It’s about nineteen miles from Seminyak to Ubud, as the crow flies. But we took a car, and cars in Bali use narrow, winding roads that are clogged with scooters, pedestrians, and anything else that moves. There are no traffic lights. To make a turn, the driver edges toward oncoming traffic, waves, then waits for the other motorists to let them pass. Our top speed on the journey was around thirty miles per hour. At one point, we got stuck in a traffic jam that was caused by the lunchtime rush at a really popular roadside chicken joint. The trip took about two hours.
As Angelenos, Christina and I are very familiar with traffic, although in LA the line at an In ‘N Out drive-thru, as opposed to a chicken joint, is often the culprit of our lunchtime traffic jams. But only tourists eat beef here, so chicken it is. Also, the traffic in LA has a grinding, soul-crushing feel. Here, the traffic is more like an invisible force field that slows everyone down and invites you to stop and look around.
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