#3 Chew Betelnut

For the first international item on the list I travelled to East Timor to chew betelnut with Hannah. Of course, while I was there I spent some time travelling around and experiencing the country with Kelly.

I've been debating for a while how I would eventually write up this item. Should it be specifically about the act of chewing betelnut, or should it be more of a travel blog entry? I've decided a little bit of both, as the travelling is part of the story of the betelnut and vice versa. I could write a lot more about the travelling though, so I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

First though, many people ask me: what is betelnut? Well, chewing betelnut is an activity that is common across Southeast Asia. People wrap areca nut in a betel leaf; chew it; and then spit it out. Why? Well, it's traditional. Also, it's a stimulant; suppresses appetite and causes cancer. So yeah, it's kind of like smoking. Why do people do that?

Oh, and it turns your mouth and saliva bright red and eventually stains your teeth red too. I wonder why it hasn't made its way into our culture?

An example of the skinny roads on the edge of mountains
in Timor, with some of our fellow road users

Anyway, on to the trip: when we first arrived in Dili, we planned with Hannah that we would go to Atauro Island (just off the coast from Dili) that weekend and chew the betelnut there. In the meantime, Kelly and I decided to do a road trip to the eastern most point of Dili and go to Jaco Island.

We rented a car and set off. Immediately it was apparent why we'd had to rent a 4WD - the roads in Timor are in a terrible state. They're not particularly good to begin with and any repairs that are done are pretty shoddy... Then the rain comes and washes half the road down the mountain! There are massive potholes everywhere. In fact, it was a little scary driving - the road wasn't quite big enough for two cars, and we were on the edge of some very steep hills. Plus, the locals coming the other way thought nothing of tearing around blind corners at high speeds!

Kelly points out Jaco Island
Look at how clear the water is!

We got to Jaco Island in one piece though, after a couple of days of driving (despite Jaco only being 240km away). Amusingly, Google maps says it should take a little under 3 hours. Ha! Jaco was worth it though. The beaches were beautiful, the water perfectly clear and there was nobody else around. Plus the drive itself allowed us to peek into a bit of life in East Timor, which was interesting in itself.







Our little cabin on Atuaro Island

Once we got back to Dili from our trip out east, it was time to head to Atuaro Island. On the weekend, a lot of people from Dili catch the ferry over to Atuaro to escape the city for a few hours. It was very busy, and a slow going ride, so personally I started to get a little sea sick by the end. Once we got to Atuaro, we checked into a nice little cabin, relaxed and had a couple of beers. After a couple of hours Kelly and I headed over to the market to find some betelnut to chew that night.

But the market was closing. We walked all around and asked everyone if they had some betelnut, but everyone had sold out for the day. The ferry had packed up and gone home, so the Atuaro locals had chewed up all they hadn't sold and were ready to head home. The betelnut plan would have to be put on hold. The new plan would be to get some in Dili and chew it at Hannah's house.

Hanging out (alone) at the hostel in Hato Builico

Once we returned to Dili, Kelly and I rented another car and headed southwards to the centre of East Timor to climb Mt Ramelau - the highest mountain in East Timor. Driving was again quite tricky, but the distance was shorter so we managed it in just one day and stayed the night in the nearby town of Hato Builico. Hannah said she had gone to Hato Builico to climb the mountain just a couple of weeks earlier, during a local religious festival. When she was there it was very busy, lots of people in the hostel, lots of people climbing the mountain. However, when Kelly and I arrived it was deserted. I'm pretty sure we were the only tourists in town and it was very creepy staying in a big quiet hostel with nobody there (not even staff!).

Statue of Mary at the top of Mt Ramelau at day break

We didn't stay at the creepy hostel long though as we got up at 3:30am in order to get to the top by day break. It's the first time I've done a night climb (though it was the first time Kelly had done any climb) and it was a little bit freaky climbing up a steep mountain at night. There were definitely points were we'd walk along a little path and right next to the path the mountain would plunge into darkness and we couldn't see the bottom. Spooky!

Again, it was worth it though. The views from the top of Mt Ramelau were spectacular - we could actually see the ocean to the north and the south - so we could see across the whole of the country! For me, one of the highlights of the trip was seeing Kelly's face light up once we got to the top and she felt for the first time the joy of reaching the top of a hike.

So even though it was spooky, it was kind of nice to have the mountain to ourselves as we did the hike. Much more, um, "authentic" that way. Hannah's descriptions of people everywhere didn't make it sound like anywhere near as much of an adventure.

Just one of the amazing views from Mt Ramelau

When we got back to Hato Builico we found out that the weekly market was on that day. We thought it might be a good opportunity to scout out some betelnut, so headed on in. The market was tiny - just a few people from around the area come in to sell some items they had grown - but we had made a good call... Practically everyone was chewing betelnut!

Our guide from the mountain (our translator) and Kelly (our translator of the guide) asked some merchants if we could buy some, but they said they didn't have any. So they asked some others, but they said 'no' too. Seemed that nobody had any to sell us! Completely confused, we asked a store nearby and they said nobody would have any. I decided we had to clarify things. So I got everyone's attention and pointed to the big red stains on the ground where people had spat out the betelnut. "Ah!" They all said. Followed by some words I can only assume meant something along the lines of "you mean betelnut you stupid foreigners!".

So now we went back into the market and all of a sudden everyone had betelnut for sale (now that we were actually asking for betelnut). It was cheap too - we bought a couple of sticks and some leaves and started to head off... When we bumped into the first foreigner we'd seen outside of Dili and the first people who could speak English outside of Dili. The foreigner's guide told us that we'd got most of the ingredients we'd need - but that we needed lime powder as well. So we went back to get that. The guide then said she should get some for helping us out, which we happily obliged and she showed us how to do it (though she said she hadn't done it in six years).

She took a leaf, put a nut in the leaf and put some lime powder on it. She then wrapped up the leaf and put it in her mouth and started chewing... Looks like she thinks it's great!

Betelnut in hand Kelly and I returned to Dili for the main event. It also happened to be our last night in Timor by this stage. Hannah and her housemates cooked up dinner and then we all went out the front of her house to drink wine and chew betelnut.

Posing with five betelnut "shots" lined up and ready!

We set up the leaves, nuts and powder; just like the guide had told us, took some photos and then chowed down. Photos tell the story better than words can:

What Hannah's friends thought

It was not tasty. It was a lot more painful than tasty in fact. We each had a few rounds of nuts, chewing for as long as seemed logical, spitting it out, taking some photos... but nobody felt any fun effects. In fact, you'd have more fun just hanging out and drinking wine than getting any betelnut involved!






With our mouths turning bright red, there was only one thing left to do:

Oh, and plank, of course!

By now our mouths were very painful. Drinking hurt. Brushing our teeth hurt.

Nursing our wounds we headed to bed.

The next morning, nothing had improved. Our mouths were still very sore - it felt like a whole bunch of the inside of my tongue and cheek was burned. We had done some serious damage to ourselves. Turned out we had been a little too liberal with the lime powder and had indeed dissolved a large portion of the inside of our mouths. That's pretty much what it looked like when I bared the pain and stuck my tongue out. Talking wasn't fun, nor was eating. Guess that's my fault for flippantly consuming a substance the mafia uses to dissolve bodies! Luckily, it wasn't permanent damage (isn't the tongue meant to be one of the most resilient parts of the body?), so after a couple of weeks my mouth was back to normal.

So while I didn't really enjoy the betelnut itself, it was a good trip (thanks for coming Kelly!), and it was great to catch up with Hannah while she was living in Dili. Thanks Hannah!