Step three.one: Wheels of injustice

So I am getting a bit installed in Kuta, although that really wasn't the plan. I have an iron steed for the commute (1.25 hours each way!) to school. Its not really a horse, more like a yellow, petulant, iron donkey. I have named her Kitty. She has bald, roller skate sized tires and a missing mirror. The rear brake hits like a sponge; the front like a sledgehammer (at any speed). I don't think Kitty's front brake has ever been applied in her lifetime. She is gutless and once you finally get her up to 80 km/h, she gets this cute little instability / speed wobble thing (like I picture a kitty cat might). This isn't actually cute and scares the hell out of me. There isn't really anything to do, but slow down and hold on tight.

If I ever needed a reason to hate scooters... Kitty the Iron Donkey would be it.

We start our morning together by maneuvering through the traffic of Kuta and then dumping ourselves on a highway thats absolutely ridiculous. A random melange of trucks, cars, bikes by the hundreds and pollution that makes me want to vomit. I need to duct tape my camera to Kitty. You need to see this.. its a trip. I think of it a little like a high speed puzzle. It has many pieces and I am just now starting to understand the rules. Number one is to not do anything unexpected. Methodical and predictable wins the race. The only problem is that predictable is passing on the inside left, squeezing between cars, crossing any piece of available space, anywhere and all the time. Always pass the trucks as fast you humanly can (don't get one of those stones in the teeth). Its actually more dangerous to drive like you would in Canada, as it would be truly unexpected to the 20 bikes in the immediate vicinity. A pack mentality is encouraged, unless the pack is going faster than 70, in which case you are that 90 year old slow guy on the 401 who is nothing but a hazard. The good thing is that there is so much traffic that everyone is generally meandering along at about 50-60 or so. Actually, the real number one rule is to always drive on the left... very important.

Its a pretty lawless land, unless you are a tourist who makes a left on a red under the sign that says "no left turn on red". you know that sign thats conveniently located beside the little police hut? I realized as soon as it happened that it had happened, but I was like - "moving violations don't count here obviously. Take a look around!". They called to the next little police hut on their cell, with a message that i am sure went kind of like "I have a sucker on a yellow scooter headed your way". A cop came walking across four lanes of traffic to stop me, so that I could get escorted shamefully back across to get the "talk".

Scary police man: "My friend called me"
he smiled.

Stupid Tourist: "Oh yeah?", smiling back. This is a pretty corrupt land and both Scary Police Man and Stupid Tourist knew exactly what was going to happen here.

SPM: "Registration and license?"

ST: "I think we have a problem then", having neither.

SPM: "Ho ho ho" (Like it was suddenly Christmas for Hindus and Muslims across the land). "You must go to pay fine in town right now".

ST: "No problem, how much?"

SPM: "Infraction, infraction, infraction blah blah blah. 500,000 rupiah."

ST: "How far is town? I am really late... are you sure their isn't something we can do?" feeling like he was straight out of some cheesy movie.

SPM: "Well, if you are late... maybe you could pay me know to save time?" Smiles all around again.

ST: "I have 104,000"

SPM: "Done. Here, take 4000... For petrol"

I came back to ask how best to get across the 4 lanes of traffic and not get another "infraction". Him and his buddy were already splitting up the "fine" money, but were nice enough to escort me back to my turning lane. I was smart in that I had a huge wad of cash in the other pocket for my instructor and I lied. I was dumb in that if I had more time or had more wits about me, I would have probably gotten off for much less. Asking for a receipt probably would have done wonders. Or if I pushed actually going to pay the fine they would have let me off for almost nothing, cuz whats in it for them? Who actually wants to write out a ticket? Good learning experience.

So its lawless for everyone else but me and lawless (and subsequently more safe) for me when there is no police hut around.

I hate the commute, but its that damn surfing. I can only surf beach break, beginner waves. I haven't been able to find any that are closer to the school. Not really complaining :)

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This all started with an effort to do "Random Kind Things for My Body", which is here]