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

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 →