- whole street food stalls being transported on a scooter
- when turning left at a traffic light, the red light is optional (as long as there's no police)
- every third car drives right in the middle of the road because they are trying to overtake another one and are inspecting the situation in the other direction
- every car I've sat in had the original wrap on the sun visors
- some roads are the same size as one European lane
- once, when in a taxi, we realized we might be going the wrong way, so the driver stopped right in the middle of his lane (didn't even drive a little to the side), and patiently ignored all the honking behind him while we were checking the map
And honking rules. Basically, you honk when:
- you're approaching a crossroads without traffic lights
- you want to overtake someone
- you're approaching a sharp turn
- you drive at night and see a car—under any circumstances, really
- you want to warn others that you're going to get in their way
- you see a dog on the road (you simply don't slow down or wait for it to go away)
- there is a person standing on the edge of the street waiting to cross the road and you want to let them know you are not going to slow down
- you see kids close to the road
Others
- a butt-naked man masturbating next to the road after we pass by on our scooters
- Chinese, Japanese and Russian tourists climbing a volcano in sandals with a platform or in ballerina shoes
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