East Timor, the mountains
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2009
1
23
Trip End
Sep 11, 2010
Maubisse, Timor-Leste
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
I chose the inland route for my second adventure, an adventure that would best be described as brief. You see, in typical unprepared fashion, there were a few things I didn’t consider. First, it was the rainy season and I had no rain gear. Second, the road I had chosen frequently gave way to oversized potholes, undersized shoulders adjacent to steep dropoffs, and sometimes just outright disappeared. Third, I was on a scooter, which left me fully at the mercy of the first two things.
So I set out from Dili toward the looming mountain range behind it with a nervous eye on the blanket of fog that hovered at around 1,000 ft, obscuring the upper half of the range from view. As I ascended, the ominous feeling that I had as I approached the cloud line soon gave way to a very real feeling of me getting completely drenched in a downpour of rain once I got there. Some of you may be thinking ’a little water never hurt anyone’ or even ’when life hands you lemons make lemonade.‘ Well let me just tell you, there is no lemonade to be had when you are hurling yourself into a tropical downpour on a scooter, fully exposed, wearing clothes that are not waterproof, carrying everything you own on your back in a bag that has a similar lack of resistance to water, all while trying to navigate a twisty road on two pieces of rubber, while your odometer smugly reporting that you have managed to cover only 15km of the 70km journey.
Realizing the hopelessness of my situation I pulled off and took shelter under the awning of a local’s porch. It turned out that my timing was accidentally very good, as within minutes a deluge swept down the hill and inundated the entire roadway in several inches of swiftly moving water. At this point all I could do is wait. So I shared my bread with others on the porch and waited. An hour or two later the rain slowed and the road became visible again, so I decided to resume my journey. What I didn’t realize is that rain often lets up only long enough for you to gain a false sense of confidence, and then as soon as you have put yourself into a position of vulnerability it resumes again with no feelings of guilt whatsoever. Feeling defeated and realizing that the rain was only getting worse as I gained elevation, I retreated and made my way back down the mountain. Arriving back at the hostel forced me to reconcile with the fact that my entire road trip had lasted about four hours and consisted of me packing up all of my belongings, going outside and getting completely wet, then coming back and unpacking everything so I could hang it around the hostel to dry.
Later on in the week, after a more successful scooter trip along the coast where the rain is less frequent, I decided to attempt the inland journey again, though this time I was a bit smarter about it and decided to take a bus. When I say a bit smarter, what I mean is that I was busy patting myself on the back for my good decision while ignoring the fact that I had placed myself into a situation equally precarious to being on two wheels. You see, what is called a bus in East Timor has a slightly different name in America. In America we actually call it “a small flat bed truck in which four lucky souls get to sit in the cab leaving 35 others to share the bed of the truck with several hundred pounds of bagged rice, three large canisters of unidentified liquid, some woven baskets and other handicraft, and a small gathering of live chickens”. In case the exact number of people got lost among all the other nouns in that sentence, let me just repeat that it was 35.
There were wooden benches along each side of the truck bed facing the center which offered some passengers a place to sit. I assumed a place standing unevenly on a bag of rice in the center. There was nothing ostensibly unusual about this spot, except that it turned out to be the place where someone threw up around the 20th minute. On my leg. It was a four hour journey. I was unphased.
Near the end of the second hour we stopped for a restroom break. Only, we had stopped in the middle of nowhere, so you just had to pie behind a tree. For the second half of the journey I stood on the rear bumper and hung on to a metal cage around the bed. Though a bit more precarious, it felt a bit less claustrophobic which was nice, and was out of range of any further projectile vomiting.
Eventually, we arrived at our destination. You’ll forgive me for writing so much about the journey and not so much about what actually happened when we got there. You see, there isn’t really anything to do in Maubisse except to exist, which I guess is what I had expected. The town of Maubisse is a small mountain enclave near the center of the country that is nestled into a valley about 3 kilometers across. The hotel I stayed at was clearly the nicest building in town and was perched on top of a small hill in the center of the valley, so it afforded wonderful 360 degree views of the area. I can’t really recall exactly what I did during my three days in town other than wander around, read, and stare. I was joined on this journey by an American photo journalist based in Thailand who was there for a story on economic development in East Timor, so we spent some time searching out authentic photo opportunities. In this aspect, Maubisse provided ample opportunity, as the town is quite beautiful and relatively untouched by modernity.
I do recall eating the same meal for the duration of my stay, mostly because there was only one restaurant in town and it only had one thing to eat. Their dish, predictably, was fried rice occasionally embellished with chicken or an egg. Actually we were provided with a complimentary breakfast of bread rolls and pineapple jam by our hotel. Comically, I came to realize by the end of my time in East Timor that this was the exact same complimentary breakfast served by almost every hotel and/or guesthouse in the country. From this I deduced that there was only one manufacturer (or possibly importer) of bread rolls and pineapple jam in East Timor, and that they maintained a lucrative monopoly over the breakfast meal on this island. On reflection, they must have been an importer, as the rolls were far from fresh baked.
Maubisse also happened to be the place where I spent New Years Eve. Like Thanksgiving and Christmas before it, along with most any holidays that occur when you’re on the road, this one passed without much notice. Its funny to realize that all of your favorite days don’t seem to matter much in the rest of the world. Anyway, my traveling companion and I found a roadside shop that sold warm beer, so we bought a sixer and drank back at the hotel. I’m pretty sure I was asleep by 11pm. In my defense, there was no power at night so it felt a lot later. And really, there are practical limits to how hard you can party when you are sharing a hotel room with another white guy in the middle of nowhere. Welcome 2010.
In fact, there was no power for most of the day either. The situation with utilities was actually quite humorous. The town was partially grid connected; it was just a local grid that was powered by a generator in the middle of town. It typically ran for a few hours in the evening providing the residents with light and cooking capabilities for dinner. The hotel wasn’t connected to the grid but had its own generator, which potentially could have meant more reliable power, but in practice they only turned it on sporadically. This of course also meant no running water, as the water has to be pumped. On top of this, the water supply valve to our room was closed most of the time anyway, for reasons I never quite figured out. If you were lucky enough to find someone who actually worked on the grounds, they either couldn’t speak English or weren’t able to offer any insight into the puzzling utility situation or predict when power and/or water would be available, as if utilities were controlled by some mysterious man behind the curtain. So, in the end, I was never able to time up being at the hotel when both were functioning, which meant no shower for the three days I was there. Which, in a tropical climate, is not ideal.
All told though, it was an good trip. It was nice to see what life is like in a relatively isolated area. You realize how little it takes to be happy; these people can’t rely on posh surroundings and amenities for comfort and entertainment. They spend most of their time around the same people, engaged in simple activities, and it seems to be enough. It reminded me of a good quote I once heard in a bad movie, in which a small town country man with an ostensibly simple and uninteresting life is asked whether he is happy:
“You ask a serious question, I'll give you a serious answer. I’m happy enough. I don't expect much. I don't get much, I don't give much. I generally enjoy whatever comes along. That's my answer for you, I'm happy enough.”
And that is sort of the same vibe I get from these people. I don’t meant to suggest that the Timorese people live a less meaningful life or that they are settling for something. I only mean to suggest that they ‘don’t expect much’ in the sense of possessions and materials, and that despite lacking the things that a lot of people rely on to keep them out of boredom, they seem to be happy. Which is really cool to see.
Please check back next time for more stories from Asia,
Thomas
