Well, since last issue’s column about my new electric motorbike, things have been buzzing right along. I’ve fielded several email queries, not all from foreigners, about joining the electric brigade. But even more interesting is the reaction I get on the street. Every time I park, or unpark, or pause to cross a line of traffic, people take a good look. Friends drop by to take it for a spin. Balinese husbands talk about getting one for their wives. High school students gather in front of my parking space to look the flashy red machine over. “Keren,” they nod to each other. Cool.
The announcement that the price of bensin will probably (read ‘definitely’) rise 25% to Rp 6,000 a litre in June may have something to do with the enhanced local interest in my new steed. I didn’t know at first how people could tell it wasn’t a regular motorcycle, because it looks just the same to me. Nyoman tells me it’s the absence of number plates that floors the onlookers. This is a big selling point, apparently, along with not needing a driving license. Wheels without Indonesian bureaucracy OR besin. Imagine.
Eyore is not quite the trusty steed I had expected, but that is my fault. There was some misunderstanding about charging the batteries, it seemed. I’m still not entirely clear about this and welcome technical assistance of any kind. According to Freddy the Engineer, the bikes use a dry lead-acid battery (Eyore has two) which need to be kept charged up; the life is shortened if they are allowed to run down. But for just buzzing along around town, it is really terrific. And for flatlanders in Kuta, Sanur, Legian and Yakistan, the electric option is very viable indeed. I’ve heard that there are quite a few being used by the staff at the airport to zoom between terminals, and a couple at Sanglah Hospital.
At that delightful time of day between the parentheses of five and six in the afternoon, there is nothing more pleasant than tootling down the back lanes of Ubud very slowly on a motorbike. Lots of other people are tootling too; three pretty young girls squashed onto one bike, a grandfather holding a baby in front of him, a mother with several children tucked onto every flat surface. With the end of the rains, the vines have exploded into bloom and the lanes are strident with bougainvillea and alamanda. Neighbours chat at open gateways. Puppies wallow in the warm dust. Chickens march along the tops of walls and scrabble crossly in the shade. This is the energy of back lanes all over Southeast Asia in the late afternoons of decades gone by. I’m so grateful to find it still, right outside my garden gate.
I am beginning to understand why people ride these things for pleasure. I buzz almost silently up and down the lane just for fun, more confident now and quite a bit less tottery. The dogs don’t know what to make of this electric business. Perhaps there’s a high pitch in the motor that we can’t hear, but they look startled as I approach and see me off with a baffled flap of the ears. Othello, the big black Doberman who lives down the lane, always races out to check when I pass -– he is almost at eye level, which is disconcerting. Perhaps he finds me disconcerting too.
Out on the open road it’s a different story. Even on the side streets there’s a lot of vehicles zooming back and forth to say nothing of piles of sand, children, slumbering dogs, men playing with their roosters and women on their way to temple. Like the coward I am, I wait politely for everyone to pass before venturing out and tiptoeing along the verge of the road at 10 kph. It’s a completely different dimension to driving a car, where you are higher up, sequestered and contained from what’s happening outside. On a bike you’re part of the life at street level, right out there in the thick of things. Once I got over the sheer terror, it was wonderful. Could it be that little blast of ozone? Maybe because I’m not behind tinted windows (even rolled down), there’s an immediacy to my passing through on two wheels. People meet my eyes and smile, and the children wave.
When there is no traffic, dogs, children or roosters on a straight stretch, I’ve cranked it right up to a dizzying 30 kph. “How fast is that in miles per hour?” asked an unmetricated American. There was a long silence after I admitted that it was about 15 mph. But it feels pretty fast when you’re out there doing it.
Riding Eyore brings back memories of 1970, the year I spent on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia with my family. I had a motorcycle there that I used to ride to the kampongs and the beaches. There was very little traffic in those days and I remember roaring along as fast as I could go, taking corners at an acute angle and frightening my mother, if she happened to be driving by, half to death. Those were the days.
I’m all for setting a trend for electric two-wheelers. Imagine a neighbourhood where the streets are quiet and the air is clean. Cool.
There are two outlets that I’m aware of selling electric bicycles and motorbikes in Bali:
Kuta: Nusantara (Ibu Monica) 763164 / 08123 849 345
Ubud: Osin Motor (Pak Giri) 8508 715 / 0828 367 7022
