Driving is a Dance

This is a comment Uncle Bruce made when they were visiting Indonesia and I took them around for a day last year... and it has stuck with me since, because that's exactly the perfect way to put it!



It's again part of the organized chaos... superficially, it seems totally out-of-control and chaotic, with motorcycles darting in and out amongst cars spaced very closely, paying no attention to lines, and treating traffic signals as mere suggestions... but once you get into the rhythm of it, in fact, it all flows perfectly because everyone is following the same unwritten rules: it's all about give and take.

Until you actually drive here, you don't really get a good understanding of it, but it doesn't take long to pick up on the subtle rules and nuances to make you a successful Bali driver!



I have never been able to successfully capture what is 'Indonesian traffic', so these two photos are Indonesian traffic jams in Jakarta (called macet (ma-chet) here) from dreamindonesia.wordpress.com and kaskus.us.



Oh yes, I forgot to mention the wild-card aspect of driving here... the animal-factor. Dogs, chickens, cats... mostly they are left to roam free, which also means they often roam (or dart, in many cases) into traffic... they don't follow any rules (written or not), and you really DON'T want to hit one of them, since if you do you have to pay the owner for the (inflated) value of its life, PLUS the five generations of offspring that it didn't get to contribute since you cut its life short!