Atauro, East Timor

It was all neatly planned. We arrived at Darwin airport well ahead of time to check in to our 6.30 am flight to Dili. There was no queue, and ample staff to assist us. And then they started whispering: "have you told them about the downgrade?" "Oh, yes, the downgrade". It was like the Monty Python scene where they're all talking about the comfy chair. So we were told about the downgrade - we'd have to re-pack our hand luggage to a maximum of 4kg because the plane had been changed from a passenger jet to a competitive entry in this year's bird man competition. No big deal, the flight time would just be 15 or 20 minutes slower. Oh, and the flight was split in two, and we were on the later flight, leaving two hours late. Enjoy your flight.

We doth protesteth vociferously. We had a dude organised to meet us at Dili Airport and take us directly to the ferry (which they were already delaying an hour for us) and thence to Atauro Island where our accommodation was. An extra two hours might have tested the patience of the other ferry customers, we thought. We told Air North of our predicament, namely that we had arranged a connection on the basis that we would be on the flight that we had booked. They suggested that we couldn't get on the earlier flight because we hadn't told them about our connection. Presumably the expectation was that we should have anticipated that the flight would be split in two and should therefore have preemptively informed them that we would need to be on the earlier flight because of our ferry connection. K had forgotten to do this, so we were somewhat stuck.

When we threatened (with honest intention) to cancel our flight and request a refund, a couple of seats came available on the earlier flight. So we were the bastards who ruined someone else's trip. Sorry. We felt dirty.

Our Meeting-Us-At-The-Airport dude from the ferry/diving company hadn't gone to the trouble of writing a sign so that we would recognise him, he just memorised my name. Or made up my name. I didn't answer to 'Richard', though it be a nice name, so we stood around becoming agitated and anxious. After some short delay, K thought that perhaps the tanned white Australian guy who looked like a diver was probably the Australian guy who ran the diving company. So we asked the fellow if he knew who ran the ferry; he did. So off we putted in his old ute, exchanging life stories, and caught the ferry. Neatly planned.

The place we stayed at was a beach-side cluster of huts run by another former Australian fellow called Barry. He called it Barry's Place. It was an excellent basic place, with beds, mosquito nets, hammocks and food. We spent most of our hours there just reading our books, lazing about, eating and sleeping. Our extravagant excursions included walking along the beach, dabbling in snorkeling, making a spectacle of ourselves at the market (where smoked fish was de jour), walking up the hill to a bar that served coffee and cocktails, and tuk-tuking to a doll-making factory shop, which was closed for Easter.

Four restful days later, we caught a boat back to Dili, passing beautiful dolphins and a couple of whales on the way. Back in Dili the boat owner gave us a short tour around the surprisingly small city centre, past Parliament, the University, the (apparently only) shopping centre and the markets. She also told us about her history with Dili when her family was forced out of the country in 1999 after her father was hacked across the chest with a machete. Shit's still real.

Out at the airport we tried to check in early, but the guy told us we needed to come back in half an hour. As we left the tiny airport building, he locked the door behind us and didn't open it again for another hour and a half. Champ.