The Other Side

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12/07/2010

Time to spice up my travels a little, my Indonesian visa was due to expire so in order to get an extension I would have to venture out of the country. Situated in Kupang, West Timor belonging to Indonesia I would have to head to Dili the capital of East Timor also known as Timor Leste, where in 1999 it became its own country. After years of conflict due to an unwanted Indonesian occupation where an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 East Timorese lost their lives the UN stepped forward and sanctions were imposed thus ousting out the Indonesians and making East Timor independent. Tensions these days apparently less obvious with the last public outbreak of conflict being in 2007 during the presidential elections. The poorest country in south east Asia, crime apparently not rife, but available should one require it as with any poor country, common sense and a general aura of wariness would have to be applied on this one.

My bus picked me up at 6am (6:20am Indonesian time) from the Lavalon guesthouse in Kupang. It was a smokeyass affair with all the Timorese pretty much chain smoking for the entire trip, I was the only whitey on board and was spoilt like a little princess by being given the entire back seat to myself to sprawl out and feel modestly lady like. There was quite a bit of fannying about around Kupang picking up passengers in the area before we finally departed. Heading from West to East you get to soak up a great deal of the Timorese countryside spiralling up and down mountainsides, especially when the bus journey is a 12 hour one, at times you could almost find yourself taking it for granted, but generally I like to observe, keeping one’s eyes out for monkeys and stuff. Watching monkeys is intriguing, you never know what those crazy critters are going to do next...just like the Chinese.

At the Indonesian border crossing you are greeted by the same general madness you get at most south east Asian land crossings, people running amok all over the place offering you this and that trying to get your attention, always mildly daunting but just by acting stern and pulling an expressionless face I usually find that that does the trick. I was expecting utter carnage at the East Timor border crossing but was fantastically surprised, it was all rather mellow and laid back. Only problem being that the East Timor visa control didn’t know what to do with my passport, I had the necessary forms and signed documents from the East Timor embassy in Dili which I had pre-arranged before I left work in Australia. But still it seemed like I had marched up there and given them a piece of used toilet paper, they was all squabbling and arguing amongst themselves for a good 10 minutes until eventually some guy stepped forward grabbed my passport, stamped it and ushered me over the border. It seemed like it was pretty much a case of ‘ah fuck it just stamp the bloody passport and get this white bastard out of my sight’.

As I headed back to my bus for the onward journey to Dili a few of the guys from my bus tried to converse with me in Indonesian, naturally I had no idea what they was saying, I haven’t really made to much of an effort to learn the language to be honest, I’ve been a bit lacklustre on that front. Another thing is that with East Timor due to its Portuguese colonial past the official language of the country is Portuguese....but still....I don’t speak that either so I don’t really know where I’m going with this paragraph right now so I’ll cap it.

Quite a subtle change from West to East Timor as the journey to Dili continued, livestock especially goats all over the place, wooden huts and fence lines arguing plots of land, obviously this would be the only road to Dili so for trade and general ease the villagers flock to the roadside for their dealings. The coastal road was very impressive, offering some great views out to sea, a small concern perhaps being the cliff that the road was carved under, judging by the amount of boulders and rubble in the road it seems prone to the odd landslide or two. The coastal road perhaps being a possible contender for future holiday homes should the counties stability hold up, although not for some years I suspect considering the rest of Indonesia just has so much to offer already.

As dusk approached every little stop and delay en route to Dili aggravated me somewhat, I wasn’t looking forward to arriving in the city at nightfall and now it seemed imminent that I would. The bus driver was however doing door to door deliveries of passengers upon arrival in a dark and ominous looking Dili, as we curtailed the narrow backstreets and populated avenues of the city I felt some comfort in the fact that the bus driver seemed to know where it was that my accommodation was situated. I think for the western traveller in Dili there are very few options. The backpackers joint charging $14 for a dorm room, quite pricey for south-east Asian standards but then I guess they do hold the monopoly for the western traveller. But at the same time the set-up seemed quite sound and the dorm room had air conditioning which was a very welcome gesture upon my arrival, a cool escape from the realities of the external climes.

13/07/2010
Another relatively sleepless night was had, I was electrocuted back on Flores in Indonesia and it appears that my left arm didn’t take to kindly to the burst of electricity in which it received, some issue where by blood won’t collect in the arm when I lay down, which is indeed an issue as I know no other way of falling asleep other than laying down, I could just drink myself to blackout status, but felt that at this moment in time that that probably wasn’t going to be the best cause of action. But anyway I was up and about around 7ish and went out to mooch the streets of Dili, pretentiously unplanned.

