Beyond Dili

I’ve got a bike!

No – mine hasn’t arrived yet, and has suffered even more transit delays (grrr!) – but the borrowed Honda has been just wonderful to get around on my own agenda and at my own pace.  Just the simplicity of stopping for photos has been a real freedom.

I took a day just riding around Dili to make sure the bike is reliable-ish.  Sure it has soft front and rear brakes, a noise in the clutch, acceleration of a slug, absolutely zero bone-jarring suspension, no horn and usually no indicators… but otherwise my trusty CB150 seems bullet proof and great to ride.

Riding out towards the Cristo Rei statue, I stopped at random for a bite of late lunch, and discovered that the cafe was owned by one Melbournian and managed by another!  A simple BLT sandwich was refreshing after a steady diet of chicken and rice, and the beach was so very peaceful.  I even broke my “no coffee – ‘cause it’ll terrible” rule, hoping desperately for Melbourne standard coffee.  But I’m afraid that was a mistake.  Just for starters I guess they’d need to ditch the locally-available UHT and import fresh milk.  Or buy a cow.

After declaring the bike’s condition about as good as (probably even better than?) most of Dili’s transport, I took a ride the next day out to Luclubar.  A couple of hours east of Dili along the coast is a major regional town Manatuto, at which I headed due south and inland for a similar duration.  That’s about 4+ hours ride each way at the speed my borrowed bike can muster, catering for photo stops and view admiration along the way.

The last 10km of road to Laclubar is dirt track, absolutely rough as guts, and slow, slow going.  It’s quite a fun ride, although I’d much prefer to do it on my GSA than on the borrowed CB.  My BMW is designed for the rough, with suspension to match, traction control settings for dirt terrain, and a height off the ground to manage the worst pothole with aplomb.  The CB.  Well, … it’s about as simple and crude as you could imagine, and small enough to feel like a match-box toy.  The rough ride was bone jarring, glorious, exhausting, beautiful.  It was also wet with consistent downpour.  And correspondingly cold.  I’d left Dili in the typical 30 degree Celsius heat, having been warned – thanks Gilbert – that the mountains would require rugging up.  But I’m afraid I discounted that warning assuming “cold”for the Timor-acclimatised meant something like “mid twenties”.  I was wrong.  With the rain and inadequate gear, I’m not sure if the chattering teeth were due more to the rough road or shivering cold.  It didn’t take too much shine off the trip though.

On one of the two or three wrong turns, I got well and truly stuck just past a happy huddle of locals.  A few of the kids were delighted to help me push and pull my wheels out of the wet and sticky mud.  We had a bit of “conversation” helped along with lots of gesturing.  I think we were just about capable of establishing all our names – although I couldn’t pronounce them – and my Laclubar destination.  Without common language I couldn’t very well ask them about the highlights of last week or their post-school ambitions, so I took my leave and rode on… this time the correct way past that particular intersection.  Thankful that gesticulations can serve for directions where Google Maps fails.

I got to my target Laclubar without major incident.  But in the rain with no obvious place to enjoy a hot drink or rest stop, I simply turned around and headed back.  Actually, Gilbert – who’d given me the weather warning – had also told me of a great Portuguese heritage building that was worth a look and who’s custodians would welcome visitors.  That would have been a perfect shelter from the rain.  If I’d remembered.  Oh well.  It was after all the journey not the destination for which I’d come.

The road home was in most ways at least as enjoyable as the way out to Laclubar.  I was a long way from “done” with the beautiful views and the country air, and while retracing steps had the added advantage of confidence in where I was going.

But the trip home wasn’t quite wrinkle-free.

Much of the 10km dirt track to Laclubar is strewn with potholes.  These often stretch the full width of the road, leaving no option but to ride through.  They were all full of water so muddy there was absolutely zero way to know which were millimetres deep and which were… well… not.  The only guarantee is that if you ride too slowly you’ll get bogged, so you have to push on with an assertive momentum.  On the ride out I’d got my feet wet once or twice but otherwise felt pretty happy with how I’d managed these conditions.  On the way back it was mostly the same.  Mostly.  But.  Not.  Entirely.

After reviewing the GoPro footage I can see I should have taken the shorter left side of “that pothole” and not the longer right side, tricky as that would have been after the previous puddle.  Oh hindsight is such a wonderful thing!  But riding decisions seldom afford lots of options-consideration time, and that one decision was quick – and wrong.  This time that pothole swallowed the bike and me, and we lurched at the ground with a force that seemed incongruous with the circumstance.  I gashed my elbow, but was more concerned that I’d drowned the engine.  So I lost no time in righting the bike and urging it out of the water and onto solid”ish” mud of the road ahead.  No time to check the war wounds – I needed to get that engine running again quickly.  I was concerned that otherwise out in the middle of absolutely nowhere the motor would have drowned and needed a few hours to dry (in that weather?!) before it’d start.  Thankfully it didn’t miss a beat, so I rode on without delay just to make certain any muddy water was worked out of the system asap.

