Arrival in Kupang Indonesia

We are now in Kupang on the island of Timor and will be here for a few days before moving on.
Our last night of sail was a little stressful as suddenly the winds rose to 18knots—where had that been when we needed it!!
We were trying to reach the channel entrance at dawn meaning we could only go 4.5knots. At one stage I had only about 1/8 of the jib up compromising steering. In the open ocean this is not a problem but when you are surrounded by 20 boats all having the same trouble it was quite the night. We were once again in a city of navigational sail boat lights.
Dawn broke and we were all on schedule with no one having collided with anyone else and we made our way up to Kupang anchorage.
As we dropped anchor we immediately were aware we were in Asia, the noise of bemos, motor scooters and horns honking was loud even from the boat.
Shortly afterwards several small boats arrived at our boat—customs??
It turned out that we had customs and quarantine officers, there seemed to be quite a few of each and we also had attracted the large local television and newspaper contingent. All in all there were 15 people who all piled out of the boats onto ours.
It was total chaos, everyone was moving around, not only taking the TV film and official news paper pictures but they all appeared to have their own digital cameras and wanted to photograph everything. I was standing in the cockpit and one person would stand beside me and his friend would photograph us and then the friend would stand beside me and we would be photographed also. It seemed pretty funny to us but in retrospect is only what we do to them whenever we travel—our lifestyle seems as exotic to them as theirs does to us.
We were interviewed and were quick to say how happy we were to be here and looked forward to explore their interesting country. Too bad we don’t have a TV as I think we were the only boat boarded and it would have been fun to see.
As this was going on Ken was filling out forms and stamping all copies---many, many of these with our newly purchased boat stamp. We had been warned that they love stamps and to impress we should have one—good advice.
Meanwhile customs was wandering with me looking in various cupboards for any contraband items we may have. We were asked, as we had been warned, whether we had whisky and wine and although the boat was groaning with the weight of what we had left Australia with I said only one bottle. They will ask for a “gift” if they think you have enough.
There are actually no limitations on what you bring into Indonesia—that includes meat and fruit and vegetables from Australia so we will have enough fresh food for a while.
The health lady inspected a container we have with antibiotics but all in all it was all very cursory and easy.
They seemed in no hurry to leave and chatted happily to us but eventually the boats came back and picked them up and they all left.
Whew—we had been warned that if anyone is on your boat in Indonesia always be aware of where they are and what they are doing—well that rule was quickly broken!!
We launched the dingy and took it to the beach where for $4 a day they will haul it up for you, watch it all day launching it as many times as you want. There were a lot of “boat boys” who obviously wait for this opportunity every year—with approximately 60-80 dingys a day they can make a lot in the few days we are here. They also took our garbage which they quickly assessed to see what they may be able to use—plastic bottles are in high demand. We always made sure we had one or two and then no-one asked us for money. Sadly as we look around our boat we suspect a lot of it goes back into the sea.
Now was the entrance into the “customs hall”. We thought they had done everything except our passports on the boat but it turned out that we had to sit at 6 different stations all manned with officials who took yet more copies from us and gave us yet more copies. They expressed disappointment when we said we had left our boat stamp on the boat—we had not realised that there was so much more to do!! It was all very efficient and pleasant and we left with many copies of various documents we will need to have when we check out.
Next was to purchase telephone and internet SIM cards, they were set up for us to do that. The internet stick has transformed our lives and is a far cry from trying to pirate signals along the coast of Mexico. We are still not sure if they will stand the test on the smaller islands.
I needed to get Indonesian money from an ATM and was told that it was too far to walk so jumped on to the back of a motor scooter and was taken to get the money---definitely Asia!!!! It turned out, as has been our experience previously, the scooter took me to the one he knew many kilometres away whereas there was one only 5 minutes walk away. We are only able to take out the equivalent of $175 at a time and it will cost $12 each time in bank fees.
We had a beer and lunch to celebrate our arrival--$4 for a large beer and $2 50 for a regular one. Grilled prawns for $5—all is good in Kupang!!
