S. Pacific 2004: 4

Thursday, October 14, 2004

The flight from Cairns last night went smoothly. The only drawback to my aisle exit row seat was that the fellow in the middle seat was very wide - he could have used all three seats for his bulk. This resulted in my right armrest being embedded somewhere under his rib cage, and an arm the size of a leg of mutton trying to press me into the aisle through the other armrest. Eating the meal (which was quite good) was a challenge. I managed by eating left handed with the plate held under my chin to catch spillage. My suspicion that flight attendants wait at the end of the isle with their service carts revved up hoping an arm or leg will stick out so they can attack it was confirmed.

The taxi driver from the airport to the Holiday Inn Darwin considered that stretch of road his own personal speedway. It was a very quick, exciting trip as he flashed past other drivers, bellowing curses at their driving style. I felt right at home!

You will have noticed the hotel had functioning internet, allowing the last instalment, composed while drinking beer yesterday in Cairns, to be sent off. The hotel was well appointed, and our rooms would have had a great view over the ocean had it been daylight. The disadvantage of our timing was that we arrived after dark and left before dawn, so saw nothing that was not illuminated.

There was another search of the bags at security, but Airnorth Regional Airlines had no problem with me taking my case as carry on. Apparently there would have been a problem if the flight had been full, but the 27 seat EMB-150 aircraft was not half full. The flight was smooth and on time. From the air East Timor appeared to be covered with dry mountains, little forest, wide dry riverbeds and sparse population. With time changes we arrived in Dili, East Timor, at 7:30 AM. We purchased a visa for $30, then passed quickly through customs and immigration.

There is very little English spoken here - Bahasa Indonesian and Portuguese are spoken by most people. I talked to a group of taxi drivers it turned out that only one had even a few words of English, however he agreed to take us for a tour for $12 an hour. We met up with Dieter, a German member of the Traveler's Century Club we knew from the Midway Island trip. He asked to join us for the tour which keeping the cost to a reasonable $4.00 per hour each.

Begin close to the equator it was hot even this early in the morning, so we decided to do the tour before going to the hotel to avoid the heat of the afternoon. We drove past various statues, the embassies and government buildings. I was very surprised to see a Canadian Embassy here, along with a couple of South American embassies, some from the industrial countries, and embassies of neighbouring countries. The very large Indonesian embassy indicates that there are still close ties between Indonesia and its former state.

From anywhere along the sand beach that borders Dili it is possible to see a 29 meter high statue situated on a high point of land across the bay. The driver said it was possible to get there, so we took the scenic drive around the bay. The fishing must be good, as there were various open air fish markets and people with a pole across their shoulders with a large string of fish attached to each end. Fishing is done quite close to shore using nets from dug out canoes with outriggers, similar to the ones they bring out for tourists in Hawaii.

The monument and surrounding area were well done. The long walkway had alcoves with copper reliefs about 12 feet high and six feet wide set into them at regular intervals. They depicted 12 stages of the crucifixion of Christ. The climb was formidable in the hot sun, and the endless stairs went onward and upwards. It seemed like 1,000 of them! Dieter is a very fit trekking enthusiast who set a fair pace, but stubbornness kept my very unfit body up with him. My cloths were soaked through with sweat as I congratulated myself on remembering to bring a good shade hat this trip. I was less congratulatory about the fact that it was safely tucked away in my suitcase in the car!

The view of the city, bay, islands and beaches from the top was almost worth the climb. The giant statue, depicting Christ with His arms outstretched to Dili, standing on a world globe with bronze continents, had a large shadow in which I stood gasping for breath. Going down was definitely easier.

The driver took us to the Merpati Airline office to reconfirm our flight to Bali tomorrow. Frequent travellers learn to reconfirm flights without fail, and today proved just how essential that is - our reservations had been cancelled. The travel agency issuing the tickets had received confirmation of the reservation on the computer, however the tickets were written on Delta Airlines ticket stock and Merpati, an Indonesian airline, has no agreement with Delta for payment, so the reservations were summarily cancelled without anyone being notified.

