Flight postponement and preponement

This is my first day with semi-decent internet in over two weeks. Internet was too expensive in Australia and too slow in Timor Leste. I had admin mounting up so I cleared the backlog in a swift half hour.

Then I saw Jetstar had a sale; they had flights from Auckland to Kuala Lumpur for around NZD400 in economy and NZD650 for Business. This could form part of my journey to Sudan next year. I managed to get the Business deal for as it included meals and baggage which would mean that the difference was less than NZD170.

I then (for no apparent reason) decided to retrieve my flight booking on Merpati’s website. Yesterday they had emailed me to advise that my flight today to Alor had been rescheduled from the original time of 1pm to 3pm (with a couple of reschedules in the last few weeks). I was shocked to see that it had been rescheduled to 12 noon, after only been told it was 3pm yesterday.

After a breakfast of mi bakso, I taxied to the airport to check-in just over an hour before departure. As it turned out the flight was delayed and we left at the original time of 1pm. It had come a full circle; after several postponements my flight had been preponed (as they say in India).

Coming in to land at Alor, I could see how beautiful the water was. I hopped on an ojek (motorcycle taxi) to take me to Alor Kecil. This is the first time I recall being on an ojek without a helmet; this must be really rural! The 40 minute (about USD5) journey took me through the town centre of Kalabahi before passing through the lush countryside. I had wrongly expected this region to be very dry and brown like Flores.

In Alor Kecil, I had to charter a boat for about USD5 (double the recommended price) to cross the water to Pulau Kepa. It took about the whole of 2 minutes across the tiny strait which was ripping with currents. It looked like a river that was flowing in both directions, changing directions several times during the short crossing. It’s not going to be the kind of place I’d like to go swimming in even though it looked really flat and calm.

It was a short walk to La Petite Kepa, my home for four nights.