I could hardly dare believe it, but just as promised, I was reunited with my bike this morning.
Rob’s loaned CB150 had a good thorough ($1) wash yesterday. This morning I filled it with fuel, and headed in to Rob’s offices.
I took a quick stop en route to return a purchase that wasn’t right, and the CB wouldn’t start! I’d had a bit of trouble over the weeks, but none this bad. I didn’t even have time to stop and ponder before a group of local young men pulled up out of nowhere and just took over. They were clearly mechanically minded, unlike yours truly, and had spanners and screwdrivers unleashed on the Honda before you could say boo to a goose. They didn’t even speak English, and so couldn’t ask me about the problem or tell me what they were up to. When they had cables pulled out of the engine and took to them with scissors, all I could do was sit back and hope. Somehow these blokes felt a good bet. Within 5 or max 10 minutes they put everything back together again, and got it started. I still don’t know what was wrong and what was fixed, but I’m in equal parts grateful and bemused. We took the always-required photos, parted ways, and will almost certainly never see each other again. It was brief, extremely helpful, very strange, and a great demonstration of human generosity and kindness. What possessed them to help and take over I’ll never know.
A few minutes later I rolled into Rob’s offices, delivered the bike, and then walked the short path to ANL’s place. My gleaming, beaming “Beemer” (BMW) had just that moment rolled out of the container and sat there waiting for me, smiling at me, calling to me like a long-lost friend. Oh what a feeling! (No, sorry – that’s the wrong jingo. Anyway I’m sure Toyota must have stolen it from this moment.)
There was of course more messing around with process and paperwork, all of which seemed nonsensical to me. But the long and the short of it was that I rode over on the CB150 and rode back on my GSA800.
I’ve made contact with Indonesia ahead of the border crossing, as required for the “CPD” which enables me to ride my bike in without incurring import duty. I’ve decided I’ll head to the Timor Leste exclave Oecussi, which is nested on the northern border of Indonesia’s West Timor. That requires a ferry, which departs this Friday afternoon. My GSA and I will hopefully be on that boat. Then we’ll exit Timor Leste into Indonesia through the very regional border Oesilo, apparently the most regional border post.
Once I’m through to Indonesia I’ll ride to Kupang, and take a ferry across to Flores. Island hopping will be my world for the next little while, until I get to either Malaysia or Thailand. I’ll be fascinated to see how long that all takes, with the ferry schedules probably dictating much of the rate of travel.
Ride on…!