Starring:
A couple of fairly clueless, but lucky newlyweds
Friendly helper #1: West Timorese colleague
A Nasty President
Friendly helper #2: Angela*
Friendly helper #3: Angela’s friend
Friendly helper #4: Rahman
Two pushy women
A brave, but stupid, bus driver
*Names have been changed.
Narrated by Gillian, in the first person.
Wednesday, 16 December
Discover that all flights from Dili to Denpasar are full between 23 and 28 December.
Bugger.
Employ West Timorese colleague to purchase Merpati Airlines ticket from Kupang (West Timor) to Denpasar on 24 December. Learn that this domestic ticket only costs $70 per person instead of the $300-odd to go from Dili.
Yay!
Also learn that we must travel overland to Kupang, which means Indonesian visa is required.
Thursday, 17 December
Day of rest to gather thoughts.
Friday, 18 December
Go to Indonesian embassy in Oecusse. Sign says “closed”. Cleaning staff inform me that embassy staff have gone to Dili to process visas. If I’d have put our forms in yesterday, we would have had our visas by Monday.
Bugger.
DAMN YOU, day of rest!!
Make some calls to a few people “in the know”. Am informed that there is a possibility that the Indonesian embassy in Oecusse will do a “diplomat’s visa”, which they can process in one day. Cost is double the usual price of visa. I wonder whether this is simply code for “bribe”.
Monday, 20 December
Go to Indonesian embassy in Oecusse, ready to make my bribe. Am told that visa forms were due in on Thursday. They will now take one week to process – in Dili. I casually wave the $60 across the window and meekly enquire about the “diplomat’s visa”. Am laughed at and told once again that the visa will take one week.
Bugger.
Need to be in Kupang in 3 days. Have no visa. Will have to get the ferry to Dili, which leaves tomorrow afternoon at 4pm. I think we can manage that.
Tuesday, 21 December
Find out that the ferry isn’t running, because the President has decided to use it to take his family to a neighbouring island for a holiday.
Bugger.
Only option left: pay $600 for a charter flight to Dili.
Leave that afternoon at 2pm, major hole in pocket, but grateful for the miraculous opportunity to fly.
Arrive in Dili and begin the process of getting a visa. Thankfully, Wade’s administration officer, Angela, has a friend at the embassy and has offered to take in our forms.
Yay!
Now, for a bus ticket to Kupang...
Various Timorese staff tactlessly inform us that most of the buses will probably already be full because everyone is trying to get to Kupang for holidays. I can only nod my head and hope for the best.
Am taken to one bus office. “Full”
Bugger.
Next bus office. “Yes, we have two available seats for 23 December.”
Yay!
“What are your passport numbers?”
“Umm, our passports are in the Indonesian embassy – we’re still waiting for our visas.”
“When did you put them in?”
“Today.”
“Well, you know, they take 3 days to process them. I can’t sell you the ticket unless you have a visa”.
Bugger.
“OK, well, can you hold the seats for us until tomorrow?”
“I will try. My name is Rahman. Here is my number. Call me when you get the visas.”
Yay!
Wednesday, 22 December
Informed by Angela that we should have the visa by this afternoon – 4pm at the latest.
Because we are driving overland, we realise we are going to need some Indonesian currency for when we get across the border. I head to the bank, 15 minutes before opening. There is already a very long queue, waiting to get inside – it looks like the Boxing Day sales. I notice there are some dodgy looking people standing around with foreign currency in their hands. I think about handing over my US dollars in exchange for rupiah, but it’s probably best to do it officially, inside the bank.
As soon as the doors open, the crowd surges through and disperses into 3 different but equally lengthy queues. I hesitate, not knowing which queue to get into, and as a result, many people shuffle past me and I lose my place in what was otherwise a fairly advanced position.
Bugger.
I quickly scan the room, see a board with exchange rates on it next to one of the queues, and so decide that that would be the obvious place to line up. I stand, towards the back of the line. And wait. Suddenly, two women push past me and stand in the line just in front of me. I look around me in disbelief to see if anyone else is as outraged as me. All I see is a man, looking at me and holding up two fingers. His expression seems to say, “I’m sorry for your loss, but hey, thems the breaks”. I have no idea what the fingers mean. Maybe it’s a peace sign to try to appease me. Whatever it means, I’ve got no patience for this sort of behaviour today, so I promptly push back in front of the women, saying, in my most assertive voice I can muster, “Excuse me! I was in front of you.” I settle into my reclaimed position and look around me. Then I realise that there are actually two lines, not one, and I was standing in the longest one. The two women were just joining the other, shorter queue (hence the two fingers). I realise that I had just officially, and very loudly, pushed in.
