From the motorcycle you see everything on the road. Each day i'd pass groups of construction workers digging and building in the merciless heat. Each day i'd be blown away at how these guys were working in the most incredibly hard conditions. Zero safety gear anywhere. These crews are in flip flops and some are breaking boulders barefoot with pick axes. For weeks i'd blaze past on the moto studying these guys.
After time i learned most of the construction crews come from Java. They come over on the ferry and work non stop for a while then return home with money for their familys. These dudes work in seering heats in the dust and on the edge of dangerous highways for a few dollars a day. Sun up to sun down these Javanese workhorses are out there. Heads wrapped up in t shirts from the sun and flies . Some are mere teenagers some are old men. They live in tiny make shift shacks built usually from the scraps of wood and bamboo laying around the job sites. On the edge of the building site dozens of men are crammed into chicken coop style shelters, where they eat, sleep, wash clothes and shoot little birds with bb guns.......
For weeks i wanted to pull over and meet all these guys and talk with them but i speak about 3 indonesian words and they all have to do with food. One day i hired Donny Brasko from Sumatra to translate and together we rode along the roads meeting the workers and taking their portraits......
It ruled . Ive never met a more humble , friendly gang of people in my life .............
Here are some of the crew
These are the guys out all day in 1000 degrees building the roads and walls .............
This is the Bali i wanted to see .........