Having slept outside in the cockpit, I wake up with the first morning rays. Start fishing out of boredom, Dave will probably sleep for another 3 hours which he actually does. I hook the lure on some coral, just beyond diving range. Dave wakes up, and after an hour we're on our way. First it takes about twenty minutes of maneuvering the boat to unhook the lure, with the righteous indignation of the skipper about that major loss of time. Three minutes later, whilst I'm hoisting the sail, Dave manages to hook the lure himself and we lose it finally. He doesn't repeat any of the prices of fishing gear he was reciting just ten minutes ago.
A very nice trip follows, going around the island tip, hitting a new sea! "Swim every day in a new sea"… The north side of Timor seems to be just as striking as the south. After a couple of hours some buildings appear on a mountain top, high above the water, at least 500 or so meters above sea level. There is a major building and some houses to be seen, later I heard that we've seen the village of Tutuala, the only place on Timor undisturbed by the militias, with preserved Portuguese colonial buildings and locals not completely stripped of their belongings. Ironically enough, the only place I really wanted to see and didn't.
Another cape and there is a big bay in front of us with what is definitely a village, across. It takes two hours to get there, there is a jetty and 10 or so kids waiting and cheering as we come closer.
Dave lets me steer, puts on his polarising glasses and has his "visual" on the coral from the bow. After a remark from me about that he replaces his "left" and "right" instructions with "port" and "star".
Boat is tied up under a lot of cheering and selamats, we decide to walk to the village. Meanwhile some adults come to see us, an older man radiates a bit of authority and speaks a bit of Portuguese. We take some gear and go ashore and during the first ten minutes I get about 10 remarks on my sandals from that old man. He obviously likes them very much and hopes that I'll tear them off my feet and give them to him.The first building we see is something official, or rather has been. It has no roof, no doors or windows, and all the walls are heavily black with soot. There are a lot of signs, reminding me very much of signs in Bulgaria 15 years ago, usually about friendship with the Soviet Union. The signs here are in Indonesian, probably saying this is a police station.
A bit further there is a gate (or rather has been) in a fence that goes around the marina. Then the village begins; the first couple of houses have a feeling of normality around them, they don't even look poor. The sandal-man is the landlord of the first house, he gives us seats, two coconuts appear after a minute, a tray with two glasses. Dave and I are sitting across a low table from the man, he chops up the nuts with his machete and gives them to us. Virtually the whole village is hanging on the low fence around the small yard. I smile to as many I can and notice tens of million-dollar-smiles with perfect white teeth. Lots of kids, some young men, some girls, two or three of them quite beautiful. Chatter and laughter, we are being watched and our every move gets its comment. A lot of excitement in the crowd when I pour my cocomilk out of the nut into the glass, cheers when I drink it. It's refreshing all right. The conversation has passed the basic exchanges on our nationalities, my denial on being Portuguese and for the first time I get the thumbs up for being Bulgarian. Funnily enough, after saying "Bulgaria" in English the Timorese say to each other "B?lgaria" with a very Bulgarian kind of pronunciation. A nice surprise - they know about that country and start making soccer moves to show me.
We ask to go for a walk, I take the camera out and shoot 'from the hip' with the wide angle. Don't want to offend or lose the opportunity. The village is shacks only - rusty corrugated iron piled together, small lots of land. All the yards meticulously clean-swept, something I noticed at the first house already. On many doors there are posters - at the first house there were some Soeharto photos, the majority were soccer pictures, though. Apparently, this has been a normal settlement made of stone houses and completely wiped off the face of the island. Dave asks for chicken eggs but the villagers say that the militias have shot all the chickens. A bit doubtful, we see some running around, but they might be younger then six months, who knows…I continue shooting 'from the hip' and 2 minutes later I see a person in a military uniform with the famous light blue UN cap, as seen on every airport in the world. Well, some authorities at last, now we can report ourselves and get the passports stamped and whatever else might be needed.
The soldier is South Korean, with three of his colleagues. Coming closer we see what they are doing - shooting pictures at an incredible rate, of children holding fishing spears and standing in the water or on one of the small canoes (with those side-stabilising things). Then one of the Koreans would stand next to an object of interest, have his picture taken, then change his place with another and so on. The usual Asian tourist thing taking place in Com, East Timor. The photos 'from the hip' were obviously on the overcautious side.
The Koreans see us and are totally unimpressed. They speak a bit of English and tell us their story. We tell them ours and they smile politely but don't quite know what 'yacht' or 'boat' means.
Later on they suggest having dinner with them, which we immediately accept. One of the Koreans wears cool sunglasses and emits some sort of command, he is Capt. Lee, the only professional soldier, 37, the other three are just 23-year-old-guys on their tour of duty.
An interesting spectacle follows: we squeeze into a KIA-jeep ("better than Daewoo"), drive for about 2 km to a nice patch of grass and beach. Within 3 minutes a fire is lit, a tin lid is on it and pieces of bacon are sizzling. Fresh cabbage appears, some VB-cans that come out of the 20 œC esky are being laid into the 33 œC water of the sea, a plastic water bottle full of some sort of sauce, chopsticks, garlic, onions. Traditional Korean cuisine, our first (and personally my best) meal in East Timor.
Later on Dave asks for a ride to the boat and brings cans of coke and some rum. They like the rum-cola pretty much. I interrogate them on their lives - all three young guys are university trained - a lawyer, a MSc in physics, an electronics engineer. One of them draws me a map of Timor in my notebook, which I didn't stop using during my entire trip. He signs it, too - Moon Seung Hyun, Korean Special Force. Good work, Seung Hyun.In the dark they drive us back to the boat, have their picture taken in all possible combinations - the four of them with one of us, four of them with both of us, every one of them alone on the boat, in pairs etc etc etc. At least two rolls of film are used.
Some of the local youth appear, with a guitar (hopelessly out of tune, with broken keys), we pour them some gin, previously watered down by Dave, and try to have a nice talk, sitting on the concrete jetty in the dark. The guitar player speaks reasonable English and gives more information. They sing a few ballads in Tetun, very melodical and easy-listening, bright stars above, phosphorescent warm sea under us, a light breeze. Wow.
Life's good.
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