Chapter I Western Timor

December 2023 was very different than any other holiday season I remember. I didn’t prepare Christmas tree or any other decorations at all, there was no comfort food I would usually eat at this time of the year. Instead of having eggnog near the cozy fireplace, I found myself on a bike on a dirt road in the middle of a tropical jungle, trying to find my way to meet the king of Bomi – one of the last secluded tribes living in the western part of the Timor island.

I arrived at Kupang, the main airport of the island. As I was leaving the terminal, I witnessed mamy families greeting their family members with a handshake and a gentle touch of their foreheads. The first thing that stroke me was right outside the exit gate. I was used to the hoards of taxi drivers trying to catch attention of passengers by screaming “Yes, mister, yes, taxi, taxi!”. Hoarding them off was a ritual on every Indonesian airport I visited so far, but Kupang was different. There were no drivers waiting for disoriented passengers, no one shouting they have the best fare.

I didn’t have any transport from the airport organised, and I opted for using the public bus to get to the city center.

I didn’t have any transport from the airport organised, and I opted for using the public transportation to get to the city center. As my Timor guide, Aka, instructed me in a detailed message he left me some days before, my best chance to catch a bemo (a local minibus) was to walk outside of the airport gate to the nearest roundabout. I asked at the airport for the directions, and people working there were shocked I am trying to go on such a difficult trek. “Mister, you will have to walk a lot and will be very tired, it’s about 15 minutes walk!” they warned me. I decided to go anyways, and as I was walking the view of a guy with a backpack on the side of the road provoked many passing-by drivers to honk at me, at times stopping to offer me a ride.

One motor driver stopped some 20 meters in front of me and as I was getting closer and closer to him I could see him quickly typing something on his phone. He then showed m a translation app with a series of questions, with a visible concern on his face: Where am I from? Where am I going? Do I need a ride?. It wasn’t a far walk, so I thanked him and continued this excruciating, nearly 1 km long walk to the bemo stop.

---

When the minibus arrived I got struck by two things. First, how colourful the machines are, with multiple stickers and neon-coloured accessories glued to their wheels, sides and exaggerated spoilers. Second, how loud the local taste in music was. Every bus in Timor I took since this moment had the local music playing painfully loud, to the level where I had to use my noice-cancelling earphones to avoid a serious headache. Usually it was an absolutely worst genre of Indonesian disco, sounding more like a midi track than a music recording.

After less than 15 min ride I arrived in Oesapa, a district of Kupang where the intercity buses started their routes. I was looking for Keraton bus that was going to take me directly to Kefamenanu, a town where I was going to meet my guide the next day. I asked for directions on a nearby police station, which was a military-style tent setup in the middle of a roundabout, and after receiving a couple of contradictory indications finally found the bus I was looking for.

Most buses in Timor do not have a fixed timetable, instead they wait until they are full before departure. I was really lucky on that day because I was the last passenger they were looking for, and very soon after I boarded, the bus started.

When traveling by public transportation in Timor you should not expect much comfort. The buses are quite old and not very well maintained, seats are usually just a simple bench with minimal padding. Do not expect AC, which in the tropical heat would be very useful. This may not be too much of a deal when traveling on a short route, but is worth having in mind before boarding on a multiple-hours long journey. Apart from the driver, every bus and bemo has a helper, usually a young boy supporting the driver by looking for a potential passengers waiting on the side of the road, signalling when someone wants to off board and managing the payment that happens at every passenger’s destination.

The bus was full of people and luggage, I was seated at the very end of it, next to four other passengers. To the despair of others, the helper made everybody move a little so I can squeeze in. I sat down between a girl in her 20s and an older man, and I was clearly the only person concerned that he was being pushed against the window by too many people seating at our bench. I had to move my legs to the side because the aisle in front of us was used for the luggage.

Multiple suitcases, cardboard boxes, and colourful, tightly tied shopping bags were stacked one on another and when we started driving I was surprised to notice that they moved around rather freely with every little turn we took.