The town consists of a main street where they sell almost everything. Motor cycles and brightly decorated bemos—the local equivalent of a bus—barrel down the street with horns blaring. The bemos seat up to 10 people and cost about 2 cents and you need the correct change. Once again we have problems keeping enough small denominations. The market for fruit and vegs was a long bemo ride away but we had enough from Australia and did not need to go.
We are anchored beside the mosque and at 5 30pm the “call for prayer” wailing began—Indonesia has the largest number of Muslims in the world and we had been warned we would be hearing this 5 times a day. It was quite exotic and fitting but not sure how we will feel about the 5am one!!
They are not fundamentalists; the women wear head coverings but complement them with “skinny” jeans.
The local bar at the beach where we landed the dinghy became the general hang out for yachties. Local sellers quickly arrived to try and sell us pearls, weavings and carvings. We are only here for a few days and they are very aware that they need to take advantage of the short window of opportunity.
We were able to fill our jerry cans with diesel for 80c a litre and bought water for $2 for 20 litres. Margaret was charged $20 for a load of laundry so we will definitely be doing our own!!
The highlight of the next day was a visit to the night market with Margaret and Will and had delicious street food—we ordered prawns and squid which were both done in a huge wok and done in a tasty spicy sauce. Will also ordered what he thought was one sate chicken stick each as well. When it arrived it was four plates with 7 sticks each—wow we ended up giving half to the 3 men who were sitting at our table. They were swimming in peanut sauce; obviously peanuts are cheaper than the chicken. I tried a fruit shake but it turned out to be a little fruit and a whole lot of condensed milk. I had asked for no ice as I was not sure of the purity of the ice making it even more sickly sweet. As a crowning touch it was topped with chocolate condensed milk—hmm didn’t know that that existed.
We did the tourist thing and took a tour starting where they milk the sap of a palm tree, much the same as the maple tree. They get a very sugary sap which they either use to make candy or distil to liquor.
Next was where the traditional Sasando musical instrument is made. The local guru of this is a 75 year old man who has 6 sons who have all joined the family business. The instrument sounds very much like a harp and is quite lovely. One son, a very cute good looking young man actually won “Asia’s got talent” and deservedly so. They are very proud of him and we were shown U tube clips---Ditron Pah—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDo7Nys9KSM for anyone who has the time or interest to do a search –quite impressive!! We loved these and did buy a small version which actually can be played for $40.
Next stop was to a very mediocre museum and then lunch.
They laid out a huge number of dishes on our table. We picked food from a lot of the plates only to find we had been charged by the plate. Many of our plates had hardly been touched but we had to pay for any we had sampled yet another expensive—by local standards—lesson.
Next stop was a forge where they make a lot of knives, great for Ken who bought 2 knives for $5 each.
The final stop was to visit the monkey caves where dozens of monkeys await visitors who bring bananas and peanuts for them. They were very cute and quickly ran away to consume any food they had managed to acquire before another monkey would take it from them.
Later that night was the Governors banquet with some lovely dancing followed by an excellent meal and great music for dancing. We had a lot of fun dancing with the multitudes of children who seemed to belong to locals attending.
The following night was the Mayors banquet which followed a similar format. The local people are very friendly and we are now getting used to them carrying cell phones—as all third world people do—and posing with us taking photos as much as we are of them. This is a new phenomenon for us in our travels but I am sure it is going to be the way of the future. Unlike South Americans who felt violated if you photograph them Asians love having theirs taken and will pose readily.
The last night was spent having a barbecue on “Further” with 30 other sailors and 17 nationalities—typical of the mix of the rally participants.
Our first impressions of Indonesia are of a lovely happy friendly people who will do anything to help you but, as most Asians, are quick to take advantage of any business opportunities.
Our first impressions of being in a rally are also favourable as a lot of work has been done to set up events and the welcome we were offered.
Today we leave for the island of Alor, our next destination today, an overnight trip of 140NM.
Although Kupang has been fun it will be nice to go to somewhere more remote, which is really what most of us seek as we travel.