Category Archives: Volunteering

Day 202 – Coffee encounters

Were on the road real early today

Were on the road real early today

Sekong had seemed incredibly sleepy last night…it didn’t get any better in the morning. Despite the fact that Lao people seem to get up at 6am to go about their day during daylight hours, the town looked positively abandoned. Also, there was no breakfast to be had here, at least not of the baguette and jam kind. To increase our chance of yet another French inspired start into the day, we packed everything on Rocinante and left the town at 7am.

Up on the plateau, it was chilly this early in the morning; for the first time in a while, I wished for something to stop the wind from getting through. We had a look for breakfast places along the road but didn’t see anything except for rice porridge. Thus, we needed to drive 80km to Paksong, the next town on the loop. The route was pretty, though. Full of views over small valleys and the opportunity to see waterfalls. So early in the day, we also had the road almost to ourselves. Continue reading

Day 137 – Pleasant interruption

Nina spots all the cats

Nina spots all the cats

Relax and recharge, that is what we proscribed ourselves for today. The sun was out when we crawled out of our room after a decadently long sleep in our King size bed. Falling out of the bed. This was presently followed by an equally decadent breakfast.

After that, we went on a brief stroll around Tuk-Tuk to make use of the sunshine while it lasted. Truly brief though, and soon we were back at our Hotel, hogging Wi-Fi, milling about and doing some light blogging. Around 11 am two outside guests arrived while we were just finishing one of our blog posts. They had been around last night, and I could not help but comment on their rather lavish breakfast order. A brief conversation at shouting distance was sensibly brought to an end when we joined them at their table. Which is also where we spend the rest of the day!

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I'd say that's a sign of inner calm

Sorry Robin, 3/4 with eyes closed. I’d say that’s a sign of inner calm

It was refreshing to be able to have an intelligent conversation with like minded people. Since Jogja, we were either missing the company or the language skills for it, but it was just the thing to get us in a good mood again. We sat with Germans Yana and Robin all day till 11 pm (way past bedtime for us ancient folk). The two are on a gap year / vacation before starting university. I must say, I was much impressed at the wisdom both of them already possessed – I am not sure if I was that good a company 10 years ago ;). It seems the FSJ (voluntary social service year introduced after the end of the draft) is good for some solid character building.

Thus, the day passed, as food and drink flowed in to keep up our discussions on traveling, politics, life and everything else. Not much to blog about really, other than to say that we had a great time. Maybe we will even meet the two of them again later on our trip.

Day 125 – Ride out with the Scooby gang

Sunday. Finally, I was doing better. Probably not as well as I’d like to be but well enough to be social again. Me doing better also decides our next step: This will be our last rest day; tomorrow, the road will have us back.

Cool countryside

Cool countryside

Under that premise, I was very much inclined to spend another day in bed. BUT, it was Sunday. Sunday is the free day for the four backpackers helping out at Andy’s and Shinta’s place at the moment and Andy had plans for a ride out, showing them some of Jogja. We were invited, too. For quite a while we were about two minds…seeing some of Jogja would be great…doing the rest of our “homework” would also be great.

In the end, we decided to join the Scooby gang for half a day. We gathered at “AS coffee” were we are staying. Andy took Laura as a pillion, Victor and Camille shared a bike, then Flo and I on the tiny bike that Andy had given us for driving in town and Yanto with Cecil as a pillion were at the back.

The gang and the ladies from the orphanage

The gang and the ladies from the orphanage

The first stop was at an orphanage in town. Andy and Shinta had sponsored a filter station for water so that the kids have clean water to drink and this was a check-up after a couple of months if everything still works as it is supposed to. As a side business, the orphanage also sells some of the water to generate a bit of income. All in all a great project. The kids weren’t around though so we “only” got to see the filter station and talk to some lovely ladies from the orphanage.

Leaving here, the plan was to head to the river for a swim. However, two things happened which made this part of the ride out more than remarkable. First, there was a police check point at the bridge were we wanted to cross the river. Andy stopped a bit before it to make sure everybody would be good to go through…and of course, we were not. Not even Flo had his driver’s licence with him…so we needed an alternative route to the place. Instead of heading straight across the river, we took a turn in midst of a large group of young people on their motorbikes. It kinda looked like a gang to begin with and they all also avoided the police check point. So when we checked that everyone made the turn and drifted off behind the big group, we saw a guy at the street side, waving a big gun in the air in a way that was not very confidence-inducing. He also looked quite angry. When he realized that the motorcycle gang had passed and just a bunch of tourists remained, he stuffed the gun in the pocket of his pants, again in a not much confidence-inducing manner. Andy just checked that all four bikes were there and we drove off, turning off this street as soon as we could. I was really quite shaken. Though we have seen a couple of firearms on this trip so far, none ever had been waved around like that.

crossing this bridge to get to the swimming place

crossing this bridge to get to the swimming place

The river spot was very secluded and quiet so we all spent some time sitting on the edge talking. Andy sprinted into the water for a swim but was only joined by Victor in the end. The day was overcast and not hot enough for me to get in. Flo put his feet in but not more.

