On our way home, we flew from Bali to Kupang in West Timor so that we could catch a bus back to the East Timor border. We had one night in Kupang which I was pretty unimpressed about. My previous two experiences of Kupang involved little more than a sense of bewilderment (at why on earth all the shops and restaurants had their backs to the beach) and annoyance (at the fact that there were no footpaths anywhere).
As it turns out, we were just in the wrong part of town. Kupang actually does have a few places where you can have a beer and watch the sunset over the beach. One of these is the Lavalon Tourist Information Centre. It’s a cute little open-air hangout overlooking the water, where local men eat pisang goreng (fried bananas) and discuss local politics, dogs sleep, cats prowl and tourists resign themselves to the fact that they’re in Kupang and it probably won’t be too long before they’re out of there, so they might as well just have a beer and relax.
We thought we’d get an afternoon snack to help wile the hours away. And although the food took approximately 45 minutes to make, when it finally came it was surprisingly fresh and tasty.
Mie goreng – fried noodles, some choy sum and fried onions with your choice of tomato or chilli sauce.
Hot chips and fried eggs.
The chips were reminiscent of the best homemade chips your mum ever made. Topped off with a couple of cold Bintangs, we were very happy travellers by the time we walked out of there.
Kupang also has a really cool night market selling all sorts of foods out of very funky little carts. We went for a walk through the market, still too full to eat anything else, but the visual display alone ended up being one of the highlights of the whole trip.
I won’t mind too much if I have to spend a night in Kupang next time.
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