Author archive
30 June 2013
Day 2 Diving Experience Today, both dives were muck dives in order to avoid strong currents due to the lunar perigee and recent full moon. That’s quite an irony to be doing muck dives when the waters around Alor are very clear. The first dive was Pertamina, just of the pier where fuel is shipped […]
29 June 2013
I did two days of diving with alor-diving.com based at La Petite Kepa. Their normal routine is 2 dives per day, leaving on their boat around 0730 and returning around 1330. Dives are EUR33 with all equipment. Day 1 Diving Experience First dive was at Abila Pura where the current was strong. I got separated […]
29 June 2013
My home for four nights in Alor (well, just off Alor island) is La Petite Kepa, a collection of huts by the sea on Pulau Kepa which is just off the village of Alor Kecil. It is a very rustic place; most walls (where they exist) are matting material and roofs are grass (except for […]
28 June 2013
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 […]
27 June 2013
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 […]
26 June 2013
Above: There weren’t any four-legged passengers today but not all two-legged ones need a seat. Heading back to Dili The weather wasn’t warm enough for me to try out the spring-fed swimming pool. So I hopped on the mikrolet to take me to Kota Baru (new town) to catch the bus back to Dili. Despite […]
25 June 2013
Paolo and I shared a ride with some others in a taxi to the bus station by the beach, to take the bus to Baucau. We waited on the bus for about half hour for it to fill and finally set off around 0915. This was a proper bus rather than truck and the road […]
24 June 2013
Sarah and I had breakfast of bread rolls and coffee before walking to the market where we boarded an angguna which departed immediately. The ride took 4h15 like the journey up. The difference was that it started raining halfway down and the roads turned to mud. I hadn’t even noticed yesterday that they were unsealed. […]
23 June 2013
I wanted to go to Maubisse to see a bit of the Timor Leste highlands. Sarah, Anton and Paolo had the same idea so we shared a taxi to the angguna (truck with bench seats down the side) station near the Halilarang market. We were lucky to get an angguna immediately but all the bench […]
22 June 2013
I woke to the sound of falling rain. It was bucketing down. It was also the day of the Dili Marathon and our boat trip to Atauro, a nearby island that’s supposed to be great for snorkelling and diving. Incidentally, it is largely Protestant (like Indonesian Christians) rather than Catholics like East Timorese. I decided […]