Another short ride away, up in the hills, we had lunch at a local warung. Andy knows all the good places around here and ordered Nasi Campur for the whole group. Suddenly, while eating, I felt sick again but luckily not enough so to throw up. It was 2pm by now so Flo and I waved good bye to the gang and headed back to headquarters to get our stuff done.

Everybody else arrived back at “AS coffee” at around 4.30pm where Andy concluded the ride out with a scoop of chocolate ice cream and some cakey-fudgy-thingy for everyone. So yummy! Flo then went on to take apart our broken charger cable for the laptop. This time, he had a much better chance of fixing it as he was allowed to use Andy’s “man cave” work bench with tools and a soldering iron. We even got to polish our shoes because they really, really needed it by now.

Soldering the Surface cable ...

Soldering the Surface cable …

In the evening, Andy introduced us to “Mondo Enduro”, a film which we know from hearsay as it is a classic but haven’t gotten around to watching yet. So we watched most of it but then take away dinner arrived and we were interrupted by it.

Dinner was shared by all of the Scooby gang again which was lovely as this way, we got to say good bye to everyone. The plan for tomorrow was to start quite early and we weren’t sure who would be up by this point.

Day 86 – Goodbye Dili

The last day of comfort in Herman’s Dili abode has come, it is finally time to move on and get on the road. Plus, there was some recovering to do from the long hike and strenuous ride back.

We spend an awful long time with the last two blog posts today. Our mobile data has run out and we did not want to buy another data package for our last days in Timor, so we went to Timor Plaza after lunch and used the free wifi there. Free unfortunately also means slow and unreliable, so all in all, it took us two hours to get the two post up online.

Nina and Joris

Porch night with the VSA volunteers & other New Zealanders

After a brief debate whether to move on late today for a short day or sleep one more night yesterday, we settled on staying and leaving the next morning. The main reason was that this gave us a chance to meet the New Zealand volunteers we have met over the last two and a half weeks one more time.

We had a great night again. A special thanks to Joris for his inside food tips and, of course, Herman for all he has done for us. He gave us a base, was our guide, driver and at times cook. Thank you, you are a big part of the reason why we will remember Dili fondly.

Day 75 – Beep, beep, beep…

Twice in one week, the alarm clock went off before sunrise. This time, the diabolical sound put an end to our peaceful slumber at 4am. I must admit that it was a small solace to know that Herman would break the peaceful slumber with us to drive us to the wharf.

Crowd waiting at the gate to embark

Crowd waiting at the gate to embark

At the waterfront we found that a crowd had already gathered, sleep drunken, in the dark in front of the closed gate. Our tickets stated 4:30am, it was 5am now and nothing but goods was allowed through the gate – no reason to worry in Dili.

We shuffled through the gate at about 6am in the end, which was all well for us. The wait gave us a chance to get to talk to a group of malae waiting there with us. It turned out they had another motorcycle traveller in their midst. Chantal, recently from Australia, originally from the Netherlands, is on a very similar route to ours. Continue reading

Day 70 – Dili

Leaving Australia

The night was short, very short. To be in good time for our flight and be certain we got time to go to border Australia for the TRS scheme paperwork. TRS stands for tourist refund scheme, a way to get a refund on GST if goods are exported within 60 days of purchase in Australia. Given that we spend several thousand dollars in AUS, were ready to jump through some hoops to get 10% back.

warm, tired and confused

warm, tired and confused

A brief taxi ride later, we found ourselves at the check-in desk for AirNorth at the Darwin airport. Despite my better judgement I believed the check-in staffer when she said that we have to check in our luggage straight away and the only TRS desk is behind the security checks.

With plenty of time and our boarding passes in our hands we went through the checks. I got pulled over once again (my passport seems to have performance issues with the scanners), but nothing came of it. And just after that, we got the cold dark confirmation: People will tell you anything to get rid of you, especially if they know you can’t come back to complain.

“No refund, you have to show the goods!” – “I know, but the lady said …”- “The airlines problem, there was a desk downstairs” – “can I go back?!” – “No …”. I am not ashamed to say that I made a bit of a scene there and then, and when the superior border officer came around, I took my chance to plead our case one more time. She took pity, frowned upon the minion and with a “their story is pretty convincing” ordered for the full amount to be refunded. Wow, a near miss.

We even had time for a hasty breakfast and blog post before we got on board. Turned out, the breakfast was a bit premature, but then again, what about second breakfast?

A day in Dili

Continue reading

A world of good-bye

For me, it really started with the SPCA good-bye on Wednesday. My last volunteer shift in the feline and small animals area, working as an assistant to the lovely Sam.

SPCA messages

Little messages that were distributed throughout the cats’ rooms.

They didn’t make it easy. Even the cats decided to team up and just be so cuddly that I couldn’t go. From Dawson, who climbed out of his box to get cuddles, over Nero, who tried to sit on my lap when I was kneeling and kept sliding off, to Phoenix, even, who cuddle-jumped against my knee with his head when I was walking to get all the attention he wanted.

Thank you so much, feline team and Wellington SPCA, that I could have such a great time with you. You are an amazing bunch of people and I will miss you.