Border jaunt

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, or perhaps a bus-enthusiast in severe denial, I recently did the 12+ hour, 4-wheel odyssey from East to West Timor. Unfortunately the stamp I got in my passport crossing the border doesn’t say ‘You’re awesome – RESPECT’, but it really should.

Within the first 45 minutes from Dili I’d vomited in a plastic bag and was beginning to wonder how I might be able to hitchhike back from Liquiça. But as so much of my childhood proved, a little vom can make you feel a whole lot better.

Crossing the border was a fairly relaxed affair as everyone on the bus seemed to make a personal investment in making sure me, as the only malae, had an easy time of it. The people sitting next to me, Paulino and Anita of Liquiça, took me under their wing and laughed at my incredulous and oft-repeated ‘tuun fali?’ (rough translation: ‘why in the world do we have to get out of the bus again for the seventh time in an hour for another pseudo-official person to casually flick through our passports?’)

This is the DIY part of the border crossing,
where everyone has to get out of the bus and carry their luggage across

By the time I made it to Kupang at 9pm that night I was, of course, delirious. But the transport odyssey was not over yet. 

The next stage was a flight in a tiny plane to the island of Sabu. Being in the front row of the plane, I was literally looking over the shoulders of the pilots. Which was interesting, until they both started reading aeroplane manuals and I decided I didn't want to look anymore.

Once on Sabu island, we spent two days scooting around on motorbikes looking at water wells. It will surprise no one that my technical knowledge of wells is slim to none. So each one we looked at (there were a lot) got either a ‘that’s a nice one’ or ‘that’s got a lot of rocks in it’ from me. While water wells are not really my thing, I continued to carve out a niche for myself in being particularly good at having drinks with microfinance clients – in this case, liquid palm sugar on Sabu island, and later in the week, fresh coconuts in a village near Kupang.

Hilarious Sabu baby

Broken motorbike chain on remote rural road - no problem!

Serious Sabu baby

Not a Japanese stone garden but rows and rows of palm leaf boats full of salt water -
when the water evaporates, a few grains of salt are left in each one

Mr. and Mrs. Sabu - a very cheeky couple

Just doing my thing

The catch to this jaunt across the border is that I am yet to make it back. The return jaunt starts at 5am tomorrow.

Kingdom for a fork

Timor does unpredictable well – in fact, unpredictability is a bit of a habit here. For instance, everyone knows that most public holidays are announced the night before. So it really didn’t surprise me that on Monday morning I went to work in Dili, only to find myself sipping a G&T at the Indonesian border by sundown, surrounded by people clad in lycra.

The reason for my impromptu 112km trip to the border was a fork. Which on Monday morning I understood to be a piece of cutlery. A significant piece of cutlery, but probably not the type of thing I would normally traverse half a country for. But apparently a fork is also a bicycle part, and a crucial one at that.

En route to the border

My intrepid housemate has been training for months for the Tour de Timor, which is basically a 6-day mountain bike race for crazy people, so of course several of the participants also happen to be my friends. However, until Monday afternoon I thought my personal involvement in the Tour would be limited to the Hour of the Donut.

But when I got the message on Monday afternoon that my housemate’s bike had ‘blown up’ it was clear something had to be done. And so that is how I found myself and a friend driving to Batugade, a town next to the Indonesian border, an hour later, with Rosie in the back seat (Rosie being the replacement bike). 

Precious cargo

When we finally arrived, a few stretching breaks and 3 hours later, we were met by an impromptu camp of approximately 350 people. With no lycra or branded merchandise on, I felt a bit out of place. Nevertheless, one person asked me if I was one of the riders (which thrilled me). Five minutes later I was asked if I was part of the cooking team (not so thrilling).

After a G&T, medal presentation for the first day’s winners and a free dinner, we pitched tents and slept. Only to be woken at 4:30am by the keen chatter of Timorese riders, who when I peered my head out of the tent, were already dressed in their racing outfits – approximately 5 hours early. By 5am one had a helmet on and by 6am there were several pedaling round the campsite. The whole vibe was the morning before a road trip to Disneyland, except with adults.

Rosie in good hands

After breakfast and goodbyes, we were on the road back to Dili. The problem with travelling with a fellow hypoglycemic is that you go through a lot of snacks. You also take great joy in doing the ‘dolphin vocal’ section of Folding Chair by Regina Spektor as loud as possible.

One of several stretching stops

But of course no road trip in Timor would be complete without an unscheduled mishap. 

This isn't the mishap - this is just the road

I did almost run over a baby chicken (I blame the irresponsible Rocky-approach-to-road-crossing mother hen) but the real mishap reared its ugly head when we realised we had next to no oil in the car. Woops. My bad. Apparently that’s an important thing to keep track of. I had been more focused on making high-quality mixed CDs for the car rather than keeping an eye on the stuff that keeps it running.

So we pulled over at the next town, which initially appeared only to have oil for motorbikes (hardly anyone in the districts has a car). However eventually after consulting a mechanic friend in Dili on the phone, we managed to find some suitable oil. Like all ‘happenings’ in Timor, it attracted quite a crowd, including the local motorbike mechanic, his four comrades, schoolkids and the Police Commander. While they took an issue with our neineik neineik ‘slowly, slowly’ approach to oil pouring, they shared our jubilation when the car had finally had its full (um… 3 litres later).

'Why is the malae so neineik?'

Back in Dili I checked the Tour results on the internet – Rosie has made it to Oecussi, presumably with fork and other cutlery items in tact.

Donut Queen

It’s been a while between blogs and I can only say it’s because sometimes every day life actually does take up every day. Which in my case entails things like walking to Jesus (NB: the statue, not the divine being) and trying to edit reports in another language at a desk streaked with the blood of myself and my colleagues (I’m now pretty ace at smashing mosquitoes with proposals, water bottles, my keyboard – whatever is handy).

Most of my leisure time has been taken up with learning new games (despite having a Dili-wide reputation as a game cynic, I am giving it a go) like Mexican dominoes and perfecting my daiquiri-making techniques at dinner parties.

Birthday dinner party, complete with hats

Photographic evidence that I do sometimes play games
(I occasionally even smile while playing too)

This Saturday however, I fronted up at Christo Rei (Jesus again) just after 7 to collect my fourteenth free t-shirt since arriving in Timor. This time, as a volunteer for the Ride for Peace, the community event leading up to the Tour de Timor. I was upfront about my credentials as a volunteer – ‘I have no practical skills’ – but apparently when you have 700 Timorese kids hurtling from Dili to Christo Rei on bicycles, you take what you can get.

Somewhat fittingly, I ended up on donut duty, which involved helping to dole out 1,000 sickly sweet donuts to hordes of enthusiastic kids kitted out in Tour de Timor merch. All I’m going to say is that years of waitressing clearly paid off in my dexterous use of tongs.

Not bad for a Saturday – I rediscovered a practical skill AND my new free t-shirt actually fits, as it was given to me by a fellow malae who doesn’t think that just because I’m a foreigner means I must be given the largest t-shirt available that most resembles a sail for an oceangoing yacht.