Author Archives: Squatter

A Few Days of Fun

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Living in the hotel is certainly becoming a drag, so any alternative suggestions are met with great glee. On Friday, an invite to after-work drinks seemed a good way to start the night.

So I started off with gin and tonics. The group decided to move onto the Audian Hotel for Chinese food. I switched to beer. The food was variable ranging from as authentic as I know to very average.

The group decided to move onto Carlo’s (?) Bar for more gin and tonic and some beer. At 1am, what was left of the group decided to move onto the Coolspot nightclub. I had passed this place many times but was oblivious to the fact that this place only rages after midnight. As it turns out, I must have been tired and emotional and when I walked in without paying (there was no sign !) was met by a surly security guy who instructed me to pay. When I saw that women went in for free, I complained and standing on my principles refused to go in under such sexist conditions.

I was to later find out that the entry fee was redeemed in beer and was designed to keep out locals who went in for nothing and spent nothing all night. Next time, I hope they don’t remember that surly white man’s face !

Next day, I was going to a hash house harriers run with some military guys. I told them the (incorrect) location. We got to the wrong place and found that none of us had brought a mobile phone, so we rushed back to pick a phone. Fortunately, “Jack Brabham” was driving and even more fortunately, he tailed an ambulance with all sirens going. Lets just say you couldn’t do this in any other part of the world and keep your licence ! And we weren’t late either.

Next day, I had some mail to be sent to Australia. A military acquaintance was spending a 1 week R&R in Darwin, so I asked him to hand-carry my mail and post it there. (The Timorese mail service is said to be woefully slow as mail goes via Portugal, or at least seems to.) So I had to deliver to aforementioned military guy who was having his last drinks at a bar. USD66 of drinks later (3 of us), we left the bar, leaving my mail behind.

Having corrected the mail error, my courier was too drunk to come to dinner later and next day, his military flight was cancelled and delayed for another week. But it’s still the fastest way to deliver my mail !

Beer glasses

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The more western-oriented bars/restaurants around town know their stuff when it comes to looking after their beer glasses, but outside this relatively small group, it is the wild west.

I should point out that beer, soft drink and fruit juice are the only beverage options outside the more western-oriented bar/restaurants. And yes, I usually have fruit juice at lunch !

Now for a bit of theory. One of my old mates from years ago was a renowned destroyer of beer glasses. He knew it and everyone around him knew it. You could pour him a beer with a perfect head and within 1 minute of his first taste, the head would have disappeared and his beer looked like a ginger ale. And curiously, the effect was to destroy the glass’s ability to maintain a head for some weeks after this.

He had a problem of either curiously different body chemistry or was a really bad saliva dribbler into his glass.

The other well recognised method of destroying a beer is poor washing techniques. Not that I understand why, I never use any soap or detergent on my beer glasses and everything is fine. Any soap residue will destroy a glass.

But perhaps the biggest error is to wash beer glasses in water previously used to wash dinner plates, pots, pans etc.

I have no doubt this last error is the reason behind the almost total absence of a beer head in most establishments around town (apart from a select few who have separate beer glass washing machines).

So I made the ultimate decision yesterday – one of my faithful beer glasses will be drawn into daily duty and accompany me to all establishments. You gotta maintain your standards.

Gong Bao Ji Ding

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In deference to my gong bao ji ding (henceforth known as gong bao) loving fellow blogger in Beijing, Wanbro, I feel I must report on the local supplies of the essential gong bao in Dili.

For those unfamiliar, gong bao is chicken cooked in peanuts with a dash of chilis. The variations are enormous in the amount of peanuts, heat of the chilis, added sweetness and the oft-suspected use of fake chicken (ie soy chicken).

Wanbro has achieved stellar heights in his quest for the perfect gong bao and when attained, his ramblings on the subject are legendary.

The China Town restaurant here in Dili is known to have several Beijingers in the kitchen and this is evident in a number of items on the menu. The jiaozi are an exact replica of what can be found in Beijing, and for us Marathon dim sim loving konnoyzers from Melbourne, jiaozi are an adequate substitute for the real thing. (jiaozi are known as dumplings which may contain a number of ingredients but my own favourite is the pork and cabbage, which emulates the Marathon reasonably well).

As for the gong bao, a bit light on for chicken, a bit heavy on the peanuts and a bit light on for chili. Surprisingly low on sweetness and perhaps lacking that satisfying well-balanced finish. Nevertheless, it came across to an essentially gong bao neutral audience as the pick of the courses.

I tried the other signature dish in my own repertoir (the shredded pork or “zhu rou si”) but it was pale imitation of the genuine article. When I finally get a kitchen, I feel like cooking up a batch of “zhu rou si” and giving the boys a few lessons.

The bill came in at US$7 per head for the banquet-style meal – about 30% less than your typical expat oriented eatery. As for decor, the ever-present white tiles and minimalist furnishings woud give a Salvation Army soup kitchen a run for its money.

