out on the town

On the village chief's new motorbike for the ride into town. Despite the shock absorbers and a padded seat, a scooter is not built to comfortably negotiate the pot holes and corrugations, and while the first half  hour was pleasant enough, the butt numbing pain soon set in.  I long to ditch the helmet and take the weight off my neck, but catastrophic thinking imagines us skidding into a roving goat and my head meeting the road.  Slowly, slowly.  There isn't anything in town worth rushing for.

We are on the mission to find steel and a boilermaker-welder to build us a new, termite proof tank stand.  Tom draws up the specs while I sip floral iced tea and admire the decor.  There is little choice of eating joints in town, and nothing you would call a cafe. This in Indo for Indonesians.  Rice, deep fried balls of unidentified meat, oily curry and boiled beans. A still life display in the window behind a lacy curtain.  Very still and not much life. We select a jackfruit curry, boiled kankung (water spinach) and rice. $1.00 per plate.   For dessert there is the option of an es campur from a street cart. Jellied bits with all artificial colours and flavourings, shaved ice, sweetened condensed milk and coconut.  A month's sugar intake in a single bowl.

Behold we have a shopping list, and start our search in the magic shop for WD40, a battery charger, a toilet seat and 2cm screws.  Plenty of buckets, no toilet seat and a rusty battery charger.  It is also he place to get your official photos taken; amongst the exhaust pipes, fans and guitars. 

Waste management is not high on the council agenda, nor the public's awareness.  The sign above says "It is prohibited to throw rubbish into the river and ocean."

We track down a metal worker, who has a side line in busted motorbikes.  He claims he is up for the job and will study the plans and SMS us with a quote, which we will duly counter offer, and much polite laughter will ensue as we agree on a fair price. 

paris of the east

The capital of East Nusa Tengarra is not even remotely like Paris, unless perhaps you are on acid and imagining Europe during the bombing raids.  It is a noisy, grotty, weathered city, and unavoidable on our journey home.  The irony of the enforced overnight stay is that it goes a way toward keeping our island home that little bit further from the world of Bintang singlets.

The taxi driver is not impressed with the extra stop at cargo to pick up our blinds, but another folded blue note lifts his spirits.  Waiting for the Garuda flight to arrive, we have a lunch of rice, green beans and iced tea.  In four hours I've gone from a soy latte and sourdough toast at Sea Circus, to a warung in a tin shed surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Mine is nothing less than a life of contrasts.

There is the odd expat male that likes the city, and I'll be frank here, it does have cheap women, cold beer and fresh seafood.  I dread arriving and anticipate leaving, spending most of the time in a slightly detached state of being, trying not to analyze too much, look too closely, or dream of Paris.  Cracked tiled walls, sheetless beds with rugs that have a questionable washing history, and mustard polyester curtains do little for a fragile female libido, and in ten years, the hit rate of success in a Kupang hotel is zero.  

The city's main redeeming feature and a must-do on every visit, is dinner at the night markets.  They are the heart any south-east Asian experience, where you pull up a plastic stool under a cold fluorescent light and devour a plate of gado-gado, or grilled tempeh with rice and firey chilli for less than $1.

The shopping strip hits fever pitch on sundown, and music thumps from the bemos as they lap the streets competing for coolest wagon on the beat. This is a mostly Christian city, and it is ironic that it is the Muslim women peddling underwear on the footpath. While Tom fancied the Superman jocks, we passed by in search of a battery charger and part for the blender.

slip sliding to town

The ocean is flat, projects are accumulating and we have enough on the shopping list to warrant a trip into town. The motor bike we rent has such a slippery seat that with every bump and gear change I risk squashing Tom against the fuel tank or flying clear off the back into the dust.  We have to stop three times so I can get off and regain feeling in my soft bits. 

The excitement peaks when I use the island's first ATM.  Whoa, the mod cons we now have at our disposal. Getting money is now only an hour away, as opposed to day trip.  Then it is into the depths of the magic shop to buy new pushbike pedals. 

The remainder of the shopping list is :

4 cans corn, 2 bags of white cement, 1 bag of grey cement, 1 sheet of plywood, 2 taps with assorted fittings, 1 mirror, 3 bunches of carrots, 1 fan, 1 roll of wire mesh, 2 sink bowls, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 You can buy nails by the kilo.

Pipe fittings by the bucket load.

And pastel coloured brooms or boxes of highly processed non-food.

Then, if the shopping takes longer than you think, you can stay overnight at the luxurious Grace Hotel.

And wander the main street admiring the weathered architecture.  If you blur your eyes enough you can imagine you are in Havana :  without the vintage cars, salsa music or Cuban cigars. 

