Welcome to Kupang

The flight was pleasant enough with a small meal provided and we landed more or less on time in Kupang on the island of Timor. I got talking to a Fin and a couple of Aussies and ended up sharing a cab with them into town which saved a bit of cash.

The Lavalon hostel is about as basic as basic gets, but it fits in with my minor provisos. They do have dorms at IDR30,000 per night, but you can’t book these through Hostelbookers, so I ended up with a room to myself for IDR40,000. I’d have had the dorm to myself anyway as there was nobody else around.

I took a very short walk over the road to the bar, which is about as open air as you can get and still have a roof. The view west is over the beach where kids were playing football and behind me was the sea. I sat and enjoyed a couple of beers with an Aussie from the “other” Newcastle who went by the name of Bugger. I kid you not.

He’s been coming to Kupang for months at a time to catch the surf on one of the islands offshore. After a while, we were joined by more Aussies including the ones I’d been talking to earlier.

View from the Lavalon

Lavalon serves very cold Bintang in big bottles for IDR25000 a pop. They also have free wi-fi which works at a decent speed. I ended up eating elsewhere, though, as another chap walked me onto the next main road up to a small shop specialising in satay. For IDR15000 (about a pound) I had 8 sticks of chicken satay, a portion of rice, a bowl of rather nice soup and an iced tea. Can’t complain!

One more beer at the bar and I headed back to read for a bit and crash out. My bus to Dili was booked for the next morning and I had a 5am pickup. Also, the owner of Lavalon is on good terms with the Dili Backpackers so he text messaged them for me. After all the hassle trying to sort out a booking, that was all it took!