With tiny roads and booming tourism, a short car or scooter ride can feel like an eternity during peak hours in Canggu. However, there are a ton of shortcuts (some you won’t even find on Google Maps) sprinkled around to help shave off some travel time. Canggu shortcuts are mostly poorly made, makeshift roads, and are the scene for some truly hilarious Canggu Shortcut Fails.
Photo: @thecanggupole
Canggu Shortcut
One shortcut in particular stands out for being the most obnoxious out of the bunch. The infamous Canggu Shortcut. It’s hard to know how many Canggu shortcut fails have taken place over the years. Luckily for us, many of them have been recorded and are online so the world can witness the buffoonery that takes place. Continuing to be a reliable source of entertainment, and treating worthy content!
The Canggu shortcut runs through a scenic rice field connecting two big hotspots in Bali, Canggu and Seminyak. A lot of traffic is funneled through the shortcut to cut down on travel time between the two locations. Most of the time this attempt proves itself futile.
Photo: @thecanggupole
The shortcut is constantly being shut down due to its poor construction or the gridlock traffic! This totally defeats the purpose of having it there in the first place. The road itself cannot fit two cars side by side because it’s only meant to be a one way road. Obviously no one follows that rule. Since two cars cannot pass each other, cars have to back out of the shortcut to allow for another car to pass. This causes major traffic jams and huge issues ! Scooters trying to nudge their way passed the cars just adds to the chaos. Some cars and scooters end up toppled over in the rice field with people coming out to help in all directions and taking hilarious pictures that you can find on Canggu Community’s Facebook page, or videos like this on YouTube.
Canggu Pole
Photo: @thecanggupole
There have been many attempts to remedy the situation to prevent more Canggu shortcut fails. The efforts remain fruitless, yet hilarious. The biggest joke of the Canggu shortcut’s history is the beloved Canggu pole, it even has its own Instagram page! Time and time again the public has tried to put up a barrier in hopes that only scooters could use the shortcut so cars wouldn’t clog up the road. However, every time the barrier goes up, it only takes about 48 hours before it is ripped off the road. A running joke among the Canggu community any time a new barrier goes up. They know that the inevitable is always around the corner.
Shortcut fails have brought a lot of laughter and frustration to the province of Bali, but it’s not all that bad. Since it’s a tiny road in the middle of a vast and luscious rice field, the views are stunning when driving down on a beautiful quiet day. With the sun setting in the distance and not another soul in sight, it’s easy to forget about that time you saw a car full of people bail into the rice field!
While in Bali make sure to not be the tourist that finds themselves getting scammed by reading out article on “The Top 5 Scams To Look Out For In Bali For in 2019”
