I arrived in Dili with great excitement especially after an overnight stay in Bali airport at the closed Burger king with a fan. I was also gutted at having to pay $30 for a visa on arrival. I found a recommended tour company on Facebook. I was greeted by the most friendliest immigration officers ever. She was so nice and I wish they were all like her. I also had to pay $30 for another visa on arrival but at least I’m actually leaving the airport.
My guide was Natcho and my driver was John. I had to cut my 5 day tour to three due to lack of US dollars plus misunderstanding about accommodation not being included in the price. Always read the small print.
So Timor Leste is the second island on my itinerary this trip. It has just over a million in population speaking Tetun, Portuguese and Indonesian. The Portuguese ruled for 500 years and their religion, culture and language are embedded in Timor Leste. After one of their most revered king of one of the district decided to fight back and make Timor Leste independent. His name was Dom Bonaventura. Well independence lasted a short nine days before the Indonesians invaded and claimed it and ruled for 24 years. Eventually Timor Leste became independent and adopted the US currency, from $5 only though and have made their own way in the world merging all three cultures and living in peace. At the moment there is heavy involvement by the Chinese for road building or funding for many other projects as they have the resources and equipment.
So I started my three day tour around Mount Ramelau and the surrounding districts. We drove out of Dili and our first stop was in a town called Alieu. It was a winding and bumpy ride through the mountains. The roads were worse than this just a few years ago. Apparently it’s better now. We visited the local markets selling fruit and vegetables as well as tobacco and the very popular bettlenut. but sadly dogs too. The Timor Leste people are friendly and are happy for visitors to take photos. I walked around the market and saw they sell live animals as there are no refrigerated facilities. I took a photo of a man selling roosters and inadvertently took a photo of the saddest looking dog ever tied up. Behind the man was two other men with another sad looking dog and at this point when I saw the knife, I realised what was happening. I quickly walked away as I couldn’t watch that poor dog be slaughtered. When you travel to far and remote places you do come across cultural differences that sometimes goes against everything you believe in. But it is their culture and the people of Timor Leste treat all animals as meat if they need to. People in villages are poor and stray dogs or even cats are their only source of food.
Our next stop is Maubisse. We went straight to the Portuguese pousada to get the great views of this town. There are still remnants of Portuguese architecture and some are used as hotels or administrative departments but mainly they’re left in ruins. We visited another market and a supermarket owned by the Chinese.
We had a pit stop in Flecha where I was to see the third highest mountain. I didn’t care as I spotted a couple of chubby puppies. I’m playing with them and thinking how someone could kill them and eat them. They’re so cute and chubby. I got to see the sunset over the third highest mountain as we drove to our last stop in Same. On our way we witnessed the end of what is known as the most popular past time, cock fighting. Up to $500 can be bet on the cock and the winning cockrels owner gets to keep the money and take the losing one legged cockrel home for dinner. The owner gets to keep the one leg of the cockrel as a consolation. In Same we stayed in the only hotel in town and my room was $30 with breakfast. It was however lacking a fan and full of mosquitoes. I managed to get a fan and mosquito repellent. They even had a pool. For dinner we went to a local bar and for $2.50 I had yummy fried chicken with, salad, tofu, tempeh and a lot of rice, all served with the local chilli sauce. It was delicious and my only meal today was the airplane omelette so I scoffed the lot asking for extra chilli. I watched my guide sing and play the guitar and so did my driver too. That was the end of day one.
The next morning after a hearty breakfast of bread, spreads, fried eggs, roasted peanuts, bananas and the strongest thickest coffee ever we explored the town of Same. Again there was a market, old Portuguese buildings and an old church destroyed by the war. Then we headed to the statue of the most revered king because he was the only king to fight the Portuguese and win. Then we headed south to Betano down to the beach. During the war when the Australian ship ran into trouble the Japanese found them and bombed them to smithereens. So the old Australian shipwreck is under the sea and bits of it are still littered on the black sand beach.
For lunch we stopped in Flecha again as we had to go back this way to get to Mount Ramelau. So I played with the puppies again and this time only had fried chicken and chilli sauce for lunch and it cost $1. Food costs so little here. Natcho bought two bunches of bananas for 50 cents. He bought donuts for 50 cents and got ten donuts. Even a bottle of water is 25 cents.
