It was about 2 am last night and I was in my living room watching Stranger Than Fiction starring Will Ferrell. It’s really not a very funny movie so I wouldn’t recommend anyone else watch it. While I was watching it, I heard a noise and assumed it was my laptop. My friend woke up and come into the living room to find out what the noise was. The fan, perhaps? It turned out to be the large boats in the sea. They were honking their horns like it was nobody’s business.

We live about 100 meters from the sea. I decided to go outside and walk to the end of the road to the coastline. I had visions of some kind of tanker pileup. I walked out of the gate and within about 30 seconds there was a Timorese man following me. I kept a good distance between us and made a point of looking back at him every few steps.

I made it to the end of the road and sat on a wall to watch the boats. There was no pileup. The man who had been following me stopped about 20 meters from where I was sat. There was nobody else around and it was dark. I looked at the man a few times and he shuffled around a bit. He must have been in his late twenties. He was well built and looked a bit mad.

If I go out on a random walks at night, I make a point to only have a couple of dollars in my pocket and nothing else. If I get mugged, I can empty my pockets and not lose too much. This is my logic, anyway.

I was curious why the man had followed me up the road. I watched the boats for a few minutes and then decided to go home. I approached the man and asked him for a cigarette. He said he didn’t have any, so I walked back down the road. The man followed me again, but I made it back without being ambushed.

It was a weird thing to happen. It wasn’t particularly scary, but I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through that guy’s head. Perhaps he was just bored and wanted to watch a foreigner sit on a wall.