Balibo was close to the border, and I was there by 10am. I was a little nervous as this was the first land border I’d be dealing with – with me and my Australian registered vehicle, with its own passport.
It worked! It took close to two hours, but everything worked, I had all the paperwork correct and I was in Indonesia. Woo hoo!!
I wanted to get from the border, kind of in the middle of the island, to Kupang at the far end. This was where the ferries ran from, and it is a chunky town. The distance was around 250km – an easy drive I thought.
Wrong. It was awful and took more than 7 hours. The road took me through an interminable series of mountain passes – the whole 7 hours. Slow trucks, overcrowded buses, Hilux’s full of farm animals, and a hairpin bend every 500m. I think this was a good reminder of what I’d bitten off for all of my drive through Asia towards London. I need to recalibrate and consider than 250km is a long and a tough drive.
But arrive in Kupang I did. I had a decent hotel right on the beach for A$40/night.
This video shows what I looked at every morning and evening when I enjoyed the bar and the restaurant. I did give the pool a good workout.
I’d planned on 2 days in Kupang – in fact I spent 6.
This place is not on the tourist circuit – very few people like me go there. So everywhere I went I was pursued by calls of “Hello mister, hello mister…”. While the place had a very different feel to Dili, the friendliness of the people shone through. The traffic was as chaotic as anywhere, but I was now in that Asian driving groove so even that was not a problem.
I was in Kupang to catch the ferry to Flores. Easy to sort, I thought. How wrong I was. The Indonesian ferry company had just launched a new web booking system – everyone had to use it, there was no other option. It was only in Indonesian. One needed an Indonesian bank account to buy a ticket. The departures weren’t advertised, and were only open for purchase at 7pm the night the night before…. I had to teach myself all of this as I missed ferry after ferry. Eventually I found a gentleman who knew what was needed. He bought me a ticket using his own bank account and I paid him in cash. What a nice man.
I did become quite well known at the ferry port, and several people really went out of their way to try to help. It wasn’t their fault the system was a failure.
I was pretty pumped to get on the ferry. A nice little quirk… The ferry was where I celebrated my birthday. 66 (that’s brutal!). But I did sing happy birthday to myself.
I can’t tell you how really stressed I had been for the 2-3 days beforehand, with all the hassle of getting a ticket. So actually being on board was a fantastic feeling.
And now, as I type, I am sitting in my truck in the bowels of an Indonesian ferry halfway across the Savu Sea. My destination is Aimere on the island of Flores. It’s a 15-16 hour journey (update, actually 22 hours), and I guess I’ll be spat out at about 3am (update, 7am). But the truck is ok to sleep in… (update, it wasn’t). When I wake up I’ll drive to Badjo which, amongst other things, is the jumping off point for the worlds best dive sites and the Komodo dragons.
I’m in my truck because upstairs is totally full – with people strewn about everywhere. Here’s a couple of images to give you an idea.
Can you see the bunks at the back in this one? There were almost fistfights to get one of those babies. Remember – this was 21 hour overnight experience – comfort was everything.
Another little quirk of my ferry ride was that there were three trucks right behind me. They were full of live adult pigs. The smell was, well, off the scale. And they were grumpy! Squealing and grunting and screaming all night. I needed the windows down for air, and the air was pretty bloody putrid.
When I rolled myself out of the truck as the ferry arrived into Aimere, I have to admit I felt every day of those 66 years…
Anyway, they say Flores is a bit like Bali was 50 years ago. I’m excited… I plan to spend several weeks there (update, here). I hope I can wax lyrical and do the place justice on the website.
Chat later…