The next bit of driving was going to be slow and bumpy with lots of twists and turns no doubt making me sick. We needed to get to Hatobuilico which is the nearest village in the mountains closest to the start of the Mount Ramelau trek. The views up the mountain was beautiful but the roads or lack of roads made it a difficult drive. We picked up a few hitchhikers along the way as it was a long walk up to their villages. We got to our hotel and checked in for $35. No mosquitoes as we are high up and it was very cold. I noticed that both hotels don’t provide towels.
We headed for the church to see the villagers practice their traditional dance for some very important visitors. I happened to have come at the right time as it was the Mother Mary’s day of celebration weekend. People all over Timor Leste come to Mount Ramelau to climb it and pray to her statue at the summit. Then a mass will be held by the visiting Priest from Dili and some ministers. I saw villagers and the elders dressed in traditional clothes for dancing. They are mainly older people doing the dances. It was a privilege and I loved it. I met some of the villagers and Policemen. As there was going to be a huge crowd gathering this weekend so the Police from surrounding districts were called to help. After walking around the village and meeting the only Chinese couple running the shop here, we tried to sleep early as we would have to start the hike up at 3am. No such luck as the hotel was noisy as hell.
So after hardly any sleep we set off for our hike up. We left base camp at 3.30am. We walked in the pitch black with only my guide’s phone torch to see our path. There were many walkers some only wearing slippers and covered in blankets. We got to the holy house chapel at 4.45am. 45 minutes ahead of schedule so my guide said we had to wait in this area as waiting at the summit would be too cold. So 45 minutes in the harsh winds I trued to keep warm but it was hard without any shelter. The locals just curled up I to a ball and slept in the ditch to keep the winds away. There were little balls if bodies covered in blankets all over the grounds. Then it was time to head for the summit, which we did pretty fast. We got to the top just before 6am and saw the many people already there braving the cold winds of up to 120 km/h. It was nuts, my hands were so cold and I couldn’t hold my phone steady to take a picture. Natcho was covered and you couldn’t even see his face. He was up here with another group four days ago and he said it wasn’t thus windy. So we took what little shelter the summit and waited 15 minutes for the sunrise. I find sunrises very operated. I prefer sunsets mainly because I don’t normally freeze my arse off waiting for one. It eventually rose and like I said overrated. Then we legged back down to base camp. We got back to our hotel, had a fried egg sandwich and headed back to Dili.
We reached Dili by noon so we had lunch before I checked into the cheapest place to stay. Lunch was at a local restaurant of the smallest fried chicken, a huge bowl of rice, cassava leaves cooked in coconut milk and a bowl of soup. It also came with the nicest ice tea and all for the sum of $1.75. It was a huge amount of food even if Dili chickens are half the size of the mountain chickens. After a full belly I checked into my single room hostel run by a Bangladeshi guy and his daughter. Dili was so hot and so was my little box room with a fan. It looked dark but that was to keep it cool. $15 per night and breakfast is included and tea and water all day. I could use the fridge for my drinks and the fan was just about adequate to deal with the heat.
The first thing was to have a shower and then sleep. I slept a little as it was just too hot. At 5pm I went for a wander around the area. I walked up to the coast which was nothing, no beach or swimming available. I popped into a few stalls to see what was available for food the next three days. I got four big avocados for 50 cents, six pack noodles for $1 and a bunch of greens for 50 cents. That was me done. I organised my city tour for the next day at 2pm and John my driver will take me to the airport at 6am on 9 October for $5. I was going to walk but my bag is heavy and it’s so hot here so I treated myself.
My city tour was to the Dark cells where political prisoners were helped, tortured and killed by the Indonesian regime. Men, women and children were kept in cells between 30 04 40 people. There are memorials in Dili for massacre sites at Dili cemetery and Santa Cruz church. If it wasn’t for a quick thinking journalist who hid his video tape in a grave, nobody would know what happened in Timor Leste.
Then we headed to Christo Rei monument at the beach. There are 700 steps to the top and great views await. But sadly no views from the top but two thirds of the way only. There is a lovely beach in this area. In a few years there’ll be resorts here. Then we had a coconut by the beach before heading back to Dili.
Timor Leste is definitely a developing country and new to tourism. When it comes to sustainability and climate change goals they’re about 50 years behind most countries. Saying that those countries seem to be falling behind due to funding so I think Timor Leste will catch up eventually.
