Above: Typical scene on the way to the border.
The minibus picked me up at 0845, a little later than the time I had been given. I had been waiting since 0800 as I’ve had early pickups as well; one never knows as they go around town collecting their prebooked customers.We headed west on the windy coast road which got very hilly later. We had to pass a landslide that was being cleared.
Four hours later we arrived at the border. At the Timor Leste checkpoint, boys offered to fill in the departure cards for USD1 as it was in English, Portuguese and Tetum with no Indonesian. All the passengers were Indo apart from me and on East Timorese (Timor Lestese?).
We hopped back into the van which took us trough to the end of “no man’s land” where we hopped off and walked into the Indo checkpoint.
There were lots of kids offering to help with formalities, money changing and porterage for a fee. The formalities consisted firstly of the health department questioning, followed by immigration, customs then the local authorities.The immigration officers asked whether I wanted to use my visa which I had got (for a fee) in Wellington as this Atambua checkpoint isn’t a visa-free entry point (according to all official sources, including the embassy and IATA’s Timatic database). They said that I didn’t need a visa as I’m an ASEAN national.
Anyway, I was happy to have paid for the visa as I could have been denied boarding out of Darwin if AirNorth had been picky … without it, they could have argued that I didn’t have the right documents to leave Timor Leste.
We cleared all formalities on both sides in thirty speedy minutes. We had a new van and driver on the Indo side.
We called into their Atambua depot and had lunch nearby. In Atambua itself I saw a memorial to the war heroes that died in Operation Seroja (the invasion of East Timor). In another town I as a relief mural with paratroopers, tanks, gunships and lots of explosions. While the two countries are on more than friendly terms, Indonesia hasn’t white-washed the past!
Corpse carrier on the Indonesian side. Operated by a tour company. The departed want to see the world too!
The journey to Kupang took us through the lush central highlands, which was a stark contrast to the dry bits of Timor Leste which I had seen. With a 1 hour time difference, the sun set far too early on the West Timor side. It was getting dark aroud 1730.
At around 2100, some 13h15 after being picked up, I was dropped off at Evergreen Homestay. I was the last person to be dropped off and I had to endure circling the city for about an hour with other drop offs.
The roads in West Timor, Indonesia are so smooth and litter-free. The internet is fast too! All relative to Timor Leste though!
Further I feel like a Sultan here! The local word for “I” is “beta”. Where I come from, that is used only by royalty. I think I’m going to make full use of it during my stay!