We were going rather fast on a narrow road, with the engine constantly sounding like it was being at the end of its possibilities — the driver clearly was pushing it to the limits. Seated in front of me there was a family of four, two adults and two children, crammed into a space designed for just two people. Kids in their early teens sat on parents’ laps and for the first half an hour repeatedly moved from side to side trying to find a more comfortable position. Less than ideal situation for a nine-hour-long trip to Kefamenanu.

Sidenote: In many parts of Indonesia you don’t express distances in kilometers, but in time required to travel. This way you can account for the quality of the road, which can multiply the time when not well maintained, and the way of the transportation you choose. Naturally, the same distance, depending on a traffic and amount of stops, in bemo can take more than twice as much as on a scooter.

The helper’s role didn’t end when the bus started, even though the bus was full and there were no more seats to sell. He traveled in the frame the rear-end doors that were kept open during the whole trip. Safety was definitely not a priority, as his body was mostly outside of the bus, feet on the very edge of the step, hands holding to the sliding door that were not hatched and constantly sliding back and forth trying to close and lock in place. When we were passing a village, he would shout the name of our destination to the people on the side of the road expecting to get some additional passengers. Occasionally, when his arms got tired from holding the constantly moving doors, he would use the ladder on the outside of the bus to climb up to the roof, where part of the luggage was stored. The most impressive was the fact that he did all of this when the bus was moving, and in flip flops at least two sizes too big.

We were traveling along the Trans-Timor highway, a recently opened road connecting the Indonesian part of the island, Timor Barat, with the country of Timor Leste occupying its eastern part. The road was narrow and going mostly through dense forest of palm trees and banana plants. When the greenery was getting less dense, it did not look like other parts of Indonesia I knew. There was something different about what I saw there and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Later I learned about the Wallace’s Line, which divides the fauna and flora that is typical to Asia, to fauna and flora that is typical to Australia and Oceania. On the western side of this imaginary line we have rhinos, elephants and coconut trees; on the eastern side we have kangaroos, koala bears and baobab trees. This tectonic barrier cuts Indonesia more or less in the middle, exactly between Bali and Lombok. Timor is well on the Australian-Oceanian side and it is very visible when observing the local greenery. This also explains the anthropomorphic differences you can observe passing villages – darker skin tones, rounder faces with big, flat noses and strong eyebrows more akin to native Aborigens than people of Java or Sumatra. Timorese also do not call their forest a jungle, as locals do on other islands, but rather a bush – just like Australians.

During the whole trip our driver was playing local dance music so loud that many passengers inadvertently were squinting their eyes. The low tones were physically moving the windows to the rhythm, just like the side panels of the bus and every other flat surface that could resonate to the beat. After hitting one of the road bumps the low tones stopped working, as if some cable disconnected from the speaker, and the music changed from painfully unbearable to just very, very loud. The driver got very concerned about it and we quickly made an unplanned stop to fix it.

He got his screwdriver out, opened the cover of the central console of the bus and we waited patiently, parked on the side of the road, as he was trying to look for the cable that did disconnect connect. To the demise of the passengers he found it, and in about 15 minutes we were back on the road. The exact same situation happened at least twice more, and music not being loud enough was only one of the many reasons to stop.

During the whole trip we stopped every 10 or 15 minutes. Passengers were hopping on and off the bus, the driver needed to buy a bottle of Coke and some cigarettes, a kid needed to pee. On some stops at the major crossroads, there were food stalls next to the road selling fresh fruit, crisps, and boiled corn. Every time we stopped, the helper placed two bricks under one of the bus’ wheels, so we wouldn’t roll down and crush into a tree.

My flight earlier that day got delayed by a couple of hours and it made me take the last leg of the travel, this very bus, way later than I planned to. It also meant that the majority of the nine hours ride would be after the sunset, which was against my rules of safety when travelling in the rural areas. The sunset was very photogenic, as we witnessed it against the backdrop of a picturesque bridge on a river we were crossing. The helper climbed down from the roof to make sure that I made a picture and will show everybody in my country how beautiful Timor is.

