East Timor Travel

East Timor, or Timor Leste was one of the world's newest countries at the time of my visit in 2011. This tiny nation earned its independence in 2003 from Indonesia which followed a civil war and instability. I had heard of many dangers of travel to East Timor years before my trip, but the country seems to have made some great strides recently. My feelings on East Timor was that the country is very proud of its struggle and independence, and hopefully will continue to progress towards peace.


East Timor Links
	East Timor's capital is the city of Dili is located along the northern coast of the country. It's by far the largest city in East Timor with a population just under 200,000 people. Even though the city is built along the coast, rising mountains a few hundred meters inland give the city both flat and steeper areas. The photo on the left was taken from higher up in the city and shows the main part of Dili. On the right is the seat of the government, at the Governor's Palace. With invasions from Indonesia and then a civil war that followed the country's independence, East Timor has seen some violent times in its recent memory. With the help of the UN and other international organizations, calm has returned to the country. Below is a photo of a UN patrol car which seemed almost as popular as taxis, on the lower right is a symbol of unity of the UN police force along with Timor Leste's own police. I also saw several uniformed police officers from Australia.

I had a huge mental debate on whether or not to include East Timor as part of Oceania or Southeast Asia before arriving to the island. I researched the continental plate the island was on, language and culture, and ethnic groups of East Timor. At the end it seemed like Asia was an obvious choice, and I'm glad I was able to make a choice with confidence. Some people in East Timor do look more like Pacific Islanders rather than Asians, so there seems to be a good ethnic mix here. Above are photos of two people I saw in Dili.

Downtown Dili doesn't stand out as attractive or have any large memorials that I came across. The upper left shows the main commercial area of Dili which has several clothing and electronic businesses, plus no shortage of people selling things from the street. The upper right another street in Dili that is lined with clothing stores. On the outside they look pretty unimpressive, but inside they have a good selection of clothing.

Most of the shops in East Timor don't look impressive from the outside, but once inside you can find some decent clothing shops and even a few nice but expensive restaurants. Lots of the women clothes looked like they belonged in another decade and sometimes even another century! The vintage mens shirts were reasonably priced and where more modern. For some reason shops in East Timor seemed determined to compete with who could sell the most backpacks. Some shops seemed to be made up of mens and women's clothing then 50% of the store dedicated to backpacks. The ironic thing is I very rarely saw anyone wearing a backpack in East Timor unless they were a foreigner.

There were several abandoned buildings in East Timor like this one above. I'd assume the abandonment and current conditions of the building are a result of the conflicts that took place in the country, but there was no way for me to be sure and the two people already in the building following me around didn't seem to understand why I was in the here in the first place much less my questions about its history.

Even though I visited Timor Leste in the beginning of the rainy season, all the major rivers in Dili seemed to be dried out. In mid November, it rained a bit in the evening and late at night, but never during the day time while I was there. I took the upper left picture while leaving the airport and crossing a bridge. I'm not sure what these guys were looking for, but there were lots of trucks inside the river bed collecting something.

While in Dili I ended up crossing through a small neighborhood. Most of the houses were very humble and poor, the house on the right even used a broken down car as part of their fence. Despite the poverty here the people in the neighborhood were very friendly.

This was a major food market I stumbled across in Dili farther away from the downtown areas. From the side of the road, all you could see was the rusty metal roofs of shacks that went on quite a distance, but inside there were hundreds of people selling fresh fruits and vegetables, live chickens, and other items. Above are two photos of the streets and shops, and below are spices and raw coffee beans for sale. I was surprised to find out that coffee beans from East Timor have quite a reputation, and even Starbucks gets some of its coffee beans from here!

Famous in East Timor is the Tais market. Here you can buy traditional clothing, scarfs, and other weavings all created by hand. This market is a good place for souvenirs, but more importantly it is a place where locals can buy high quality clothing that is used for events like weddings, funerals and other formal occasions.

Since Timor Leste is on a small island, its main way of international trading is of course by sea. Dili has a large port which is used by fisherman, small sailboats, shipping freighters and even some abandoned ships. There were a few ships which were obviously abandoned, but those on the upper right I couldn't tell if they were all in use or anchored off the coast and abandoned.

For a real beach and swimming, you should of course venture outside of Dili, but regardless if you can't wait you'll find lots of swimmers and families playing in the waters along the city. Above is some statues that were being sold by a local man, on the right are some kids I saw playing.

Guys selling fruit and other items like in the lower left are all over Dili, but the area around the port is dominated with people selling all types of fish. I don't eat fish so I didn't give anything here a try, but there seemed to be several different species of fish, even some colorful ones.


The Farol lighthouse in Dili is the small but a well known landmark in the city, and also a good reference if you're walking around. On the right is a large ship that either the lighthouse failed to guide or it ran aground for other reasons. It looks like it created an artificial pier for these fishermen.

With a Christian majority and European influence, Merry Christmas, Boas Festas and Santa Claus are part of the culture here. These seasonal greetings above were found along a random wall in Dili but were painted for the Christmas before I arrived, suggesting they will be here year around unless someone attempts to paint over them.

While East Timor is 99% Christian and 1% Muslim, I found several Stars of David around the capital and the words Israel marked in various places. I've not been able to find slightest bit of information about a Jewish population living in East Timor, but signs appearing in the city.