Bugger.
But, I decide to stand my ground, because I know what these crowds can be like. There is absolutely no order, nor courtesy. It is simply every many for himself, and if someone snoozes, they most certainly loozes. Now, this is the type of queue that snakes around dividers, like at the airport, so when turning the corner, you are particularly vulnerable to losing your place if you don’t put into place some territory-marking strategies. I quickly devise a strategy: Stick my foot out, and put my hand on the pole. That way, no one can sneak past me. (This is all done very discreetly and casually, by the way. You have to make it look like you’re just standing with your foot and your hand out because you’re comfortable that way.)
I get to what I think is the end of the queue, and then I realise that there is still one more step: a row of chairs, which effectively means, two queues merging into one. This is more difficult than it sounds, especially when nobody wants to let anyone in front of them. And the three young girls in front of me are getting gazumped at every opportunity. They keep letting the people from the other line sit down! By this time I am getting incredibly impatient, so I once again use my territory-marking strategy and stick out my foot and put my hand on the pole, making a barrier so that the man in the other line is now blocked. He pretends not to notice, but he still give my arm a little nudge. I ignore him. The young girls give me a grateful smile as they sit down on the next available chairs, and I think to myself, “Yep, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, girls. You’ve got to stand your ground.”
After around 40 minutes, I make it to the front of the line, walk up to the lady at the teller and say, “I’d like to buy some rupiahs, please”.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, “We no have. Go outside.”
“Outside? Where?”
“You will see some men there. They have rupiah.”
Bugger.
As I turn to walk out the door, I notice that the two women who pushed in front of me who I pushed back in front of again, are sitting down at the front of the queue. They both have smirks on their faces.
I go outside and buy my rupiahs from one of the dodgy-looking men, for a surprisingly reasonable exchange.
Yay.
...
Promptly, at 4pm, our passports and visas are handed over.
Yay!
Off to the bus office to collect tickets. They are waiting for us.
Yay!
Which means, in effect, that we are officially going to Bali.
Yay!
That is, assuming our Merpati tickets have definitely been booked and the plane gets off the ground in Kupang. Merpati is not known for its reliability.
Thursday, 23 December
President has called a “National Clean Up Day”. No vehicles are allowed on the street between 8am and 11 am. Heavy fines for breaking the rules.
Bugger.
The bus driver decides to risk it. We stupidly drive around the city, collecting passengers. Manage to do so without incident, until we are on our way out of the city, when we are stopped by a blockade. A police officer walks angrily up to our driver.
Bugger.
Wade pokes his head out the window and catches the police officer’s eye, whose expression instantly softens. The bus driver apologises for not being out on the street, cleaning up. The police officer seems to say, “I understand. Away you go on your holidays”.
We’re off.
Sometime later...
Realise bus driver is really, really tired. Witness him slapping himself in the face, driving with his head stuck out the window and sticking his head in a water trough at one of the rest stop.
Bugger.
Sometime later, get to East/West Timor border. Process visas and immigration with no problems. Cross border.
Yay!
Change bus drivers.
Yay!
Arrive in Kupang without further incident.
Yay!
Friday, 24 December
Get to Kupang airport, extra early, in case anything goes wrong with the tickets.
It hasn’t.
Yay!
But...
The plane is delayed for six hours.
Bugger.
We wonder what the hell we’re going to do. Decide to try our luck checking back into our hotel room. We had checked out well before the official time of noon. We are pleased to hear that our room is still available. We put it down to the fact that foreigners like us are a novelty in these parts, and local people want to make foreigners happy. Because they’re usually rich.
Yay!
Kill six hours with no trouble, watching TV in the air-conditioned hotel room, and then walking the streets of grubby Kupang (not one of my most recommended tourist destinations). Get to airport. Merpati flight leaves on time and in better comfort than what we’re used to on the Merpati flights from Dili.
Yay!
Touch down in Denpasar without incident.
Yay!
And that was a little story about how we got to Bali.
Incidentally, Merpati airlines flight from Dili to Denpasar on Christmas Day was cancelled, without notice or alternative flight, leaving scores of Timorese and ex-pats stranded, unable to get home for their holidays. Some had to get connecting flights to places as far away as Brazil.
We were happy for our adventure.
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