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- Jan 31, 2025, 6:00 PM
- 🌧 26 °C
- Altitude: 4 m
IndonesiaNoel Mafaoti10°9’26” S 123°35’0” E
Kupang
January 31 in Indonesia ⋅ 🌧 26 °C
New country alert! 🇮🇩
Our Timor-Leste sojourn was a brief four days, and on the 31st we got up very early to make our way across the border to Indonesia. We had a choice of buses, including the Bagong and the Babadook. We decided to be sensible and book the Bagong.
To get to the coach pickup point though, we first had to catch one of the Dili 'microlets'. These are minibuses with set routes but no specific pickup points; you just wave one down. To stop, tap a 50c coin loudly on the overhead bar to let them know when you want to stop (that's also the cost for two fares, about £0.40). There aren't many seats, so it's very cosy inside when busy - passengers are encouraged to sit on one anothers' laps to make space. When it gets *really* busy, passengers hang out of the doors. Since we had our big backpacks on and were taking up a lot of space, Dan nobly volunteered to hang out the door.
The Bagong bus took 12 hours, travelling the length of the island of Timor. It was winding but surprisingly well tarmacked, although apparently the only good road on the island. Going even a few metres off the main road would lead to immediate peril for anything less than a tractor. The bus also had a TV, which blasted repetitive Chinese action shows for most of the route. We were eventually (mercifully) dropped off in Kupang, the main city in the Indonesian province of West Timor.
We're going to be flying and ferrying through Indonesia for a month, so the two nights in Kupang were intended to be a bit of an admin stop. We set ourselves up on Gojek and Grab, the Southeast Asian answers to Uber, which have been a *revelation* after the tech black hole in Timor-Leste. Cheap taxis! Cashless payments! Food delivery! We're very happy.
We had a less smooth experience getting ourselves Indonesian SIMs. This is a mobile banking country; they've leapfrogged the 'card payments' stage that we're used to in the UK or Australia. So you can either pay by phone, or cash. Since we don't have Indonesian mobile bank accounts, we had to go through five steps to pay for credit with cash:
1. Take out cash from an ATM (which may or may not accept western debit cards).
2. Take the cash to a participating grocery store.
3. Ask the staff to help you load it onto your Gojek account (for a fee).
4. Connect your Gojek account to the mobile phone service provider Telkomsel's app through 'GoPay'.
5. Use your GoPay dollars to purchase credit in the app.
Seamless!
While we went through this rigmarole, we were staying in the Lavalon Hostel, which overlooks Bligh point, named for a very bad pirate-type from the days of the VOC. Lavalon is the retirement plan of one Edwin Lerrick, who it transpires was a well-known Indonesian movie star in the 80s. Now, he just hangs out on his hammock all day watching spurious alternative health videos on YouTube (full volume) while his pets fight over food. He is an excellent cook though. Highly recommended.
This morning we were up at 5am again for a flight to the next island, Flores. All of the ferries from Timor to Flores are delayed or cancelled because the sea is too rough. Rainy season lessons learnt! Stay tuned for dispatches from Komodo in a few days 🤿🐲Read more
Traveler
😂
Traveler Assuming that we haven’t heard from you for a few days because you’ve been consumed by a Komodo dragon?
Traveler (Awkward if true.)
Traveler Sad but true