Uncertainty Principle

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After being scarred for life by the experience of simply attempting to book a ferry to West Timor, I eventually succeeded in making the crossing to Kupang. The story of how I eventually got the boat is even more ridiculous than my previous tale, but I'll spare the details.

Since Flores, I have ceased being a 'tourist' and my time is spent either being a lazy sod (?) or trying to transport myself across that infinitesimally small gap to Australia. I won't be going immediately in any case as the flames of cyclone Ingrid are licking higher up the backside of Darwin as I write this. There are currently two boat possibilities from Kupang: Karl, a yachtie wants to sell his boat but isn't sure whether to take it to Oz or Singapore to flog it and the elusive 'Mister Bob' and his scampi-vessel who may be taking his boat and several tons of pongy fish to Darwin sometime in the next two weeks. I haven't spoken to Bob in person, I have been dealing with his 'friend' who hasn't managed to contact him yet, but has benefited from my purchasing of phone top-up cards for him. I might get to meet Kaiser Soze before I meet Bob.

So, either way, I was in West Timor with a few days left on my visa so I left Indonesia for the newest country in the world, East Timor, on a 'visa run'. You need to apply for a new visa for Indo in the capital, Dili and it is supposed to take a week. It is not terribly exciting in East Timor and expensive (due to the "UN economy" - so many UN people around with money to burn). I had heard from a few sources that the person working at the visa section was a "completely miserable witch". Fearing the longest week of my life, I wrote a polite letter from a fictional skipper of the vessel "Ribblefluke" requesting an urgent application for dubious reasons and handed that over with my application. Never failing to swoon at the sight of the exhalted output from a Canon inkjet printer, the so called 'witch' told me to come back after 3 working days. Lovely.

My first impressions of Dili were that I was in a Catho-Latin theme park. Pictures of Jesus Himself are on sale in the streets next to Che Guevara and Ronaldo. They speak "Tetun", a mix of Portuguese and local dialects, so the five words of Spanish I know seem to be understood. I was told that more people have been killed here since the Indonesian invasion and occupation in 1975 than actually live here now. Things are quieter these days since the UN moved in and the place is slowly getting back on it's feet. Dili is a bit of a scraggy town, but the surrounding landscape and beaches are superb.

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Photos

Jesus!
This is not Rio, they have one of these statues here too.

Nice beach
This is affectionately called Jesus Backside Beach

Odd kids
If I was wearing my specs at the time I would have understood. As it is....

More kids
Just making up the numbers snap-wise.