Bali — Pulled over by the police in Bali, Indonesia

Pulled over — now what?

August 2015

On my first full day in Bali, I was stopped by the police.

I was out with Ubud Taxi, and the police pulled us over for an inspection.

It was a police roadblock out in the countryside, and if you were a taxi driver, they seemed to want to know who you were and where you were going. It was a document check, albeit unnerving for a first-time traveller in Bali.

As a passenger, the police didn’t seem to care about me; they never spoke to me, didn’t ask to see any papers, and hardly looked at me. But, the taxi driver had to produce a wad of documents (stored under the sun visor), get out of the cab, and go over to a table for a chat. The driver seemed unconcerned by it all and smiled throughout the interview.

The stop took around 10 minutes, and there were no problems.

Note added 2nd September 2015: We were stopped by police again the next day. It was the same routine as the day before and only took 5 minutes. I guess this is a regular occurrence in Bali.