Just outside the city limits of Dili is Cape Fatucama, a small piece of dry land that slightly extends out into the Banda Sea. At the top of the mountain at Cape Fatucama is a statue of Jesus Christ, and the area is often compared to Brazil's Rio Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue. I got to Cape Fatucama by taking a taxi from downtown Dili, the driver insisted he dropped me off at a parking lot which I assumed was because he was being lazy and refused to drive me up the statue. I continued to point straight ahead on the road until huge potholes and washed out sections proved it impossible for the taxi to continue. I tried the rest by foot, and eventually I came across sections where the entire road had been washed out like on the upper left. I was able to continue on foot until I got to the section seen on the right. This photo doesn't do a good job of showing the terrain, but I'm actually standing in front of a 10 foot wide gap with a deep section that would be impossible to climb down and up. The crab below is actually dead, but from a distance he seemed pretty healthy. On the lower right is a photo of the ocean showing how clear the water was. The waves here weren't very strong at the moment, but a few of them were high enough to get me a little wet.

Once back at the taxi, I finally realized with the help of a local ranger that the parking lot he had tried to originally drop me off at, had about 500 stairs leading up to the statue. The stairs leading up to the statue are lined with different periods of Jesus's life finishing with his crucifixion and resurrection. It was a very hot day, and climbing the stairs didn't take long but was enough to get me sweaty and wanting to jump into the ocean or swimming pool. Above is one of the small shrines I mentioned showing Jesus dying on the cross, and on the left is the main statue itself. It is known here as Cristo Rei, or Christ the King. I had assumed that the statue was created after East Timor earned their independence, but was surprised to find out it was a gift of the Indonesian government to East Timor back in 1996. Most of the rebels denounced the statue as propaganda, but now it is welcomed by all in East Timor and has become a land mark of their nation. Aside from the impressive statue which stands nearly 90 feet or 27 meters in height, are the amazing views looking back on the Cape. Below is a view of the left side of Cape Fatucama and another shot of the right side. The right side is the direction back to Dili so there is a road following the coast with some hotels and businesses there. Along the left side is mostly a remote beach. I didn't make it out there but someone told me it was very quiet and well worth a visit.


A farther trip away from Dili, though still very close is a 30 minute ride up the mountain to the town of Dare. Since taxis are so cheap here in the city, I took one to visit Dare. It seems the locals who were going from city to city in East Timor were crowding on these trucks seen above. I can't imagine it would cost them more than a dollar to go from place to place and since there were so many trucks it seemed like an easy way to get around.

Most of the areas around Dili are very dry, but as you get higher up in the mountains it turns to jungle with some interesting plant life. Above is some of the thick jungle with an enormous tree, below on the left is an edible fruit that is for sale here in the markets. The plant on the lower right is something I've never seen before. I came across several others and they don't seem to get more than a foot in height.

There didn't seem to be much to the town of Dare itself, unless my new taxi driver failed to drive all the way into town. The church here seemed like it was being restored and had dozens of people working on the grounds. The most significant point of interest in Dare was it's World War II memorial dedicated to the thousands of Timorese who died fighting the Japanese. On the right is the Australian East Timorese memorial dedicated to the war. Below is a small museum and cafe which has plenty of history of what took place here back in the war. Japan invaded the Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1942 which also had an Australian military presence at the time. The Japanese were able to take the island in only a few days of fighting, but a guerilla war launched by Australian military commandos and locals continued the fight against the Japanese. Eventually the Australians were pulled out and the remaining East Timorese suffered heavy losses, around 40,000 to 70,000 deaths. Japan remained in East Timor until the end of the war in 1945.


I failed to make it out to Aturao island, which was a big disappointment for this trip, but I still was able to get a great dive in from the mainland. I did a shore dive just outside of Dili, and once I got away from the beach I immediately saw wild life like the pair of sucker fish on the left and the clown fish that were circling the anemone on the right.

I failed to make it out to Aturao island, which was a big disappointment for this trip, but I still was able to get a great dive in from the mainland. I did a shore dive just outside of Dili, and once I got away from the beach I immediately saw wild life like the pair of sucker fish on the left and the clown fish that were circling the anemone on the right.

If you've already read some of my other pages that involve scuba diving, you'd have noticed that each time I complain about the colors and apologize about not having a strobe for my camera. In East Timor, I still lacked a strobe but this time the dive master was nice enough to let me borrow his diving flashlight. Of course a diving light is used for caving or night diving and not designed to work with a camera, so while it's results were nothing compared to using a real strobe it was definitely an enormous improvement in regards to coloring. This of course only happened when I was able to hold the light on the subject, balance myself with my BCD while simultaneously taking a picture and holding the camera steady. The photo above shows some red coral, you can see how ugly the color is on the left side outside of the flashlights reach and get an understanding of what lack of a strobe or light does when you're more than 10 meters or 30 feet under water. The broccoli trees on the right were interesting but I was unable to get any shots with the light since they were so tall. The flashlight was only good for a small area.

Since these guys were smaller, the flashlight worked pretty well with them and I was happy with the results. I'm not sure of the species of either of these photos, so it's something I must continue to search for on the internet.

The sea slug on the left was a new find for me, but unfortunately I missed him with the flashlight so you can not see his true colors. The fish head coming out of a hole on the right was pretty dramatic and evil, and I thought a large serpent or giant eel was coming out to attack me, but it was only a fish.

Another new species for me was the cuttle fish that is in both pictures above. On the left is where we originally saw him, and I had thought it was an octopus based on it's camouflage and eyes, but once it swam out I saw what it was.


	Above seems to be a smaller species of a sea slug, and on the right is no doubt one of the most annoying sea horses in all the world's oceans. This prickly sea horse refused to be photographed and every time I would swim to one of its sides he would face another direction just exposing his back. I finally got this decent photo of him, but without the flashlight, so he appears white in the photo but is actually red.

	And finally, one of my highlights of this dive was two different species of lion fish. Before this trip I had only seen a lion fish in Egypt where I didn't get any photos and then a poor photo of one in Yemen. These guys were just hanging out on the ocean floor or attached to coral and weren't the least bothered by me swimming right up to them.

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