First impressions

15 June 2012

June 15th.

I promised myself I’d write one last post, reflecting the past five months in Australia, but there’s so much to take in here that I’ll delay that last post.

We flew in from Darwin this morning at 6:30AM and our small jet landed about 90min later in Dili International Airport. From the sky, the island looks very green, very lush, and very rocky. The volcanic mountains are everywhere, it’s a wonder the Portuguese navigators found the one flat spot to settle Dili. Everywhere else on the seafront is just one big cliff.

After the visas sorted (30USD for thirty days), we left the airport and walked to the main road. You have two choices to get to town from the airport : a taxi, which costs about 10USD or a mikrolet. A mikrolet is a small van, like a Toyota Hiace for instance, originally licensed to carry about eight people. You just jump in, bags and all, and squeeze your way in. You got to imagine the scene, and remember Timorese people are rather short, about 1.5m for men, and shorter for women. So, here we were, jumping on board, with about a dozen young girls on their way to school, giggling at our big backpacks and my 1.87m squeezed in this tiny minibus. I counted sixteen people on-board, and four hanging from the door (which has been removed, by the way, to allow more space). That’s twenty passengers, plus the driver. The van struggles through the traffic but no one seems to care.

It’s hot, it smells of spices, cheap perfumes and sweat, it actually doesn’t smell bad, it just smells what I always expected Asia would. The driver insists on playing his music as loud as possible, I reckon the stereo is worth a lot more than his van actually. Outside, it looks like chaos. Cars and trucks and buses and moped and motorbikes and people and chicken and dogs. It just flows, continuously, and somehow, people seem to be able to cross the street, cars are able to change directions or even cross an intersection, nobody is hurt. The chaos theory. Well it works !

Ten minutes later, we managed to explain “city centre” to the girls in the bus and here’s our stop. Basically, if you want to get out, you just tap-tap the metal rail on the ceiling with a coin, and the driver stops. It cost us one dollar, and here we are. City centre. Well it’s just a large avenue, but there is a backpackers, 25dollars for a double room, with a fan. Toilets are outside, but they work, and there is toilet paper (as opposed to the toilets at the airport, where you have to clean up your act with a bit of water flushed onto your private parts). Well the room is small, but there is a key, and the sheets seem clean.

Our first mission for the day : find Toll Marine Group, and explain the situation with the car and the carnet being sent by DHL. A quick look on the Internet (yes there is Internet, reasonably fast too) tells us there are no street names in Dili, not everywhere anyways. So we’ll just walk to the docks and ask around. A guy sends us to the wrong direction and after a bit of luck, we find the Australian embassy and someone who seems to know who Toll Marine are.

So we meet James, and explain what’s the deal with the carnet. He’s all cool with it, reassures us with the customs, the quarantine and the paperwork. We’ll go on Monday morning with him to the custom officers and try to expedite the process, so when the car is offloaded from the boat, we can drive off quickly. I can’t tell you enough (and this is for anyone who wants to ship a vehicle to or from Australia) how much Toll Marine is good at what they do. And so helpful with the process. I know how many bikes and 4wd pass through their ships every year, and now I understand why all overlanders choose them.

James even had his secretary call a rental agency to find out how much hiring a 150cc motorbike would cost for a day. 35USD. That’s how much it costs… Cheap as !

Back at the hostel, I go lie down for a couple of hours while Claire edits her latest videos. I’m actually not feeling very well. Last night we started taking our malaria tablets. You’re supposed to have them over lunch, on a full stomach. Instead, we had them at midnight, in bed. I had cramps all night in my esophagus. You know when you swallow something a bit too big and it has a hard time going down ? Well that’s how it feels now. Like something is stuck down there. Except it feels I swallowed a tyre. And from what I read on the net today, these malaria tablets dissolve quickly but can cause an ulcer if you take them on an empty stomach. Also, a lot of people mention you should have them while standing up or at least sitting down, so it does not dissolve in your esophagus. Since this morning, I feel like my esophagus is on fire every time I swallow.

So anyways, I go lie down to get this ulcer go away, and when I wake up, I find Claire deep in conversation with this guy. Edward’s 70 years old, has been around the world a dozen times, runs a foundation called “Blac Foundation”, which stands for Black Languages, Arts and Culture, and deals with all cultures between the Capricorn and Cancer tropics. He speaks sixteen languages, and is rather fascinating. He’s taking us to this small Timor-Indonesian restaurant tonight, where we ate a whole meal for a dollar fifty. Cheaper than a burger at Maccas !

End of day one in Timor Leste.

Distance today:0km, total: 20211km.