Road Works
on Really Out There Experience (Indonesia), 21/Nov/2009 12:39, 34 days ago
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November 2009On several occasions I havementioned the poor state of the roads inIndonesiaand particularly on Rote. There are the unmade– never been made roads whichcome with the territory and then there are the unmade but used to be made roads where maintenance has lagged behind usage and finally the made but so full of holes you would be better off without the bits of tarmac. This is due to acombination of subsidence, rain /flood water damage and excessive usage particularly by trucks. The road from the hospital into Baa down the hill was a particularly bad stretch;as was the part of the road from the hospital to Busalangga the next large town - where I go to the market. This month work has been underway to resurface the road. First the really big holes were filled with rocks, then a cement like layer was put down, next came the nasty bit– a layer of small stones and finally tarmac. The majority of the work was carried out with traffic still using the road – where there was an alternative route then a one-way system was instigated so that single file traffic was allowed through the road works – otherwise it was just a matter of playing chicken with on coming vehicles. As you will see there was generally enough room for motorbikes to squeeze through but cars and trucks often had a long wait until the road was side enough for them to pass. Riding over the loose small stones was challenging – particularly after a lorry had made ruts in it. Going down the hill on loose stones is interesting particularly around the sharp bends. Walking along the road is also quite challenging as there is no longer enough room to walk beside the road and the slope is such that you have to walk quite a way onto the road and as this hascaused the road to be quite a bit narrower than before you really need your wits about you particularly when walking at night. Whilst the work is in progress the journeys are more ‘exciting’ than before but once the work is complete the challenge of getting into town or to Nembrala is going to be lost.