Not having a great deal of choice, we purchased new tickets for cash, as credit cards are not accepted. It was fortunate that there was room on the flight! We then had a quick look around the three block long city centre with its abundance of electronics stores and headed for our hotel.

Central Maritime Dili is a German made ship built a long time ago - the staff have no idea when. It was docked in Dili in 2000 after being converted into a comfortable hotel with a beautiful dining room, a bar and large, well appointed rooms. It has a swimming pool on an upper deck, fitness centre and business centre with internet. Dieter had no reservation, but that was easily arranged, as tourism has most definitely not arrived here. To the best of our knowledge we are the only tourists in town.

After checking in, Tim watched the last of the US presidential debates while I slept for over two hours. We've decided to take the afternoon off and "hang out" as there really isn't much more to see or do. I waited for the shade from the wheelhouse to reach the pool to swim for awhile. Even for my delicate constitution the pool temperature was great. It is definitely my day for exercise.

Happy hour was with Dieter and Tim, and then on for a massive buffet dinner - that counteracted the exercise nicely! The bartender confirmed that the other guests are UN, World Bank, Asia Development Bank, Telecom and other government agencies - we are the only tourists. They must think the tourist boom has arrived with tourists from the US, Germany and Costa Rica all in one shot.

It was interesting to listen to Dieter's story of going through immigration in Australia. The grilling was similar to ours, including the need to declare how much money he had, and all his possessions were searched minutely. It serves as a warning for those planning an Australian trip; the previous easy going Australian greeting has been replaces by stern officials, a detailed interrogation and baggage searches that would do the US proud.

East Timor, a country of 750,000 people, seems to have a chance of doing all right. They have gas, oil, coffee, forestry, fishing, spices and other agricultural products. Offshore oil exploration is likely to become major once the permanent government is established, and could be a great benefit to the country if revenues get past the government officials. There are apparently interesting former colonial towns and beautiful beaches to attract tourists once more infrastructure is in place. The local people we met have a very positive attitude about their future.

Friday, October 15, 2004

After a good sleep, a delightfully easy start to the day and breakfast with Dieter, Tim and I headed off with our driver from yesterday. After a quick stop at the post office to mail postcards we arrived at the airport. It was stifling hot. The airport was not open yet, so we sat on chairs in an area outside the terminal to await the flight. In the intense heat and high humidity even sitting was tiring! After 45 minutes the airport was opened. At the Merpati check in counter we were informed the plane would be an hour and a half late - which is not unusual for either of the Indonesian airlines. We quickly passed through customs and security to sit in the waiting area.

There were four large air conditioning units is the room, but only one was working. Its effort was defeated as all the windows were open. With the humidity, the room was more like a steam room than a sauna, and after a couple of hours it took on the odour of one. This was not helped by the first really bad bathrooms we have encountered on this trip.

The UN has a large contingent here. We saw UN vehicles all over town, and there were 9 in the airport parking lot when we arrived. In addition three UN helicopters and a transport plane were parked on the tarmac.

The Merpati plane arrived as I was having visions of us scrambling for space on Dieter's flight back to Darwin, and his 1 AM departure for Bali from there. It was pure heaven to enter the air conditioned plane! The check in agent had missed assigning me the exit row by two rows, so I stood at the back of the plane until everyone was seated and chose two adjacent seats. I'm fine with two seats - one for my legs and the other for the rest of me.

It would appear that tourism has returned to Bali in a big way. All the jetways were filled with large, long range aircraft, and shuttle buses were ferrying people from planes parked on the tarmac. There were long lines at each of the six visa payment stations and then more long lines for immigration. A visa costs $10 for up to three days and $25 for up to 30 days. The driver from the Alam Indah Hotel was waiting for us, so we made our way through the hundreds of vans in the parking area to make our escape.

