Often, western tourists are not prepared for the style of road use and traffic conditions found in Bali. Indeed, many are quite concerned during their first trip in the more populous areas. There is a veritable sandstorm of small motorbikes (about 100 cc capacity) weaving in and out of the traffic with the greatest of comfort and ease, even when they are carrying a family of 5 and a mile high pile of temple offerings plus a chook or two. The second most numerous vehicles are small 4 WD-type cars/wagons which are delivering or waiting for hire.

The drivers of these hire vehicles are the ones who endlessly chant the call, ‘Transport Boss?’.

Traffic speed is generally quite slow, 10 – 15 kph being quite common at busy times. Vehicles drive almost nose to tail, even through corners, and merging traffic fits into spaces that pedestrian wouldn’t try to walk through.

There is no visible road rage or impatience on the island. A toot or two on the horn is always taken as a ‘Please excuse me’ signal.

 The most frequently asked question that I get from travellers going to Bali for the first time is one that relates to distances from A to B and the time such a trip will take. Where the places A and B are well known to me the answer is easy to provide. For other les familiar places I need to go through my notes or measure maps. Such an approach does not always take into account the terrain or the state of the roads or the traffic and the accuracy of the information is variable.

I would appreciate any feedback from readers who have used this data and found it wanting.

The distances (in sans-serif font) are in kilometres above the shaded diagonal break through the table and the approximate times, in hours and minutes, are below the diagonal of shaded boxes (in a serifed font).

For those of you who need to convert the kilometres shown in the table to miles, then take out your calculator and multiply the Km by 0.62 and you'll have miles fairly accurately.

Often, western tourists are not prepared for the style of road use and traffic conditions found in Bali. Indeed, many are quite concerned about the apparently congested state of the roads and traffic during their first trip in the more populous areas. There is a veritable sandstorm of small motorbikes (about 100 cc capacity) weaving in and out of the traffic with the greatest of comfort and ease, even when they are carrying a family of 5 and a mile high pile of temple offerings plus a chook or two and a bag of rice.

The second most numerous vehicles are small 4 WD-type cars/wagons which are delivering or waiting for hire. The drivers of these hire vehicles are the ones who endlessly chant the call, ‘Transport Boss?’ in the streets outside your hotel.

Traffic speed is generally quite slow, 10 – 15 kph being quite common at busy times. Vehicles drive almost nose to tail, even through corners, and merging traffic fits into spaces that pedestrian wouldn’t try to walk through.

There is no visible road rage or impatience on the island. A toot or two on the horn is always taken as a ‘Please excuse me’ signal.

The table gives distances and very approximate trip times between popular tourist centres for 4 people in an average, middle-aged Kijang. Times can easily double at peak hours, in rain, where the road is under repair, if the army is using the road, if a security guard has stopped the traffic to allow a tourist or two to cross, if a dog has priority or a flock of ducks is being taken across the road to a new rice paddy. When two or more of these things coincide there is no point in trying to hurry. This is a time to enjoy ‘jam karet’ – ‘Bali time’, which is often no time at all.