Nusa Tenggara Museum, Visa and bemo and a delicious restaurant

 

At my Lavalon Guest House was another traveller of Germany, his name is Michael. We decided to go to the Embassy of Timor-Leste (East-Timors new official name) together.

He was not amused taking a Bemo, yeah he gets something like a little panic attack when I talked about that. A Bemo is a very small van which operate like an hop on and hop off taxi on fixed routes around Kupang. Normally neither the driver nor the guy who keep the money doesn`t speak English. So it could be every time a little adventure. I like to explore the area in this way, but Michael doesn`t, although his bahasa Indonesia is very well.

However, I agreed to take a taxi (50000Rp. for me definetely too expensive) to the Embassy, because I want to apply for a visa for East-Timor and they  have very short opening hours. We arrived at the Embassy to a wrong time, coz it was closed. Instead of that, we decided to do a visit of the Nusa Tenggara Museum near by.

Unfortunately, one half of the museum was under construction, so there was not too much to see, but it was nice and interesting to get a view about the origin and culture.

Necklace, made by teeth from a shark

shoes

different kinds of hats

baskets

A three-head-statue is a symbol from the first inhabitants of the earth.

After the growing influence of the islam in the indonesian archipelago, they banned the sculptures, coz the islam not recognize two and three dimensional image of beings.

traditional buildings

The dragons are omnipresent in Indonesia.

Seen on the way around Kupang, a street with the name of Gerneral Soeharto.

He was a dictator and is responsable for millions of killings on indonesian and chinese in Indonesia. It would be similar if we name a road "Hitler street". So, it suprised me a lot to see they take his name for a street.

If you are interested in more details about him, click here:

How  they build a house in Kupang.

Advent season in Indonesia.

On the way back we took a Bemo (2000Rp.) and it was very tight. But most of the times it is very funny inside. Some locals try to talk to you. Some are suprised if you talk bahasa Indonesia and others are only irritated. I remember a ride where a young couple sat in opposite to me and she was smiling to me all the time and the guy wasn`t amused about a foreigner in the bemo and so she tried to tell him to be friendly, but it doesn`t worked and her views said something like "sorry, his is just a simple indonesian guy".

Sometimes they try to get more money from a foreigner, like 5000Rp instead of 2000, but no worry. Just say 2000Rp and everything will be fine. :)
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If you also want to go to the Embassy of Timor-Leste, then take bemo number 6 for going there and bemo number 27 for getting back. They drop you at a interesting road off and you can walk downhill and talk to a lot of locals.....They are all very friendly and happy to talk to foreigners. Try some fruits along this way.

Let me just say a few words to german guys on traveling: I met a lot of travellers from different countries along my way, but why are only the germans guys so disrespectful and drunk too much, that they can`t walk straight ahead anymore?
I can`t and don`t want to understand this behavior. One evening I get really upset about Michael when we walked to a fantastic restaurant, called perambanglan, close to the bank of indonesia. It`s owned by a chinese family and the Tiger prawns were so yummy.
Back to the german guy, he got so abusive and was belching at the table this time, that I didn`t join him anymore. It is a shame for Germans in foreign countries!!!

I felt so embrassed...