In reality, you get clapped out bemos playing tinny Indo pop, and a lung full of cheap clove cigarettes.

dola rosa

Our village has one main shop, The Dola Rosa, named after the road that Jesus supposedly walked with his cross. It is open whenever the owners are awake, with the exception of Sunday morning, when all good residents go to repent their sins and be saved until next week.  It has a prime location in the middle of town, next to the oval and church, and has grown from a tiny 2m x 2m wooden box ten years ago, to a purpose built room with shelving, a window and a front verandah.  The family have amassed quite a wad of cash and sunk it into a huge, ugly house, totally tiled inside and out (even the gable ends).  The shop has minimal stock control and no idea of supply and demand; shopping is like a lucky dip. 

There is nothing fresh for sale, only dry goods of the highly processed kind, toiletries, cleaning products, bike parts, hardware, building products and fuel.  There are no specials, no prices and no check-outs, but always a friendly smile behind the counter.

Fuel supplies have been unreliable of late, and currently the shop is out of stock.  Like a pub with no beer. Eventually all of the motorbikes run dry, the back-up generator stops, batteries go flat, peace returns to the street and we are plunged into darkness. Lovely. 

the magic shop

It is a long bum numbing motorbike ride to town in search of lemons, paint and standing floor fans (for a friend).  The citrus season is coming to an end and there is only one stall at the markets selling tiny lemons at a ridiculous price - he obviously senses our desire.   They are vital to our salads, and papaya isn't the same without a squeeze of juice, so we buy 40 for $6. 

We treat ourselves to an iced smoothie from a cheery road-side vendor and sit beneath the shade of a vast mango tree, loaded with ripening fruit.  Woopee, mango season is imminent.

It is rare for us to be in town with time to spare; without a bemo driver waiting, or an overwhelming wish to get home after a long day of travel.  There is a shop we call "The Magic Shop", that seems to have one of everything you want and two of everything you didn't even know you wanted.  In one glass cabinet they have :

Powerpoints, drumsticks, swimming caps, dominoes, gun sights, air freshener, torches, universal remote controls, iron, am/fm radio, pool cues, recorders, taps, electric door holder, guitar strings, printer ink refill kit, calculator, drill chucks, aquarium filter & a set of pool balls.

I have never seen anyone wearing a swimming cap - they can't even swim, nor is there a swimming pool - what good is an electric door holder without electricity, and who the hell can afford an aquarium?  Was this precious stuff donated from abroad and locked away in the cabinet for posterity?  Tom eyes off a copy Yamaha guitar for A$100 and I check out the soccer balls and fan selection, but we leave empty handed.

On the way home we stop to admire a collection of lontar baskets  hanging on the outside of a simple thatched house.  This is the peak season for collecting juice from the lontar palm, and the farmers climb their trees twice daily, at around 3.00am and again at 3.00pm.  

This fit looking gentleman owns 40 palms and spends four hours each day tapping the sweet syrup.  The locals have thrived on the nutrient rich juice for generations, and it is reported that people in the interior of the island have survived for long periods with the juice as their sole calorie intake.  Today, their diet includes rice, a small amount of veges, and fish if near the coast.  You can be sure that man's physique is not from working out at the gym and drinking protein powder.

He ushers me inside, whips back a dust sheet, and insists I take a photo of him with his prized entertainment collection.  Now here is a hut with a dirt floor, no running water and no toilet, and he has two t.v. sets, booming speakers and a satellite dish. I can never work out their priorities.

snow fall

 

Our neighbours, Long John and Bingin Mick, put together a container full of stuff and shipped it from Bali.  When the truck arrived, half the village turned out to see the perplexing array of goodies offloaded: an ancient concrete mixer, a weights bench, aluminium dinghy, motorbike, outboard motor, umbrellas, furniture, mattresses,tiles,  a toilet, fridge, boatbuilding form, and the kitchen sink.  We took the opportunity to add two huge floor cushions for the “reading room”.

 

Indonesian cargo handlers are a careless bunch, and many items suffered a crack, dent or scratch.  Mick had sent bags of polystyrene bean-bag balls in thin plastic bags, which unsurprisingly busted and settled like snow in the truck.  A gust of wind and it was half way around the yard.  It looked suspiciously like Indonesia's largest ever drug bust.

 

Long John had bought a large amount of groceries from Carrefore Supermarket, along with plastic boxes to pack and ship the load.  The boxes arrived – empty!  The groceries are still sitting in the loading bay. 

not for mopping

Tried these beauties on.  Not practical for wonky feet with orthotics, not good in the sand, and definitely not suitable for mopping.  Back on the shelf they go.

Ubud style guide