I’ve fatefully joined the well-endowed ranks of Boulet (Bahasa for white people) living and working in Bali. I’m working in the spa business, doing product development for spas and hotels using essential oils .

Yesterday, I made my first foray into Bali traffic on a motorbike. I had to go pick up 6 litres of essential oils. I’ve realized I actually have more equilibrium on the machine than I would have thought. It was a big day because it was not only my first time in Bali traffic, but I was attempting to navigate to a few obscure locations to do pick ups of our products. As luck would have it, I was a quarter ways up the island in a very local district when it started to pour rain. There I am pulled over on the side of the road, completely lost, attempting to retrieve my poncho from the seat, and trying to protect my fragile paper maps. Really enjoying the fact that I’m handling myself even as the frigid rain replaces the tropical heat. Driving no more than 30 mph back to Kuta, poncho waving in the wind, arm hair standing on end, and rain drops relentlessly pouring down my face. I’m almost entirely blinded by rain.

I finish up one last errand and begin the trek back home. As I pull into the street there is a full on Malasti ceremony going on. An entire village has the street blocked off. Women dressed in kabaya’s and men wearing batik kain or sarongs, they dutifully make their way down the street in a colossal procession towards the local shrine. This is where they circumnavigate the shrine and partake in what appears to be the equivalent of a Buddhist puja. I hear the sound of gongs, the chime of bells, and the beat of drums. As I inch along the road next to hundreds of other motorbikes, I begin to truly understand the notoriety of Bali traffic.

I drive further down the road and I begin to notice all of these signs of the reality I live in. A tree has just fallen down and ripped out from the root because of the storm. The locals are working in the pouring rain at an even pace to saw small pieces of the branches at a time to clear the road. The obstruction causes a small traffic jam relative to Bali and slowly we all make our way around it.

Again I pass another victim of the tropical shower. A store owners’ dam had collapsed leaving him struggling heroically to block off the over-flowing water with a giant banana leaf. It seemed a futile attempt.

This is all a part of my life now:  the chaos of Indonesia, the magic of the Balinese, and perhaps a kind of normality that will replace all of my intial amusements.