Melhor motorista de táxi nunca

“Então, o que você quer fazer aqui em Bali?”

“Um, I don’t know. O de sempre - você sabe fazer alguma surf, confira alguns templos, mordido por um macaco ".

Acontece que o motorista de táxi aleatória, marcado para baixo na frente do aeroporto internacional de Bali falou bastante decente Inglês & parecia amigável.

"Muito boa festa aqui em Kuta. Lote de meninas, meninas australianas loucos que gostam boa festa," nosso motorista de táxi nos informou com um sorriso. "Você está indo para alugar motobike?"

Meu irmão e eu trocamos olhares no banco de trás – "Definitivamente. Você tem qualquer bom lugar para recomendar?"

"Sim, muitos, mas você deve ter cuidado, motobike condução em Bali é muito perigoso. "

Nós tínhamos sido no sudeste da Ásia por cerca de 2 meses nesse ponto para que já sabia “Motobike muito perigoso,” especialmente depois crashing my motorbike within 15 minutes of renting it in Chiang Mai.

“Do you have international driving permit?" our taxi driver persisted.

“Não, but we have our normal drivers license from home” – I told him.

“No good, no good. Police don’t care, they look for international drivers license or they charge you. Much corrupt police in Bali”

Now the taxi driver had our attention. Although international driver’s licenses are recommended to drive in any country other than your own, we had had no problems with anyone enforcing this in Thailand or Vietnam.

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t rent motorbikes? Is it not a smart idea?”

“No you should! Very fun, best way to see Bali. But police will try to pull you over. They catch people all the time, it is good business for them. But here’s what you need to do. When they stop you, they going to ask you for money if you not have license. They try to get much money, like 1 million rupiah, just take a picture of them with your phone and you will be fine.”

“A photo? Wait…that’s it? I’m not sure if I understand.”

“Yes yes my friend, just a picture of their face. They do wrong, and they know they do wrong, and if you tell them you show picture to the police center they could get in trouble.”

“Wow – are you sure? They won’t get mad at us for doing that?”

“Não, they are scared if you do that! Also, you can pay them 50,000 rupiah instead and they give you paper saying you have already paid the fine and dont need pay again.”

That’s more or less how our 10 minute taxi ride into Kuta went. After a few more questions, my brother and I seemed to believe him. His confidence in this strategy was convincing, and we made a mental note to try it out if the opportunity arose.

Turns out driving a motorbike in Bali, at least around the cities/towns IS pretty hectic. What else would you expect from such a global destination? It seemed like everyone and their Australian brother had rented motorbikes. And just as our taxi driver friend told us, there were police EVERYWHERE. The police set up road blocks in the middle of the road to detain everyone on motorbikes, and many times they are unavoidable.

We had 3 close calls with the police before we finally got caught:

• Traffic was jammed in Kuta, we saw the road-block ahead, and had enough space to detour down one of the Popies side alleys.

• We were again stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic, saw the cops looking at us suspiciously in their truck, so we popped up on the sidewalk and sped away leaving them stuck in traffic

• We were spotted by police in a road block on a one way street, and couldn’t turn around. So we once again pulled our bikes up on the sidewalk, but this time walked them down the street in the opposite direction. The on-foot police chased us, but we rounded the corner, quickly parked the bikes in a side-parking lot (still one-way street), grabbed the keys & helmets, and hid behind some ice-cream stand on the corner. The police walked around our bikes, inspected them, and waited a solid 20 minutes for us to come back to reprimand us, but we waited until they left. We jumped back on our bikes once the coast was clear.

Talvez nós tivemos sorte, talvez se foram mais cautelosos, or talvez nós somos apenas 2 inferno de angariação de rednecks da Geórgia que cresceu montando 4 rodas & fugindo da polícia, mas nós quase fez toda a nossa viagem de Bali sem ser pego. QUASE.

O Roadblock Inevitável

Um dia nós queria a cabeça para baixo perto da ponta mais meridional de Bali para um pequeno lugar chamado praia Balangan (altamente recomendado), e se misturou com algumas direções erradas (“instruções” no meio de Bali: puxando para cima ao lado de um local em uma luz vermelha, gritando o nome de seu destino & apontando numa direcção). Tivemos que virar-se, e quando nós fizemos, eles estavam esperando por nós.

Foi completamente inevitável. Não tivemos escolha a não ser parar como a polícia já tinha visto 2 gringos e configurar o bloqueio de estrada especificamente para nós. As we rolled to a stop next to the police truck & put our kick stands down, I signaled to Casey (my bro) to get his phone ready as mine had already been stolen in Vietnam.

I held my breath as 2 large, fairly mean-looking Indonesian police officers stepped out of the truck. After giving them our Georgia drivers licenses & hoping that would somehow fool them, they told us in broken English that we owed them 500,000 rupiahs apiece (about $50 at the time).

With the fluidity of John Wayne drawing his 6-shooter in a western stand-off, in one motion Casey took his phone out of his pocket, stepped directly in front of one of the officers, and got a few good shuttersnaps in.

SMILE!

Their reaction was priceless. Imediatamente they started freaking out, asking us to give them the phone, and to erase the picture. As Casey tried to take another picture of the license plate, they jumped in front of us pleading with us not to take any more pictures. It was incredible – it was like we were the police and they were the accused. We told them we weren’t going to erase the pictures until they promised not to bribe us.

10 minutes later (that’s how long it took one of the officers to scroll again & again through Casey’s photos to make sure they were deleted), they handed the phone back. Remembering what our taxi driver told us, we paid them 50,000 ($5) rupiahs in exchange for a signed piece of paper stating that we had already paid our fine for not having an international driver’s licenses & wouln’t have to pay it again. 45 minutes later we arrived at Balangan beach, exhilarated & espantado que o conselho do taxista trabalhou.

bribe evitado. Mas era inteligente?

Agora é uma grande história para contar aos amigos, mas olhando para trás, não era realmente a coisa mais inteligente a fazer. O que teria acontecido se os oficiais eram realmente corrupto? O que eles poderiam ter feito se eles tem raiva de nós? Algo ruim talvez poderia ter acontecido. Afinal, você nunca quer estar em uma situação onde é a palavra do policial contra a sua palavra. Mesmo que teve o conselho de um motorista de táxi nos inspirar, é sempre importante tomar precauções extra quando viajam em um país diferente, e respeitar as leis.

Esta não é uma batida do meu peito Eu sou A história BADASS. Apenas um relato em primeira mão de nossas experiências alugar e dirigir motos em Bali, um lugar que cada pessoa deve ir para, e na minha opinião, explorar com uma moto. O cenário é incrível, as pessoas amigáveis, o verde arrozais, os macacos agressiva, a quedas de água, e em todo lugar cheira a incenso. É uma estimulação sensorial completa andando em motos, basta estar preparado.

Pergunte ao redor e ver se é a mesma história com a polícia Balian agora - se a estratégia foto ainda funciona. Se as pessoas dizem que ele faz, Experimente. Se isso não funciona mais, pedir para outras sugestões. Em última análise, cabe a você o que você faz quando se deparar com a polícia em Bali, porque você vai definitivamente. Ou você pode simplesmente obter sua carteira de motorista internacional antes de ir para Bali, mas onde está a aventura em que? 😉

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