Driving in Indonesia is quite OK for a foreigner, as long as you play by the traffic rules. What rules, you say? Hehe, yeah, what rules indeed…
In the Indonesian traffic is there few rules at all, but the ones that are there needs to be followed. One of them is now defined as Humongen’s first law of physics:

If there is space between your vehicle and the one in front of you it will act as a black hole on all vehicles behind you

This is a brand new theory that should make Humongen live forever in the history books as a revolutionary groundbreaking theoretical physicist.
For the facts are indisputable: there is no connection between the size of the space between the vehicles and the size of the one trying to enter. Thereby must the black hole theory enter the equation because they always make the the big trucks fit into these small gaps in the traffic. Nobel prize money to be spent on further studies during our travel.

Oh, and while talking of equations… If you need a big fat zero in you equation just add an Indonesian pedestrian. They are worth absolutely nothing at all. No matter age, size or gender. No one is discriminated, we treat everyone like a zero!

On that note it is nice to say that today’s drive to Tanah Lot went without trouble. We rented a car and driver to go to the “Sunset temple” on Bali. Not that it was to far a drive to go by motorbike, but earlier experiences with bug-eating-night-driving here on Bali, suggested we used a car. I don’t drive cars around here.
So we got one of the kids at the hotel to take us. He is 19-20 years old, and try to pull off a mustache like Clark Gable. He needs more practice.

But he is a capable driver and got us to and from the temple.
At the temple there were a lot to see. Normally are these temples a bit dull, as the Hindus don’t make use of to much colors. It’s more stone carving that are the norm around here. But this temple has a history from the 16th century when some old guy slept on a rock. The fishermen gave him presents in the morning, and the old guy could report on nice connections with the gods. Thereby was the temple ground set. It is built on a cliff out in the water and is rather spectacular. It is surrounded by water and high cliffs and there are snakes here for those who want to watch or touch. Not our cup of tea, as we had our fill at the reptile park.
Down on the rocky ground around the temple itself it was really crowded. As we now are off season I dear not think of this place in July or August. It must be mayhem.

We constantly experience situations that we just have to “go with the flow” to handle. Today a girl came to Katja and asked if she could take a picture. Katja of course took the camera and were ready to help. But, no. It was us they wanted pictures of. So there we are in a photo album / Facebook page with 5 or 6 people we know nothing about. At least we had the brains to get a picture of this group ourselves this time. So now are these strangers a part of our blog to. Tit for tat.

 

The sunset was quite nice, and we enjoyed it at a local cafe up on the cliff overlooking the temple. On the way there we found a local attraction. A guy with two bats and five Luwak. The Luwaks you remember from the earlier mentioned poop-coffee. So this place was a kopi Luwak place. But not only were these small furry animals an attraction, the guy had to big bats sleeping on a rack. Yeah, that’s right. You thought I talked about baseball bats? Nope, this guy had live bats in his coffee shop. And they liked to lick this guys arm as he passed them. He sold little coffee, but were the most popular stand there.
Katja works at Kagge forlag, a publishing firm, back home. Before we left Norway, she had lunch with gründer, majority owner and polar explorer Erling Kagge. Among the tips and tales this seasoned traveler said was:” There is nothing as scary as driving a car down there.” Katja brought that up in the car on the way back home, as “Clark Gable” fulfilled every bit of theories for Humogen’s first law of physics. But in the dark there is an additional layer of excitement- all the other out there that drives, cycle or run without light or any other means of visibility. We praised the car manufacturer for making solid handles over the doors.

As the evening turns to night we are once again back at Tunjung Mas. The number of days left in Ubud dwindles like the clouds on a Balinese morning sky. But there are still a whole lot of yoga to do before we leave.

Today we end with the words it Matt Groening (he should need no introduction but here it is)

I went to Bali, and I was in a small village, and somebody who was with me showed a woman a little figurine of Bart and asked: ‘Do you know who this is?’ And she said: ‘Mickey Mouse.’

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