We got up this morning very early because we do not want to arrive too late in Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste. Because of the presence of a huge UN-force and many NGO’s, it seems to be quite difficult to find a room for a normal price. At 06.30 in the morning, we take an ojek (motorcycle taxi) for the thirty minutes drive to the small village of Motoain at the border with Timor-Leste. The ride is beautiful and takes us through forested hills and small villages. The school kids are already on their way to school, but still take the time to wave and yell to us. “Hello Mister” and “Hello Miss” is what we hear when we drive with our motorcycle through the villages. Also the older villagers start smiling when they see two “Booleh’s” (Indonesian for ‘white skins’) with big backpacks uncomfortable on the back of a motorcycle. At a little bit past seven we arrive at the desolated border crossing. The border crossing is also a small military base, but if we look at the activities that are going on, they do not expect a lot of border hostilities on the short term. We only see a couple of pigs and sheep and a cleaner who is mopping the immigration office. “The border opens at nine o’clock” is what he assures us. We take of our backpacks, sit down and see how the border crossing and military base comes alive slowly.

After half an hour, two young Indonesian soldiers join us to practice their English. They are from the island of Lombok and are sent by the army to this remote border crossing for a year, far away from family and friends. We talk about all kind of things and at a little past eight, we are lucky. The immigration officer decided to open his immigration office a little bit earlier, so that we can proceed with our journey to Dili. We get the necessary stamps, shake hands with the soldiers and leave Indonesian territory. It is a three hundred meter walk to the border post of Timor-Lest. In between the border posts, money exchangers try to convince us to exchange Indonesian Rupiahs for American Dollars, which is also the official currency of Timor-Leste. At the immigration of Timor-Leste we fill in the necessary papers after which the visa is stamped in our passport. At first they wanted to give us only a visa for fourteen days, but after some whining, begging and telling them that fourteen days is absolutely not enough to see their beautiful country, they gave us thirty days.

We are amazed to see that the bus first drives to the border crossing to drop some passengers. If we had known this, we could have waited at the border and enjoy a cold soft drink in anticipation of the bus. But after this short diversion, the bus starts driving in the direction of Dili. The journey is tiring and very slowly. The trip of a little bit more than a hundred kilometres takes more than four and a half hours. It feels like the bus is stopping every couple of minutes to pick up or drop passengers and their baggage. And with baggage, we do not mean just a backpack or a travel case. With baggage we mean bags of rice, boxes of oranges, piles of fire wood and sacks of vegetables. But the other bus passengers really don’t care because they know that one day, they will be next to the road themselves with their piles of baggage, hoping for a accommodating driver who wants to take them. But it is not only bad luck we have. After one hour of driving and stopping, the radio of the bus breaks down. Despite all efforts of the driver, including the licking of the tapes just before he puts them in the cassette player, they radio doesn’t start playing anymore, which eventually saves our eardrums. Dili, here we come!