There has been a lot of building along the 40 km route from the airport to Ubud, and traffic has increased many times. What was a 35 minute trip is now over an hours. The hotel had not changed, nor the area around it. It is still the "old Bali" that people used to escape to before mass tourism changed much of the coastal areas. This would be one of my favourite places in the entire world to spend a couple of nights.

After checking into our wonderfully decorated mini suites we walked the short distance to the temple at the entrance to the Monkey Forest. Here some 300 macaque monkeys are the temple guardians, living in the sacred forest. A new building was going up on the temple grounds, and monkeys were having a great time using a blue plastic tarpaulin over a work area as a combination trampoline and slide. The monkeys completely ignore people, going on with whatever they are doing. It is easy to use up hours of video recording them!

Finally we walked the short distance to a new restaurant built buy the owners of the hotel. It was done with the same care to integrate into the natural surroundings as with the hotel. There were separate covered kiosks with two tables in each scattered between the ponds in the landscaped grounds. The service and food were excellent, and very inexpensive. Neither of us could finish our meals.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

We both had a good night - the outside air cooled to a temperature perfect for sleeping. I woke at one point and it was dead silent. Costa Rica is a noisy country - monkeys howling, cocks crowing, dogs barking, people or traffic. Here there was no sound. Perhaps their roosters are better trained - I later heard some, but not until it was light.

After a good breakfast we walked through the monkey forest to the city of Ubud, stopping to take a lot of monkey photos along the way. There is no question that monkeys are the rulers here. On the path it is necessary to go around them, they don't move for you. Watching their antics while they play could pass most of a day.

We stopped in an internet cafe in town to get caught up, and then had a cold drink at Cafe Wayan while waiting for the hotel van to take us back. The cafe was the original investment of the owner of the Alam Indah Hotel, who apparently now has 3 other hotels in Ubud.

Other than a couple of small buildings, the town has not changed a bit since Marilynn and I visited in 1998. We had a short tour of the town by van, then back to the hotel to pack and check out. Another driver arrived to take us to the airport where everything went unbelievably smoothly and we were soon on the Garuda Airlines 737 winging our way to Christmas Island. Even Garuda was almost on time!

The flight is a charter by Austasia Airlines, owned by a Christmas Island businessman who was on board the plane. I believe this is the airlines only flight. We are told he is losing money big time - today the plane was not a quarter full. The islanders really like the flight to Bali as prices are much cheaper and the weight restrictions more relaxed than on the only other flight off the island, to Perth. The problem is that there is very little tourism on the island, and not enough locals to support the flight.

Christmas Island has a population of about 1,500 people, so we didn't expect the problems we previously had at Australian entry points - but we were wrong. Even with the few people on board the immigration proceedings took over an hour. For some reason the officials didn't like Tim's passport so he was taken aside while his passport disappeared into an internal office for further checking. I was given a slightly lighter third degree and my baggage checked carefully. Tim was eventually cleared, and we met the long suffering car rental and hotel people who had been waiting for us all this time.

Like the rest of Australia, driving is on the left. The last country I was in where cars were driven on the right side of the road was the Marshall Island. We had been assigned our hotel rooms at the Sunset Inn at the airport and the car rental formalities were quickly dealt with, so away we went. The only thing we neglected to ask is where the hotel was!

Navigating on dead reckoning (we had the name of the area the hotel was in from the voucher) we thought we were close, but couldn't find the place. We pulled into a large bulk loading terminal where Tim got out to ask directions. He came back to the car laughing - Dennis, the fellow he asked for directions, was running our hotel. He and his wife Angie, who met us at the airport, were looking after it while their son was on vacation. We were within a few blocks of the place so we followed Dennis and were soon in our comfortable rooms. Businesses here are not clearly marked, as it is expected that everyone knows where they are.

Once settled in, we headed next door to the Golden Bosun, a quite good pub. A few beer and enormous steak that neither of us could get through finished us off for the night.