Bolivia of South East Asia?

thank you guys. the worst 2 days were very unforgetable for us but now we can say, we made it.

After all the sufferrings, it comes the rewardings.






For the past 2 days we had been cleaning our soiled clothing, especially our riding gear. I had to unfix the front mud guard as the mud was so full that it was sanding my tires. I had to clean the chain up to the best condition making sure it could last till home.

The route leaving Viqueque was extra ordinary. We had never seen such peaceful place and landscape. The thought of it now is still very deep. There were so much jewel and treasure in this route and we had to really ride slowly to look around. I used the word ‘waoooo’ and 'so untouched' a lot of time.

This route went north to Baucau and back to west to Dili. We just wanted to go back to Rocella Hotel and enjoy the air-con room without mosquitoes.

Sadly, when we reached Rocella Hotel, the welcoming owner informed us that all the rooms were fully booked. So they recommended us to Hotel ‘B’. We went there but it was full. Before leaving, a western lady staying in Hotel ‘B’ talked to us and said he saw us on the way from Viqueque to Los Palos, the bad road. They were on their 4x4 at that time. She told me that the hotel was full because they had a religious group coming to stay. This religious group is going to build a religious building in one of the village.

I told myself:

WTF?! Why are they spending money on building religious buildings (lets call it temple)instead of building water and electrical supply? The people here would need that as basic of life than to have their temple. Oh… I know why. After completing this temple, they go back to their country, tell the other people in their religious group that they had done a great effort in building the temple in East Timor. Then the listener would go: wao, you went to the ‘dangerous’ East Timor to build a temple. Then they can put the pictures in their facebook too!

SICKO PEOPLE!

We went to the next cheapest optioned hotel available in Dili, which was very out of the town. It had high security fences all around. We went in and the price was:

US$23.20 for single.
US$45.00 + for double.


They were fine when I asked if 2 person could sleep in a single bed. Yes, we made a saving but Sam was actually quite sad that she could not stay with Hotel Rocella. We had to stay for about 3 nights for the collection of our passport in the Indonesia embassy then it’s time for us to leave Timor Leste.

Actually we wanted to stay longer to explore the west but looking at Hope Too, he could have been stronger. We wanted to preserve Hope Too being smooth till home, which is not far away.

One the day we left Dili after collecting our passports from Indonesia embassy, we wonder the guy at the Bakso (meat ball soup) shop still waiting for us.

Question suddenly aroused in my mind. Where our vehicle in Singapore does goes to after the 10 years COE?

(In Singapore, to own a car, we have to buy a certificate on top of the machine price, something like S$40000. it is called certificate of entitlement (COE), meaning that we are entitled to own it for 10 years. After the 10 years, we have to scrap the vehicle away and hand it to the authority. But if we want to keep for another 10 years, we have to buy another certificate of entitlement).

google it!

So after 10 years, we sent the vehicle to the workshop and pay those guys to scrap away the vehicle.

In Timor Leste, we saw many local taxi of Nissan made that has the uniquely Singaporean installed ERP on top of the dashboard. The taxi driver do not know what that machine is for. Then, we saw many 10 foot trucks, another uniquely Singapore lorry, the one that I had when I was doing my own business. What are these Singapore vehicles doing in Timor Leste?

Oh, I forgot to tell all of you. When we were in Peru last year, in a small village, we saw a maroon colored Nissan Sunny with Singapore license plate (SCW followed by 4 numbers and end with an alphabet). It was also uniquely Singapore license plate. So what was this vehicle doing in the very deserted village of Peru?