Pedals, pedals, wherefore art thy pedals

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Now that we have been backpacking for over 4 months, certain aspects of life are getting a tad boring. A couple of days ago, we had a chance to correct this.

For reasons which slightly escape me, the shipping container company (with our belongings plus furniture for our house) wanted their container back. This meant transferring all of our belongings from one container to another. This gave us an opportunity to grab a few packing boxes, even if we had nowhere to put them.

We grabbed our wine as we were concerned about storage conditions inside a sealed container sitting outside in the hot sun all day. The next thing we chose was our bicycles. Although cycling is not big in Dili, the city itself is flat and all of it can be covered by bicycle with ease – potholes aside.

I borrowed some tools and proceeded to open the wrapped bikes with an immense feeling of satisfaction. Within 5 minutes, I was muttering and cursing. Yep, the packing boys had failed “bicycle packing 101” and rather than tape the pedals to the frame, they were obviously packed away in one of the other boxes. Defeated again.

However, a chance meeting with the Australian owner of a local security company led to him organising one of his fellow company directors (an ex-Fretilin guerilla) to obtain bike pedals, which was done with great efficiency. I now know there are about 2 or 3 bicycle shops in Dili, although I have seen very few bikes and none of what I have seen were exactly new. A big win.

Now its off on bike with brand-spanking new pedals to buy the new lock and chain as I failed common-sense 101 by not leaving my lock and chain locked to the bike as I always do.

Tennis anyone ?

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I have actually met a number of people here who have retired themselves from taking anti-malarial drugs. There are only 3 drugs that I have seen prescribed for malaria in this region – Doxycycline, Larium and Malarone.

I am no doctor of tropical medicine but it appears that doxycycline works well for short-term use but is not recommended for long-term use. It has an added advantage of being an anti-biotic so gives protection against a number of other nasty bugs as well. It is also not good for the skin.

Malarone is the newest and (to this point in time) appears to have the least side-effects, but has the disadvantage of being horrendously expensive compared to the other two.

Good old Larium tends to be the one used most – if you can tolerate it. It has a long history of side-effects ranging from nausea, to sleeplessness and in extreme cases, psychotic disturbances. It is not recommended for people with any history of mental illness. Initially I tried Larium. The doctor had warned that there was a 10% chance of noticeable disturbances to sleep patterns and dreams. The recommendation of avoiding alcohol was noted as was the observation that some people used alcohol to adjust the psychotic side-effects to their satisfaction. This sounded great.

Alas, I was extremely disappointed that I did not experience any psychotic wanderings but it did make me feel nauseous.

Back to tennis. Several people had said that if you do want to take a rest from anti-malarials, at least wait until you settle down and develop a pattern of behaviour designed to reduce the chances of being bitten. Using insect repellant as second nature is the first. Others include : wearing long sleeves or long trousers; covering the feet at night; sleeping with a mosquito net; having insect screens; regular spraying of house, car and office; minimising pools of water around the house; even eating Vegemite (Vitamin B is said to deter the little buggers).

Apart from the Vegemite, all these measures are a bit on the tedious side. But perhaps the most exciting response is the battery-powered “fly swat”. This little tennis racquet-like object (actually more like a racquet ball bat) has criss-crossing electrical wires which vapourise the little mosquito critters with a most satisfying ray-gun-like zap.

A word of warning – where I grew up, mosquitos were like Japanese Zeros. You could hear them screaming in on their bombing raids and usually felt them sticking their proboscus into you. But here, they seem to be much smaller and fly in silent-running mode and do their bit without you knowing. So there really are a lot more of the critters than I think. When I sat in a restaurant watching the barman waving his “racquet” about and obtaining full satisfaction every 5 seconds, I realised there is a life-long sporting vocation out there.

mosquito racquet

This provides many hours of fun if you are not a member of the Dili tennis club. Every house should have one.

More trouble in the guts

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Unfortunately, I have had a relapse of my earlier gastric difficulties. The doctor had warned that this particular stomach bug had proved to be a tough one to defeat. And so it proved to be.

The result was similar to last time. The hotel room bathroom copped a huge spray and like last time, I seemed to lose consciousness again. I am not sure I have ever been as sick as this. I couldn’t scratch myself for many hours.

The medical result was a move to drug number 3 and paternal advice re. eating simply etc. etc. As it turns out, for the last couple of days, any food seems to disagree with my digestive system. Normally, you pay big bucks for this sort of dietary control.

Besides the positive weight reducing properties of this gastronomic regime, it turns out that I have no trouble processing alcohol. I got bitten by a mosquito yesterday and have been “forced” to move onto the gin and tonic. Someone pointed out that in order to get any anti-malarial effect from the tonic, you would need to drink quite a few bottles of gin. So !!

Witchdoctors

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I relate these 2 stories as told and have no doubt they are true.

