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Aug 25, 2008 06:00 PM Dallying in Dili
aug25
Flight: Denpasar (DPS), Bali, Indonesia, to Dili (DIL), East Timor; Merpati
Hotel: Hotel Esplanada, Dili, East Timor, $110
Today was our last morning in Bali, we were sad to be leaving so soon but we will definitely be back here someday! Our flight to Dili, East Timor was at 10AM so it meant an early start, getting up at 6:30, quick breakfast, then checkout at 7. I paid a chunk of the hotel bill with my remaining rupiah, leaving me with just 150,000IDR each for departure taxes and 20k for drinks. We had arranged a car to take us to the airport, $30 a bit pricey considering we had hired a driver for a full day yesterday for only $45. The driver kept turning this way and that as we passed by rice paddies and towns. There's so many twisty roads in Bali I don't know how drivers don't get lost! It was rushhour in Bali, which basically meant there were hundreds of people all on mopeds and scooters and all heading from their villages towards Denpasar or Kuta. We passed row after row of shops, still amazes me just how much stuff is for sale here.. and we didn't buy anything!
We arrived at the airport after about 50 minutes; our Merpati flight to Dili would be departing from the international terminal. Checkin went very smooth but there was already a line. Paid the 150,000IDR departure tax and had a LOOONG walk down to gate 9. We still had over an hour to kill so I bought a few drinks and M. got a foot massage. The gate area was past security, once you entered the gate you couldn't get out again. After busing to the plane and boarding the 737 via the aft stairs the flight actually left more or less on time. The flight was almost full, the plane was a little worn and had tight seats. The flight itself was uneventful. Flying time to Dili from Bali was 1:40.
East Timor gets alot of bad press. It was a Portuguese colony from the 1500's until 1975 when the Portuguese basically abandoned their other colonies (Angola, Mozambique). The Indonesians invaded and controlled East Timor until 1999 when East Timor declared their independence. The transition was not a peaceful one, with militias rioting and looting. The UN moved in soon after to keep the peace and provide food aid. Flareups still occasionally happen; indeed earlier this year there was an attempted assassination on the president. The people though seem very proud of their country.
Getting to East Timor can be a bit of a hassle. Until recently, only two airlines fly to East Timor; Merpati Airlines from Bali (which usually requires staying overnight in Bali) and Air North from Darwin in Australia. Another new option is on Austasia airlines which has started nonstop service to Singapore a few days a week. We had booked tickets from Bali to Dili on Merpati, then Dili to Singapore.
When we landed in Dili we noticed there were several white UN helicopters, one of them was preparing to take off. We were in row 15 at the middle of the plane, this is the worst as people were getting off from the front/aft of the plane. This left us one of the last ones off the plane and in line to get the visa on arrival, so this took awhile. We noticed several other American passports in line, most people were working with aid agencies or the UN. The visa was $30, the officer was surprised that a) we were tourists, and b) we were only staying for 1 day! He gave us 7-days anyway, and said 'Welcome to my country!' The airport itself is pretty small and rundown. We collected our bags, then went outside to the taxi line. They wanted $10 for the short ride into town (a ripoff, should be $5) but they wouldn't back down. Our taxi was a nice Toyota Camry with missing door handles.
We drove out from the airport, the IDP camp that i had seen in photos/google earth near the airport appeared to be gone. We passed by several embassies (US, Korea, Thailand) and a good looking vegetable market, hopefully we could check this out later. We were staying at the Esplanade Hotel for $110 a night, that included AC/hot water, wifi and breakfast, but still a pretty basic hotel. Prices are fairly high here due to all the foreigners. The hotel was fronting the ocean with an open air restaurant and was where the Kiwi police force was staying. The rooms were small with a king bed, TV and in-room safe. The sliding glass door to our room had a busted lock. There was a huge safe outside the door (a decoy?)
After getting settled in we ate a good lunch at the hotel restaurant then caught a $2 taxi into town. Taxis are very plentiful here, driving up and down the beach road and most rides in town are $1-$2. The cars are in varying shape, from brand new to beaters with cracked windshields (rock throwing is a problem here) and missing door handles. The drivers usually understand Portuguese or even English and usually the radios were blaring Brazilian dance music. We started at the far end of town near the One More Bar. A gorgeous day, wonderful temperature and a nice breeze coming off the ocean. We spent awhile wandering along the waterfront back towards the center of town. We saw the Memorial do Paz, Virgin Mary, Cultural Center (old Portuguese Garrison) and Palacio do Governo. There was another market here with really fresh-looking vegetables. Fishermen were spread along the beach cleaning their fish, which also looked very fresh. They were storing them in ice in old fridges! The waterfront here has been turned into a park, there is a sidewalk winding through the banyan trees and there were children playing on swings, etc. We noticed alot of joggers as well, not just the foreigners but it looked like locals were as well. Local couples were canoodling in the shade.