The streets being voluptuously busy in typical Asian city fashion, and surprisingly unintimidating, a thousand times less so than that of shitty Cebu in the Philippines. Hard to believe walking around that the entire city was virtually raised to the ground just some 10 years back, things to some degree appear to be onwards and upwards. Still very basic looking but no more so than many other a south East Asian city. For some reason I was expecting some sort of hassle, people forcing their wares upon me, their drugs, their women, but no, I was just another face in the crowd, I wasn’t as self-popular as I like to sometimes think I am, presumably with the big UN presence seeing whitey is the norm. The UN presence evidently strong, trucks darting about all over the place with big UN stickers splashed all over them.

I found an Indian restaurant to grab some lunch from, a pleasant treat, was again surprised by the price, came to just over $10 for the meal, obviously a UN hangout and not a place for the locals. There are cheaper eats to be had than this, I found a few small places in my time here where I could pick up a worthwhile meal for less than $2. A lot of the influx in prices here being from the initial UN presence and the fact that the country isn’t overly self-sufficient, many products being either shipped or flown in from Darwin, Australia. Expect to pay around $3 for a Cadburys Boost for all you Boostaholics out there like myself.

In the evening accompanied by an Aussie bird and an American bloke from the hostel we went to visit the Jesus statue situated on a headland on the outskirts of Dili. The statue some 20 metres or so tall a gift from the Indonesian Muslims to the mostly Christian East Timorese faces out to sea in the direction of Jakarta. The whole area has had some money spent on it, a nice little boulevard at ground level whilst on the walk to the peak to greet the Jesus statue there are a number of smaller wall carvings and statues depicting biblical references. Quite a bustling scene with exercise freaks constantly up and down the staircase getting ready for the next Dili marathon. The view out to sea and along the Dili coastline being spectacular, watching the sunset we retreated back to the hostel picking up a fistful of cheap $1 beef satay sticks from a kindly vendor en route.

14/07/2010

This morning I set out to get my Indonesian visa sorted, a sticky process it has to be said. I was advised to head down to the embassy an hour before opening as the queue can be quite hectic, on arrival there was no other except myself. I waited in the unrelenting sun for an hour baking away, even my shadow looked dehydrated. Upon the embassy opening there were only a handful of other people waiting to get in, so the big horrendous queues I heard about were mere fallacy, I could of course just have got lucky. I rocked on in and filled out a form and was swiftly told that I would need a passport photo with a RED background before I could proceed with my visa application and evidence of forward travel out of East Timor. So away I went to a very swanky Internet cafe encapsulated within a cosco style crate to print off the necessary documents. A passport photo with a red background was slightly more tricky, I would have to take a taxi to another part of Dili in order to do so, I waved my passport photo page at the taxi driver and said ‘RED’ to which he replied ‘Ah yes....Red...I find you red’. Taxis around town for the westerner are generally $2, I think for the locals perhaps a dollar.

When I got to the photograph shop I was asked to sit down on a stall with a red background and then off went my photo shoot, feels a little different having your own personal photographer to take your passport photo as opposed to sitting in a box and letting a machine have its way with you. After my photo shoot it was back to the embassy, the next stage being to write a letter to the embassy telling them why I wanted to visit Indonesia, where I wanted to go, where I wanted to sleep and what I hope to gain from the experience, quite long winded, and in the humidity your head feels somewhat condensed and struggles to conjure the required words of wisdom, never the less I drummed something out and it appeared to be satisfactory only problem being when it came to paying the $45 visa fee because I had spent time pissing about town getting things sorted I no longer had $45 left, I had $39, I asked if $39 was ok to which they politely informed me that it was not, so I had 20 minutes until close of the embassy to get my arse to an ATM and get back again, more running about in the unforgiving heat sweating my knackers off, joy! (Rye). But I conquered and all was well in the end, I would just have to wait 3 days for my visa to be granted....that’s all.

15/07/2010

For my remaining time I took it mostly easy in Dili, I visited Santa Cruz cemetery famous for a massacre that took place back in 1991 where Indonesian soldiers opened fire at East Timorese protesters killing some 250 people. Another dark hour in East Timorese history but for the most part on my visit it would appear that relative peace has been restored to the capital, I never felt too insecure whilst walking the streets. The only recent disturbances I heard of came from the outskirts of town where by it is common for vehicles to get stoned by kids upon passing. As it stands at this moment in time however Dili is not really designed for the tourist, there is no overly obvious reason to come here unless you need a visa run or your just curious, maybe in time that will change but naturally due to recent historical events the country has proven that it has bigger fish to fry and at this moment in time tourism is not top of the list, but the locals will welcome you all the same.

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Photos

The U.N
Everywhere

Comments

[The big red blob]

Show us your Dili!

[The Travel Camel]

Interesting blog
Not often one sees a blog on East Timor, so thanks for posting. It is great to read a traveller's account of the place instead of having to rely solely on the media.