The first concerns an expat who lost his mobile phone, presumed stolen.

At the time, he was amongst a group of Timorese and he really wanted his phone back. One of the Timorese told him to see the local witchdoctor (matan do’ok), so he did. After a few minutes of wailing and eye fluttering, the witchdoctor told him the name and address of the person who had his phone.

In order to flush the thief out, the witchdoctor organised a little ceremony with all the people who were in the vicinity at the time of the theft. In what seems to be a standard ritual, all present were required to hold a burning candle and swear that he or she did not steal the phone.

The thief trembled and shook but still managed to go through the pledge, but shortly after returned the phone.

The second concerns the Com resort which is about 200kms east from Dili. This resort pipes water in from the hills a few kilometres away but on a regular basis, experienced cuts to its water supply. Some local people objected to this resort in their area and had taken to destroying the pipe and at one point, the resort was forced to close.

The resort turned to the local witchdoctor. I don’t know if money changed hands (although I presume it did), but the doc conducted a little ceremony involving a small wooden coffin the size of your hand. According to his incantations, anyone who destroyed the pipe would die and shrivel up to fit into this coffin.

They never had water problems again.

Smallville

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It has already been driven home that Dili is a small town from an expat point of view. The reality is that most expats operate at significantly higher standards of living and incomes than do local Timorese. As a natural consequence, one tends to share similar experiences with accommodation, restaurants, shopping locations etc.

There seem to be about 10 restaurants frequented by expats on a regular basis. And although there are a number of others, food safety concerns tend to limit the patronage outside these ten.

As for your typical supermarket shopping, if you are after the one stop food shopping experience, you are limited to a handful of supermarkets which stock Australian, Indonesian or Chinese sourced stuff.

So whenever you go out to do any of this stuff, one invariably meets someone you know or will know sometime in the future.

And I can now say that I know 2 people (of the 20 on board) who were on our incoming flight from Darwin.

But perhaps the scariest moment was when someone who I met for the first time yesterday said “I hear that you are having problems with your house … I heard that the shower cubicle is so small, you can’t bend down to pick up the soap”.

I was speechless. I had made the (sarcastic but true) soap comment to someone quite far removed from the speaker above. Note to file : don’t gossip in Dili.

Driving 101

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I am not sure if Timorese have drivers licences, but I know as a foreigner, any old licence is good enough. The traffic in Dili is really quite mild and one should give thanks to the fact that they have not picked up the Asian habit of driving with hand on the car horn.

In general, it is pretty difficult to wind up to more than 40kph around town. I think the speed limit is 45kph everywhere. The main limiting factors are potholes, stray animals and other unpredictable pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and cars. With no car insurance, it is best to accept it and just putter around.

As I have occasional access to a LandRover Defender, it is pretty hard to wind up too fast and it can get pretty uncomfortable thumping over potholes. After a while, you even start to remember the locations of bigger potholes.

Yes, on-coming traffic does cross the centre-line, but this has not been a big issue yet. In general, driving is significantly more sedate than China, for instance, where aggression and staking one’s claim on asphalt territory is very important.

I don’t believe that Timor Leste has any traffic lights anywhere. But it does have traffic police and unlike many other traffic police in Asia, they actually look less imposing and treat cars and drivers quite reasonably. They give everybody a chance and do it well.

There is no doubt the quality of the roads is deteriorating. New and larger potholes have appeared even in the 2.5 weeks since arrival. I understand that money for road maintenance is almost zero and I have never seen any sign of road maintenance gangs and some of the roads sure need it.

Your typical 4 cylinder sedan cops a pounding on some of the rough bits, but if you live in Dili or surrounds, you are within 15 minutes drive of everything. And if you don’t have a car, a taxi will cost USD1 for almost any trip up to that 15 minutes. Taxis are everywhere.

Give me drugs !

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After 9 days, I have finally seen a doctor and I have the drugs. I guess you are thinking, “typical male … leaves it way too late before seeing the doctor” etc. etc.

Well, in my defence, it is not quite as easy as that. We knew that there was a doctor at the Australian Embassy who primarily looked after embassy staff, Australian Defence personnel and a number of other expats from English-speaking countries (including the Brits). However, we understood the doctor was on holidays and that meant no doctor. We also didn’t know the telephone number.

So finally, I hunted down the phone number and found that fortunately, there was a locum doctor operating over the Christmas/New Year period. The locum was the wife of an Australian expat who was leaving the country next week.

She confirmed that I had acquired the same gut infection that was sweeping through the entire community and no, it probably was not due to the restaurant I ate at the night before. Without treatment, she passed on the heartening news that it took from 6 to 8 weeks to run its course, but was still proving to be difficult to treat.

So I started the drug-related assault this afternoon, which with luck, will have me back in form for New Year. Alas, I am not meant to consume alcohol for 48 hours. Now, when was the last time that happened ?