Don’t (not) look down: walking in Bali

We’ve been living in Ubud for 7 weeks now (one week to go before we move to the US). We opted not to get a scooter for the duration of our stay and walking most places has been transport, sight-seeing and exercise. For longer journeys, we’ve grabbed taxis, but according to my FitBit, we’ve clocked up hundreds of thousands of steps in the last two months.

The trickiest thing, though, is that walking here is a precarious endeavour. Obstacles include:

• no footpath – you’re essentially walking on the road a lot of the time
• stray dogs and dog excrement – even the dogs with owners wander here
• offerings to the gods – to be respectful, we must avoid stepping on these
• scooters and motorcycles – MANY of them, both driving and parked
• giant tour buses, trucks, cars, and taxis – all driving within inches of you as you make your way down the road that doesn’t have a footpath – eeek!
• broken footpaths – giant holes, missing tiles, broken bricks, and cracked pavement
• streams of unidentifiable water – hopefully it is just water, but you never know 😉
• stalls and shops that spill out onto the street
• rooster in baskets – they’re fighting roosters 😦 – and random roaming chickens
• giant piles of dirt/gravel/bricks used for building – when people are building a home or business or even a wall, often the materials will be dumped by the truckload on the road and footpath – everyone just has to go around it until it’s all used up
• random debris/detritus/rubbish
• uneven, patch-work paths – including the (running) track along Campuhan Ridge and the pedestrian-only paths

So, here’s my photo series called: Don’t (not) look down!

bollard

view from a taxi

market stall – offerings

morning offerings

detritus

Campuhan Ridge trail

footpath

great parking

cock-a-doodle-don’t

broken

scooter parking

scooter parking

afternoon offering