32 countries and counting - my quest to cover the globe

When you land at Dili airport, it's all too easy to be mesmerised by the transparent blue of the sea and the vivid green of the island sprawling out before you - a far cry from the blackened, sooty skies of Jakarta, one of only three cities from which you can fly here. But behind the tiny capital's charm and natural brilliance lies a history so unfathomably dark that it is difficult to comprehend how far this country's people have come in such a short amount of time.

My Timorese contact is Sister Jacinta, and her tour is somewhat unsettling. At every turn that reveals the fading grandeur of a colourful colonial mansion, she tells haunting tales. "Here we helped hide children under sacks of rice in a truck so that the Indonesian military wouldn't kill them", she says. "When they left in '99, they destroyed everything."

It's easy to believe. Narrow roads lined by decrepit buildings snake outwards like a river delta from the long, Portuguese-era corniche that frames the spectacular Dili bay. Rising majestically from the soaring hill that closes the bay is the Cristo Rei, a statue of Jesus built when Timor was still a province of Indonesia. It says much about its history - a symbol of Catholicism, Timor's dominant religion and a powerful force in its independence struggle - but it faces Jakarta, an ominous reminder of where power truly lay.

The next morning's trip to the eastern city of Baucau begins early. As we drive on a mountain road for four hours, my eyes are treated to the spectacle of untouched bay after bay, countless lush peninsulas leading into blindingly white beaches, melting into the sky and the sea, united in a clear blue. I don't know if I have ever viewed anything this beautiful. Baucau itself is nothing special - its main attraction, a colonial-era market, is crumbling and covered in graffiti.

It's now my last day here, and Sister Jacinta takes us to the west of Dili, to Tasitolu. The shallow lagoons - the name means "three waters" in the local language, Tetum - are so transparent that they reflect the mountains soaring above and the Russian water birds who rest on the surface. Home to an incredible amount of endangered wildlife, every few years these waters turn a deep, blood red. During the occupation, Jacinta tells us, the Indonesians dumped the bodies of hundreds of their victims at the bottom of these lakes. Like so many places in this country, behind unimaginable beauty lies unfathomable tragedy - such is the nature of East Timor.