After we left the Palacio do Governo we caught a taxi out to Cape Fatucama, where the Christo Rei statue is located. There were lots of beach restaurants and more joggers along the way, this being a great spot to catch the sunset. The Christo Rei statue is similar to the Cristo Redentor one in Rio and it was a parting gift from the Indonesians. It looked like a long climb to the top, I counted over 500 steps! There are alcoves along the way to the top showing the progression of Jesus' trial and crucifixion. Not too many people out here, only saw 2 others at the top, one of them who JOGGED up those stairs. Ugh. The statue itself stands atop a globe with his arms outstretched to the west.
aug26
Flight: Dili (DIL), East Timor to Singapore (SIN); Austasia Airlines
This morning we had breakfast at the hotel then crossed over the street to walk along the beach a bit. There were some kids there, we started saying hello and spent awhile with them skipping stones into the surf. Our flight wasn't until 3:30 so we still had a bit of time to explore. The hotel had some examples of tais, locally made woven fabrics. We asked the guy at the hotel about them and again he seemed surprised we were tourists. But again a warm 'welcome to my country'. He told us of the Tais market in town. We caught a cab there and had him wait while we walked around. The market was quite nice, they had a dozen or more stalls selling the tais or other souvenirs, coral jewelry, discs, and model Timor-style houses. These are boxy shaped on stilts with tall thatched roofs. The tais are different styles depending on which part of the country they are from. One of them was blue and white with the UN logo and 'TIMOR LESTE 2008' written on it. The prices were decent and you could bargain here. We went a little crazy and bought 6 tais and several necklaces! Well the money goes to the locals here so that is good.
We headed back to the hotel for lunch, and soon it was time to head to the airport. Caught a cab there for $5. We thought we were being early 2 hrs before the flight, but the checkin here CLOSES 1:45 before the flight and we were one of the last ones to checkin! There was only another American woman behind us. We had to pay $10 each departure tax, then went though security into the waiting area.which was air conditioned. There was a duty free store here and more crafts/souvenirs but nothing to eat/drink. It was a busy time of day. The Merpati flight just left, and a Our Airline (from Nauru?) arrived. Then our flight arrived, all within 40 minutes. The AustAsia flight is a SilkAir charter A319 plane; and it was only 1/3 full. We were offered juice or beer pre-takeoff! They also served lunch on the 3:20 flight to Singapore.
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May 24, 2008 06:00 PM Chasing windmills in the Åland islands
May 24, 2008
Ferry: Stockholm, Sweden to Mariehamn, Finland
Hotel: Stradnas Hotel, 63EUR ($100)
The breakfast spread at the Sign hotel this morning in Stockholm was very good! We left the hotel and caught a taxi to the Viking ferry terminal. We were planning on visiting the Aland islands, an autonomous Swedish-speaking province of Finland. The Alands had passed between Sweden, Russia and Finland over the years. They have their own flag different from Finland & Sweden. Finns and Swedes take day ferries to Mariehamn to stock up on duty-free booze. We arrived almost an hour early but there was already a huge crowd waiting at the terminal. It smelled like some of them had already gotten a head start on the drinking! We got our boarding card and soon boarded the ferry. We had gotten the cheapest cabin for the 5hr trip; it was an inside cabin in the bilge of the ship, several levels under the cars! Which suited our needs fine as we planned to sleep most of the way over anyway. We dropped our bags off then wandered up to the top deck. A gorgeous day in Stockholm! The ferry soon departed and slid off through the channels. It started getting chilly as the breeze picked up so we headed back down to explore the ship some more. There was a casino, bar, Wii room and several restaurants. Of course the most important part; the duty free store, but it hadn't opened yet. We headed back to the cabin for a nap.
