Kupang, Timor was a shock, but that was nothing to what we were going to experience. it was hot, dusty and falling down. No repairs and maintenence here, and no repairs after a tsunami some years ago.
The people are very welcoming, smiling faces, helpful and delightful. We feel very safe and I do not fear for anything on the boat, we never lock up, nor worry about the dinghy and outboard on the beach. pretty amazing really when you realise that they have nothing!! A school teacher here earns US$10 a month plus a "house" if you can call it that!! plus some living allowance. If you get lucky and score a government job...which usuallhy entails just being good at banging a rubber stamp on an ink-pad and stamping everything you see...you get US$100 a month, but no house or allowance.
The Government of Indonesia sponsored this Rally and has done so for the last 10 years or so to assist in the promotoion of the area as good for tourism..and to get the locals to think in terms of tourism. It has had partial success as there are agencies and dive trips etc, but as my mate Earl says probably the hardest job in the world would be to the tourist promotion officer for the area! But if it has nothing else, it has great weather, warm days, cool evenings, beautiful people and good diving and snorkeling waters. Its not all bad..but the rubbish and the locals' attitude to rubbish is what needs to change, and urgently! Perhaps they also need to adopt our noise control laws as the mosques start their moaning at 4 am!! This is even though muslems are in the minority in these eastern islands!!Anna wanted to get up in competition with Ave Maria or Amazing Grace at a louder volume and start ahead of them at 3am..but she couldn't get up in time! Maybe the solution for her is to cut the speaker wires!
We experienced some cultural shows, a cruisers' banquet and throughly enjoyed our few days at Kupang, before we sailed down to Roti and the town of Baa..about 50 miles south of Kupang. Well this was worse! The next day we left and sailed 150 miles to Alor and the town of Lambata. Again more cultural shows and another banquet provided by the local government regent. Its a bit emabrrassing to have all these poor smiling people standing around watching the westerners eating at their expense while they watch on, probably hungry! Anyway, it would be churlish and rude to have boycotted the hospitality of the locals so we joined in with gusto and thoroughly enjoyed it. As it happens, the locals enjoy seeing us enjoying it so everyone was happy!
We rented a 6 seater and did some trips around, including a snorkel trip to the western coast and a cultural village where the life style is still as it was thousands of years ago!
We left Lambata and sailed to a lovely anchorage and found a little sand cay upon which the cruisers or some of us, as there were 110 boats in the Rally but everyone had their own pace and agenda so there about a core of 25 boats travelling roughly at about the same time so we had sometimes 4 or 5 boats, or maybe 10 boats but at the main designated spots we had as many as 25 boats..so we got together at times, and on this sand cay was one time for a sundown drinks and BBQ. Fanatastic.We have made many friends and learnt alot from their years of travelling..some have been cruising for 10 or 11 years. There is a diversity of personalities and types of vessel and attitudes..so its fun.
Our next stop was Larantuka, on the eastern end of Flores, where we celebrated Anna's birthday..which did seem to go on and on!! Anyway it was a great day, and evening and I know she enjoyed having Murray, Lynn, Earl and Jo to celebrate it with her. We went ashore to a local restaurant and had a trmendous dinner of bbq fish, nasi goreng, ayam (chicken) and of course, our sommelier, the one and only Earl of the Wine Store, kept us up to the daily allocation, and we had that ashore with us. The local wines are not much, in fact even worse than that! so we were lucky that the Earl of the Grog Locker took the job to hand and fully stocked us at Darwin, and more! We are still in surplus supplies today but without his lead, struggling to keep up to the daily allocation!!
We next headed around to Maumere, with couple days travelling and just stopping at nice anchorages at night. In some anchorages there was a village and we would go ashore...to find that as they were off the beaten track, they had even less!..and in some we were alone and just swam and enjoyed the amazing land forms of the north coast of Flores Island. Nearly everywhere as we anchored, someone would paddle towards us with pearls, carvings, fruit or fish to sell. It was a bit much sometimes as after the first, there would be a procession of them offering their wares, and we felt bad just saying "no" all the time..so the boat is just about sinking under the strain of Anna's purchases! You can all expect a variety of Indonessian handicrafts for your next birthdays, anniversaries, funerals and weddings! We need to get rid of them somewhere!
From Maumere we organised a 6 seater into which we put the six of us and the driver and the luggage for Earl and Jo, and Murray and Lynn and headed off towards the Kalimutu area of the three Craters in the middle of Flores. It was a great and interesting trip.. as we climed higher into the centre of the island the air changed, the vegetation changed from grey and dusty land to green grass and plantations, and indeed large areas of rice paddy fields! We had lunch at Moni, where the other 4 booked to stay the night and then we all proceeded up the volcano. Really quite spectacular. The three different coloured lakes and the clossal area of the crater. It must have been a huge explosion to blast so much of the earth away. Anyway after that..we had to say good bye to our crew mates for the last month and Anna and I headed home while Earl and Jo, Murray and Lynn headed the next morning to Ende on Flores, then Denpasar, then Earl and Jo off to London, and Murray and Lynn back to New Zealand. It has been a great experience and a great time..we will miss them.
