Betano Beach

A coconut tree-trunk lies stranded on the black sand...
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The afternoon has grown old, into the evening, like the memories of a place in the imagination. As I sit here in my hotel in the mountain village of Same, I wonder if it's the collision of memory, imagination and reality that make us who we really are. All three finally seemed to collide when, earlier this afternoon, I found a piece of myself on the deserted southern beach at the village of Betano.

On the small road which carved through the dry bush and grassland, I turned my head momentarily to the right, catching with the corner of my eyes the flecks of bright blue  through the bush, only metres away from the road itself. Spying a clearing, I slowed the Honda to a crawl and veered off the road, over the sloping earth, through the trees and towards the ocean.

With only the sound of the waves, it's not hard to imagine the past.

The sand, sky and sea form a beautiful contrasting panorama...
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As the ocean came fully into view, like a child, my eyes widened with the promise of the sea. Pressing the bike's kill switch, I turned off the engine, dismounted and clambered awkwardly onto the black sand.

With legs and mind aching from hours of concentration clattering along the broken and potholed southern road, I slumped down on the sand underneath a bone-dry, dead tree. With a certain sense of satisfaction for having reached the destination after so difficult a journey, I sighed into the warm sand, breathing in deeply the salty air.

The Honda stops for a quick pose...
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Gratefully, my tired body eased itself slowly into the soft ground and my eyes began to take in the panorama. All around me, the coastline arched gracefully to meet the ocean. Along the shoreline, fragments of time lay: a fallen coconut tree trunk, petrified rocks baking in the sun, shells and stranded bits of driftwood. Further along towards the village itself lay a line of dormant boats, strewn in perfect symmetry.

On the other side of this blue water world lay familiar land of Australia. Perhaps it's a trick of the mind, but after staring into the blue for short time, it seemed to me that this whole place was looking with weary eyes, like mine, towards Australia.

Boats line up to wait...
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With only the sound of the waves, it's not hard to imagine the past. By day they must have hid, sleeping in the bushes and clinging to the safety of the mountains. At night, they would come down here to wait; waiting for food, medicine, communication from Darwin. Fortified with months of uncertainty for their lives, perhaps they no longer cared much at all if the order hadn't come for their evacuation. After all, having survived this long behind Japanese lines, maybe the force of youth made them invincible. Or maybe not. It's hard to know anything much in this heat.

Near by, the Tour de Timor starting line can be seen on the road...
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But like those soldiers who did survive, ferried back to the safety of home, it's not hard to still picture the tiny dark-skinned heroes left on the shore in the moonlight, stunned by the amnesia of their surrogate fathers and the falsity of the words printed on thousands of tiny slips of paper: your friends do not forget you. In a few days the Japanese would torch whole villages, killing everyone in sight on the mere suspicion that one tiny creado had lived there. The boys, many having lost their real parents would stare in stunned silence at the ocean, looking for a glimmer of hope, a ship to take them away from the horrors of their home in flames and the endless killing.

Betano beach...
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Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe friends don't forget their own so easily. Perhaps in a very small way that's part of why I'm here. Without the memory of this place it's my imagination that keeps me going, clattering along on this motorbike through mountains and past beaches. But now I have something more. I have a memory of this place to take with me - and no, I won't forget this one.