A little over  a year ago, I had a pretty poor experience with the staff of Merpati Airlines in Indonesia. This morning I received a comment on the related blog post, claiming to be from a pilot with Merpati. It read: you are a whinging f*ck…. get over it and pay the normal rate you [...]

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After comments made on the Dili Guide post and a rather heavy-handed (and angry, and vaguely threatening) email from Wayne at Free Flow I’ve kind of had my arm bent into putting this post up. Wayne is wanting (nay, demanding) an apology for my comment that Free Flow’s safety measures are (to quote myself) “rather [...]

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Sorry for the screaming caps, but I wanted to make this one stand out. Regular readers may recall I mentioned that you can visit the Merpati office in Dili where they’ll book your flight for a $2 booking fee. No money changes hands, you simply take their printout to the airport in Kupang, hand over [...]

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There had been a bad crash outside our hostel overnight. At a guess it looks like one 4×4 had been overtaking and gone head-on into another at speed. I’d suspect someone had been at the palm wine. Both cars were being lifted onto a car transporter by a crane when I got up. Not a [...]

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This is my last full day in Dili and I don’t have much to do so I thought I’d rattle off a few of the things I’ve found out and some of the places I’ve been. It’s been a great stay and, allowing for the peace holding out here, I definitely recommend it as a [...]

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Well, I made it this time. The bike I collected from the Tiger garage was a “proper” motorcycle with gears and a clutch and everything. I’ve never ridden one of these before. After a little fun trying to get the thing moving from a standstill, I got the hang of it and rode off east. [...]

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Due to Andy’s work schedule he won’t be able to take us diving until Friday – and both Katherine and I are effectively out of Dili by then. So it looks like today’s two dives with the Australian family will be my last in East Timor. Unless I change my plans. At least they were [...]

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Andy did get back to us last night and unfortunately diving wasn’t an option due to his work commitments. We’ve pencilled in Thursday as an alternative. Instead, after a quick breakfast (tea and toast – $1) I walked to the Tiger garage along the street and rented an automatic bike for $20. My plan was [...]

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After sorting out the visa palaver, I legged it back to the hostel but had already missed Andy. I’d promised I’d help with three first-time divers and wasn’t going to let him down. Fortunately, I knew where the dive was to be so I jumped in a taxi and $3 later I was back at [...]

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The procedure for getting an Indonesian visa in Dili has sped up somewhat, but is still an administrative ballache. Before I came here I was told that I could expect to wait 7-10 days unless I “knew someone” who could speed up the process. As such, I was looking at flying out directly to Bali [...]

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