We woke up a few hrs later then walked around the ship some more. Getting on one of the elevators, whew. We got a a contact buzz just from the booze fumes. :) Lunch in the cafeteria was good, we loaded up with Swedish meatballs. Food portions were charged by weight here. There was also another prix fixe buffet, but at 24EUR was a little steep. The ferry soon started approaching the skerries near Mariehamn. The Alands are composed of thousands of granite islands, from small rocks on up. We docked in Mariehamn, at the same time the ferry coming from Helsinki arrived. Most of the passengers on either ship got off here only to get right back on the other ship heading back to Stockholm or Helsinki, wheeling their trolleys full of booze. We were one of the few passengers to actually stay here. We caught 10EUR a cab to our hotel, the Stradnas, which ended up being a good distance out of town. We were in Finland now and they use the Euro. It wasn't yet summer here so some hotels weren't even open yet for the season. We asked about renting a car for the day, luckily we were able to arrange one at a nearby gas station, 62EUR for a day and 250kms and we could drop it at the ferry terminal the next day. By this time it was about 3PM.
We drove up off to the north of town, planning on visiting the eastern part of the islands. We drove through the small towns of Jomala and Godby on our way to our first stop, Kastleholm, a 14th-century keep. The setting was quite nice on the shore of an inlet. According to our book, the castle was closed but they were open when we arrived. We decided not to go in and just wandered around outside. There were some gardens next to the castle that had a model village and some windmills. Next we drove to the ruins of the old Russian fort of Bomarsund. The Bomarsund fort was unique in its exterior was composed of hexagonal blocks. It was destroyed by the British during the Crimean war. Prasto (Priest) island was just across the straight from Bomarsund, this is where the cemeteries for Bomarsund were located. The Russian garrison had been quite ethnically diverse; there were cemeteries here for Russian Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim soldiers. They were kind of hard to find, after driving down one road to the end we finally found the right path. There were still several Jewish graves here and looked well maintained. On the way back we decided to strike out straight through the woods, it was tricky going as the ground was spongy moss covering loose rocks.
Prasto island is the end of the road here; the road does continue on the next island but requires taking a ferry. We didn't want to get stuck so we turned around and headed back towards the town of Sund wheretThere was a really neat church. Each major town here has a good sized church, all have uniquely shaped rounded steeples. We did a loop around through Saltvik and stopped at the church in Jomala before heading to Lemland, yet another province. There was an old stone chapel here near Lembote. Summers in Scandinavia are great, it stays light forever. It was already nearly 8PM and we were quite hungry. We headed back into Mariehamn to see about dinner. The town was completely dead! According to the LP you could fire a cannon down the main street and noone would notice! We ended up eating at Dino's which turned out to be where everyone else in town was. There were pictures of dead rockers on the wall, Stevie Ray Vaughn was staring down at us while we ate.
May 25, 2008
Ferry: Mariehamn, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden
Hotel: Clarion Hotel Sign Stockholm, reward night (10k Choice Points)
We were heading back to Sweden today but still had until 1PM before the ferry left back to Stockholm. Yet another gorgeous clear day. Today we planned to drive to the western part of the archipelago. Our map listed several cloverleaf 'interest' sites, most of these turned out to be windmills. The windmills here are different style from those in Holland, these are boxy-shaped with a bar coming out the back; the entire box must be turned unlike Dutch style where only the top of the windmill rotates. All of the farmhouses, barns, and windmills here are painted a uniform red with white trim. We drove quite a distance to an isolated cloverleaf on the map at Stromma, only it turned out to be yet another windmill. We suddenly felt like Don Quijote! We headed next to Eckero island, a popular holiday spot for Swedes; but it was still very quiet. We visited the old postal museum/customs house in Storby. This had been built by the Russians for the mail run from Sweden to Finland; it was quicker to offload the mail here from boats and take it overland, then back on boats to the Finnish mainland than to take it on a ship the whole way.
It was about 11AM so we decided to head back to Mariehamn; the drive went alot quicker on the way back so that still left us some time to kill. There is an old sailing ship here in town, the Pommern, one of the last sail-only ships (not a steamship) to be constructed in the early 1900s. It was used for the run to Australia, taking several months! We're so spoiled these days in it only takes ~20hrs. We headed to the ferry terminal, dropping off the car keys in the bin, yet still had a half hr wait or so. Both ferries soon pulled up to the dock, trading their crowds of inebriated passengers. We hadn't gotten a cabin for the return trip so we stashed our bags in the left luggage room then wandered around the ship awhile. There was a room full of airline/lounge style seats, but these get claimed early on and all were in use or had bags in them. The return trip was uneventful, other than eating lunch during a karaoke competition.
We arrived back into Stockholm around 4PM then took a cab back to the Sign hotel. I had booked another two nights on points here, a great deal at 10k/night. We then caught the metro down to Sodermalm and had dinner at Jerusalem Kebab. We then walked all the way back to the hotel via Gamla Stan, stopping along the way at a creperie for dessert.
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