We soon started driving in a complete darkness. The road was not lit at all, and the driver didn’t change at all his driving style. We were still going at the full speed, announcing our presence with a loud honking before every one of thousands of tight turns. The driver was betting the vehicles coming from the other direction would be smaller, or at least less courageous than him, and somehow manage to skid to the side of the road making space for us to pass. It did happen, sometimes at the very last moment. Sometimes we had to slow down almost to a full stop, because the road was partially collapsed and was getting so narrow that hardly one car could pass through.

The worsening visibility made me feel deeply uncomfortable, and I started checking Google Maps to see how much of the route we have still to go. After what felt like an eternity, I was surprised to see that so far we travelled les than a third of the route and next seven hours – or more – would be in a complete darkness. I started quickly calculating a plan B in my head, or how to get out of this situation that was getting less comfortable by the minute. I figured out that the solution giving me the highest chances of still being alive in the morning was getting off the bus in Soe, the next town we were going to pass on our way. I didn’t have any hotel reservation I would miss by changing the plan anyways, and I thought that looking for a hotel room at 10 p.m. in Soe will be easier than looking for a hotel room at 3 a.m. in Kefamenanu. In any of those places there are no hotels available on any major room booking platform, so as we were getting closer to my new destination I was checking the few Google Maps reviews of the few hotels that were available. It was difficult to find anything with semi-decent reviews, I got limited to a couple of equally unpleasant options.

As I was texting Aka about the change of plans, the bus suddenly slowed down. There was a long traffic jam ahead, not something anyone expected to see on this rather scarcely used road. For some minutes we were moving very slowly and then we came to a complete stop for a quite long time. During all of this we were not sure what caused the jam, but we saw no cars coming from the other direction – a clear indication that the road ahead is blocked. I welcomed this opportunity to get off the bus for a moment and stop hearing the music that was still playing from the bus speakers. After about half an hour of us hanging out in the middle of the bush lit only by neon lights of the bus, and sharing boiled corn some of the passengers bought on one of the stops, we started seeing some scooters coming from the direction of the roadblock. They explained that a coconut tree fell down blocking both lanes. Now we were waiting for the team with a motor saw from the nearest town. “It can take some time, mister…” the helper concluded offering me a cigarette.

As the sun was not warming us up, other passengers started dressing up in padded jackets and winter hats expressing a dose of surprise that I am still in shorts and with my sleeves up. It was 30°C this evening.

After another hour we started moving again, first slowly and then at a full speed again. What I thought would force the driver to drive slower than before, made him go even crazier. As we were seriously delayed he felt the need to speed even more and go into more risky manoeuvres. I was really happy about my decision to continue only for one more hour.

When I got to Soe I paid the helper and went looking for a hotel. The 6h route of about 100 km cost less than 2$.

I didn’t have any reservation for my stay in Timor. The hotels and home stays do not advertise on Booking.com nor Airbnb, so booking a room in advance was not an option. The only way to find a place to spend a night was simply by getting to the main road of the town, and walk from door to door trying to find a hotel that would have vacancy. I got lucky on that night, because the first hotel I approached accepted me without any problem. Maybe December 24th just isn’t a very busy season on this island.

I approached the XYZ Hotel and after waking up the receptionist from his nap – night shifts must have been boring as hell – I got the keys to my room. The standard room was a quite spacious, but simple room with a bed and a chair. Hot water in the bathroom depended on the time of the day. I opted for a more luxurious variant, and checked into a deluxe room – same size, but with a nicer bedding, towels and a must-have AC. After such a long trip that ended in a town I never intended to visit I couldn’t care less, all I needed was a couple of hours of sleep.

We met with Aka the next morning at Nomi-Nomi junction. I took a public bemo to get there, he arrived on a bus from Kefamenanu. A quick handshake and little small talk about our families and my time in Indonesia. He told me we need to buy some offerings for the royal family, and then I realised that my Western mind makes me ask very Western questions.

— How long will be the ride to the village? How much offerings should we get? Will we get back before the sunset?

— About 2 hours. Yes this will be enough. Yes we will get back in time. It’s okay, mister, we will make it.

My upbringing in Europe taught me to constantly try to be in control of time, be aware of the resources, try to avoid waste at all cost. Building a sense of safety on an illusion of control over the uncontrollable.