Thread: The long winding road - conclusion

6:00 P.M. We pass through Candidasa and stare at the few tourists on the street. We still have a long 2 plus hours to go before we reach Singaraja, but everyone is thrilled that we’re back in Bali. The kids are looking forward to seeing their cousins and aunts and uncles. I’m looking forward to a scotch and a shower and some sleep.
7:00 P.M. It’s dark and there’s traffic which makes a lot of demands on my diminished night vision. I take a left turn because it seems like that’s where the main road goes. Fifteen minutes later we’re up in the hills and obviously in desa land. The road suddenly disappears, and my wife makes the astute observation that I’ve taken a wrong turn. I carefully try to turn the car around without driving off the dirt road that has suddenly taken the place of the paved one.

8:00 P.M. Air Sanih, almost home. The kids who have been sleeping wake up and notice where we are. The littlest one sleepily asks if we’re home yet. Soon, I tell her, go back to sleep. She kicks her brother’s leg that he has draped over hers and goes back to sleep.

8:15 P.M. We reach the Singaraja city limits, and I start to relax. The traffic is heavy but the streets are lit so I can finally see where I am. The kids name off all the shops that we pass that they know. Yes, I say, almost home.

8:20 P.M. I take a right off of Jalan A. Yani and head on north to Kampung Bugis. I pull the car into the little parking space in front of the house. The kids are out of the car before it stops. Cousins and neighborhood friends all gather around. Everyone runs into the house. I open the back to unload all the goods that we’ve brought from Sumbawa. Despite my requests that my wife not pack a lot of unnecessary items, among the things that I have to carry in to the house are a 25 kg sack of rice, five black plastic garbage bags full of mangoes from our garden, and five dozen eggs.

Total traveling time 16 hours and 20 minutes. When I lived in Pakistan, it would take me 13 hours to get from there to Bali. Traveling in an archipelago – never a dull moment.

Thanks Dr Bruce, for an interesting read. Hope you have fun on your vacation. :)

Thanks dandan and Roy for the comments.

On my way back to the jungle.