Because I Want A Skyline

“Why go to Kupang?!” Z asks, rhetorically, standing skinny in his Simpsons PJs.

“Why go to Kupang?! Because we’ve been in Kefa long enough. I’m sick of brushing my teeth in a bathroom with no sink. I’m fed up of eating rice and potato cakes. I want internet! A shower! A toilet I don’t have to flush with a scoop! Somewhere to spit my toothpaste that’s not the floor. A town with things to do, buildings more than two storeys high — a skyline, Mum! I want a skyline…”

I can’t help laughing. It’s the contrast between the rant and his curls, his freckles, his slight frame…

He looks a little abashed.

“I agree, it’s all facility based,” he says, placatingly. “But I really do want to be back in civilization.”

“That’s fair enough,” I say. “I can relate to that. But can’t we go to Temkessi tomorrow, though?”

“What’s in Temkessi?” he asks, warily.

“It’s a traditional Dawan village,” I say. “You can meet the king. It’s a beautiful place, up in the mountains. They have this fascinating ritual…”

His eyes begin to glaze. “How far it is?” he asks.

“About 60k each way,” I say. “Most of it’s on good roads, but we may need to hire a trailbike and drive with Aka for the last few k because…”

“No,” he says. “I want to go to Kupang.”

“But…” I begin. “I really think we should see Temkessi while we’re here…”

“We’ve been here too long, already!” he says. “Let’s just get to Kupang, already!”

“The headhunting village was interesting, though, wasn’t it?” I say.

“Yes,” he says. “But I’m not sure I want to see another one.”

Kefamenanu, or Kefa, is the second city of Indonesian Timor: the number two place in the number two half of the sort of island I persist in thinking of as small, though it’s actually around the length of England. And, for a place with a population of only 30-odd-thousand, it sprawls to quite a heinous degree.

For all its size, there’s not a lot in Kefa. Families dig for magnesium on the outskirts; where there is clay, they handmake bricks.

In the market, betel-chewing old ladies from the villages squat on rice sacks lined with ranks of sweet potatoes. There’s a handful of hotels, a whole bunch of motorbike repair shops, a couple of churches, some grandiose government buildings and a near-infinite quantity of food carts and rumah makan.

On the plus side, Timor is largely Catholic, so you can buy a beer, and there’s a minimart, with a bakery.

On the downside, our hotel is some way out of what passes for the centre.

The centre of Kefa is pretty hard to spot, as it goes.

As in, “Excuse me, Sir! Could you please tell us the way to the centre?”

“You’re in it.”

“Oh.”

We haven’t had the best start to Kefa. I’ve been sick with one of those pitiful bugs that don’t really count as an illness, an affliction the locals attribute to riding a motorbike without adequate layers, and I blame on a deficit of Vitamin C.

I quite like the spicy Padang cooking served out of enamel bowls at the eating places here, but it’s not high in vegetables, and what there are ain’t exactly crudités…

So I’ve spent our first two days largely dozing and reading.

By day 2, Z has finished all his reading matter, drawn incalculable quantities of tanks, parachutists and explosions, and knows Family Guy off by heart.

We have no access to the internet from which to source more entertainment and there are hundreds of miles of ocean between us and the nearest English language newspaper.

Books? Fuhgeddaboudit.

On day 3, we venture out in search of fresh orange juice, or, failing that, Vitamin C tablets, or, failing that, Vitamin C drinks. Plus baked goods, a new SIM and credit for my mobile phone, a restaurant that isn’t serving Padang food (it’s shut), and two or three hours online in an outstandingly slow but only averagely grimy internet café.

This is not how world travel is supposed to be, I hasten to add. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes how it is.

“OK,” I say to Z. “It’s been really boring for you with me being ill, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“And would it, also, be fair to say that you’ve had enough of interesting tribal villages?”

“Yep,” he says. “I’d like a skyline, now. A proper city. Or just to go back to Bali…”

Z’s position is understandable, but not, to put it mildly, ideal. We’ve been ploughing our way through these eastern Indonesian islands by bike and boat, heading east to Papua, undaunted by a range of trivial yet unpleasant vicissitudes.

Timor is our fifth island, so far.

We’ve driven over 4000k on the bike, and spent 50-odd hours on boats. Now we’ve been to Timor Leste, the non-Indonesian half of the island, and sorted our visas, Kupang is, in fact, our last stop before this long-awaited goal.

“But what about Papua?” I ask.

“Well, isn’t the main thing about Papua the tribal cultures and villages?” he asks.

“Erm, yeah,” I say. “And the landscapes and the wildlife…”

“And the facilities in Papua aren’t that great, either, are they?” he asks. “And all the headhunters will have died a while ago by now, won’t they?”

“Well, probably,” I say. “There might be a few left in the deep interior, but we don’t have the budget or the time to get upriver to them and trek.”

“And how long is it going to be on a Pelni ferry?” he asks, with an uncomfortable emphasis on the ‘Pelni’.

Now, I find Pelni ferries fascinating. They’re huge. They loop slowly and steadily around Indonesia, like floating villages. Folk set up stalls on deck, families camp out in the stairwells, corridors, dormitories or on deck for journeys of anything from a few hours to a few days and nights.

Z is not a fan.

His face is at the perfect height for elbowing by the porters who force their way through the masses at boarding. He finds the toilet facilities squalid.

Further, on the ferry between Sumbawa and Flores, he discovered a hitherto unknown capacity for seasickness. Between Flores and Timor, he was puking his guts up.

“About three or four days, I think,” I say, optimistically. “They’re nicer than the ASDP boats, though. We can get a cabin…”

My voice trails off as I look at his face. The last ASDP boat had a squat toilet so flooded by the end of our 24-hour trip that, when I stepped over the threshold without looking, I found myself calf-deep in what I would dearly like to consider water and was sick in my mouth.

“I’m really not sure about this, Mum,” he says.

“OK,” I say, wearily. “Let’s find out when the next boat to Papua goes and take a view on it from there.”

And so we pack up our gear, ready our trusty motorbike, and prepare for the metropolitan sophistication of Kupang…