Only at a fresh-water crossing shortly after did I stop briefly – engine on idle – to rinse my elbow, hoping that’d be a little less germy than the stagnant, muddy pothole.  I hear that tropical climates aren’t great for open wounds.  But all was well and it didn’t bother me much on the ride home.  The days since it has been more of a problem, and with hindsight the jarring of the few hours’ rough ride home has really bruised the area.  It is still sensitive enough I’ve had to avoid (minimise) riding while it settles.  I’m hoping to be back to “normal” tomorrow or thereabouts, which will be roughly a week of recovery.  Meanwhile, retired-but-still-contracting nurse Marion insisted on tending the wound a couple times to keep it healing and infection free.  Marion and I perhaps have differing views on how much treatment is necessary, but I’m glad of having the scratch checked by someone who’s spent a lifetime looking at wounds.

I’ve also been working this last week on editing some video from my Timor time.  I find editing painstaking.  And adding the final result to YouTube even more so.  After 5 days of uploading a first Dili YouTube video, it finally errored and died late last night.  I happened to wake at 3:30amish, and checked and restarted the upload.  2-5am is the only time I get any decent upload speed.  I’ve got a second video queued to upload after that one is done.  And I’m editing a third one, from 3 hours of Laclubar GoPro footage.  After a few hours of editing I reduced the Laclubar trip to 30 mins of watchable video, only to then lose my editing work through a silly (not undoable) mistake.  It’s on today’s agenda to redo.  I’ve gotta get faster at editing (and find better internet!).  So time consuming.  I really don’t want to be sitting in front of my iPad so much while I’m here.

Church and bible study continue to be a blessing spiritually and socially.  In a foreign environment, I’ve really valued the deep sense of connection to the eternal, and a real strengthening and encouragement.  Here in Dili, circumstance has developed a natural ease in dealing with the comings and goings of strangers, each welcomed warmly into community while they’re here and – for all but a handful who stay much longer – released with blessing at the inevitable other end of their stay.

I’ve had a few administrative matters to catch up on this week.  Highest priority for yesterday was to renew my visa, which expires today.  I got to immigration shortly after opening at 9am, and it took me all morning running (riding – nursing that elbow) around Dili to get the right forms, photocopies, etc.  After the last of the associated fetch-and-carry missions, I got back to immigration with about 8 minutes to go before midday closing time, and the place was empty of customers with only security staff and two clerks still there.  Thankfully the lady with whom I’d spoken earlier was one of them.  Although I’m sure I had with me exactly what I’d been asked to supply, there was an important detail apparently still out of place.  In anticipation of such challenges I had already taken a deep breath and postured for my best warm-and-charming engagement, but this still irked.  I made my disappointment clear, hopefully still in friendly tone.  Initially my frustration was met with the expected wall of officious rules-are-rules response, but – to my absolute delight – that dissolved inscrutably into some creative solutioning only moments later.  Perhaps she wanted to get out of there (we were already past the midday closing time), and had enough humanity to step into my shoes first.  Perhaps she liked me for some reason.  I certainly liked her, after that outcome!  Regardless, my passport is now held hostage for two weeks while they process the extension.  At this stage I still think that’ll mean the visa is ready before my bike is delivered.  Oh I am looking forward to getting back on the road north.

Priority two for yesterday was a haircut and beard trim.  Super-keen to make sure we could communicate well before blades were applied to head, I was glad to find simple conversation quite easy.  So I sat, robed up, and described my barberish wishes.  It soon transpired that the conversation prior had already used up the full extent of our communication capability, but by then it was too late to beat a hasty retreat.  I’ve consequently not got the haircut I wanted and lost a few months of beard growth more than I’d intended.  Sigh.  That beard takes me sooo long to grow, and it is a key part of the blend-in strategy for this erstwhile Western professional traversing the Middle East!  At the rate my road trip is progressing, replacing that growth in time will be no problem.  I felt the US$2 price was unfair, and bargained up to $4 – despite not getting the hoped-for result.

Yesterday’s third priority had been to get a new glasses prescription and glasses.  I spent a little while scratching my head trying to remember what that was, but my forgettory was in full swing and so it remains on the list for another day.

I’m still hearing narrative that Covid vaccine status will be problematic getting into Singapore, if my bike gets here and passport is returned from immigration.  What a mess that’d be – four months to get the bike and me from Darwin to Dili and then bounced at the first border thereafter.  At this stage all I can do is try.  And perhaps try again if I’m bounced.  (And again… And…)

One way and another my days have become full, even quite busy.  Any or all of it could be culled, but it is far better having a rhythm and something to fill in the time.  I still feel achingly empty inside, to which the circumstantial busyness is a mitigating counterpoint.  My intention has been to keep a video diary of “the travels” and a written diary of “processing” grief and loss.  They’re a bit mixed up at the moment.  I’m still working on evolving towards that rhythm as (if?) I a. get a handle on my own thinking about my life, and b. learn to manage the video and other tech a bit better.

2 Comments

  • Cam

    What an adventure! Hope the elbow has stayed clean and healed. Good lesson about the portholes for when you are in the GS too. The videos are a good idea, but keep the little story’s in text form coming too. They’re easier to consume

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