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Asia » Indonesia » Timor
April 2nd 2008
Published: April 4th 2008
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The time came to leave East Timor and head into Indonesia. As it happens, Rita from the backpackers' hostel in Dili has a brother at university in Kupang, so she insisted I should stay with him - and while I was at it could I deliver some coffee and money to him from her. Rita was lovely all the way through my stay - really friendly and chatty.

So I set off for the 12 hour trip to Kupang. The road is twisty and half-blocked by rockfalls in places (a hazard of the wet season), so it's a long slow haul, but the bus was comfortable enough and not full, so there was plenty of room to stretch out. I had lunch with a couple of Congolese peacekeepers on the way (they were heading to Kupang for a holiday), and eventually arrived in the dark in Kupang to be met by Rita's brother and cousin.

Student accommodation is basic in Kupang, as anywhere else - but of course here this really means basic. They led me up a muddy track to some concrete huts in the middle of a field (handily just next to the airport!), where I chatted to them and their friends, had dinner with them and was given a bed in one of the rooms. They didn't seem to mind that I wasn't into football (a few of them were up until 4.30am watching Manchester United vs Rome), and they even helped me sort out my plane ticket the next day. It was hard to give them anything as a thank-you because they were so insistent that it wasn't necessary.

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