Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 3

Going East: Dili --> Baucau --> Com --> Walu Beach --> Com --> Dili




Early Monday morning (meaning: noon) we headed out on a five-day tour of Timor, armed with our much beloved white diesel tank, nine litres of water, various kinds of food and drink calculated to last a day or so, a minisucle map of Timor-Leste in our guidebook, and some vague recommendations of where to go and what to do.

The drive out of Dili is the same we had taken to the beach a few days earlier: after heading towards Jesus, you pass the “strip” of beach restaurants, wave happily at the Bangladeshi UN soldiers in dashing beige and robin’s-egg-blue camouflage uniforms guarding Ramos Horta’s house (though I can’t imagine what landscape they wanted to blend into with those babies), put your car in first gear to inch up the steep slope behind several massive trucks covered in people like a giant human chia pet, and you’re on your way. It’s got to be one of the more beautiful drives I’ve done in a very long time: a winding narrow road is cut into the hillside, threading its way through emerald hills. Above, the mountains are shrouded in mists; below, the ocean glistens off to the horizon in the deepest blue. White beaches are visible here and there, and the traffic isn’t heavy. I’m driving the first leg, which means that, per our agreement, I’ll likely only be able to appreciate the scenery on the way back, as this time I am so concentrated on the road that every second I take to steal a glimpse at this astounding beauty is the one second likely to lead me into a pothole at speed, or be the one second I find a massive truck barreling down at me. The road is pretty good, but a perfect surface can easily become a massive hole, a complete missing section, or the tricky gaps which seem to lurk in the shadows. Holes in the shadows are almost impossible to see unless you’re barely moving. Then there is oncoming traffic, goats, cows, chickens, and water buffalo on the road. It’s an obstacle course in some areas and a breeze in others. I drive only as fast as I can see, which hits a maximum of 80 kph, mostly hunched over the steering wheel to peer under the tinted section which I suspect was intended to supplant sunglasses, but mostly just obstructs our vision.


On the road


The coastal road is interspersed with stretches directed inward, through dusty villages, banana trees and mangrove swamps supposedly hiding crocodiles. We climb and sink, like giant breaths gaining and losing altitude. For ten kilometers the road is an arrow: straight and smooth. Shortly afterwards it becomes linguini noodle, thin and twisted, and we become James Bond’s martini: shaken, not stirred.

Somewhere before Baucau (130 km from Dili), we notice the engine is acting weird. Occasionally the power steering goes out, usually around steep corners. Shortly thereafter, this loss of power steering is accompanied by three idiot lights of unknown meaning and various colors. At least it’s not the oil light, but they remain a mystery. A kind of rattling commences at some point, followed later by a high-pitched whine, almost as if our horn were stuck (think Little Miss Sunshine). We call home and try to limp on into Baucau, which we are able to without further incident and only moderately worsening symptoms, where we are supposed to be looking for the workshop of the Bishop of the Diocese. Since we have zero Tetum abilities, we cruise around a bit cluelessly, our car rattling along, taking a few moments to sit and contemplate and plot our further progress. We turn to Peace Dividend Trust, an NGO who makes it its business to know everyone’s business-es, that is. They compile business directories and also provide matching services, so if you need 100 kg of soybeans in Los Palos or a goat in Viqueque, you can call them and they will find someone who has that. More pertinent for us, they know who does or sells what in Baucau, and they will either know our shop or know a different one, so we find their office on the main drag and they helpfully provide us with directions to a guesthouse and an informative map.

Despite the map and everyone’s best intentions, we never end up finding the workshop of the Diocese, instead landing at a shop of a tiny but competent man. M. explained our problem in Portuñol, and thankfully the symptoms were easily evident upon the mechanic giving our ride a go himself. He climbed barefoot up onto the bumper and more or less completely into the engine compartment, where he sets about busily dismantling something. M. goes in search of a cola and I ensconce myself in the trunk, waving at schoolkids as they pass and hoping nothing serious is the matter. Finally, the guy comes grinning back to us, holding up what is quite evidently a broken screw, which he had fished out of the depths of our engine compartment; somehow, he had known where to look. His enthusiastic dismemberment and reconstruction of or enginy bits cost the grand total of eleven dollars, the amount a white person would reasonably spend on a meal in Dili. Our host said we were gouged. Oh well.

Glad to get that checked off our list. Driving away, it was clear that the problems with the power steering, the rattling and the idiot lights had been alleviated, so we settled down for dinner and bed. Early in the morning we headed down to the beach in Baucau, which is not in Baucau but rather quite a bit outside and below it. There was, of course, barely a soul as we got down there, and we spent a good bit of time splashing around in the clear waters. Driving back up the hill, however, we were confronted again with the persistent whine from the day before. Thankfully we’re still in Baucau and can go see our mini mechanic if need be. We park the car in front of the house and lift the hood experimentally, leaving the engine running, but it’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from. But after we killed the engine we realized the whistling was coming from the radiator, and after we let it cool off we were able to refill the poor thing, which desperately needed it, and were able to be on our way, and the whistling was n’er to be heard again.

From the terrace of our little café where we had brunch, we had a good view over the old town of Baucau. Much built by the Portuguese, Baucau bosts a long street lined with shops, cafés and a market, upon which our mechanic and our café were both located. On one side is the former Mercado Municipal, a giant construction in (I guess) sort of neo Romanesque style, reminding me of the tomb of the unknown soldier in Rome, but much much smaller. And also, sadly, burned and dilapidated; the structure, cutting a handsome silhouette and gracing the cover of our map, had seen better days. Below the Mercado were the former gardens and their former fountains, and all of this a bittersweet memory of other days, yet beautiful still.

From Baucau we headed out to Com, which is pretty much the end of the road. It’s a hamlet boasting a handful of guesthouses and a giant shiny resort with overpriced rooms but (thankfully) cold beer. I hope the place fills on weekends, because we were the only white people there. We settled on one little guesthouse boasting a two-room bungalow (of which we had one), a broad porch with several chairs, and a location directly at the water. Hordes of screaming kids were perched like birds on a wire on a big driftwood log, and the occasional family of pigs would wander by on the beach. Fishers came and went. As soon as I went in the water I was surrounded by a pack of little girls, Agnès, Angelina, Maria, Dora. They take turns trying out my snorkel (failing utterly to grasp the concept, instead diving too deep and filling the snorkel with water), asking me questions in Tetum. We counted to ten in English together. Whatever I did or said, they did or said.

In the evening, sitting at the seawall and reading, they came again. They’d been enthralled by M., spending a good half hour hiding behind the fence, watching his every move and giggling furiously every time he glanced in their direction. Shyly they gave him a giant shell as a gift. Recognizing one of the little girls from before I played the pied piper, walking in patterns or along the wall with a string of little girls in my wake. They serenaded me with songs and generally had a good time.

The next morning we headed out to the beach behind Tutuala, which involved taking the coastal road up into the hills beyond Com. It looked like a road that went absolutely nowhere, but in a land with so few roads, the fact that one existed meant that something had to be on the other end. We were less sure, however, when the paved track gave out and left us with a muddy two-track seemingly leading into more nothing than before. We passed a couple of the traditional houses, narrow and on stilts, almost like a tree house in size and form. We couldn’t figure out how anyone got into them. The roofs carried a necklace of shells; it seemed like the houses themselves were like tall sentinels, not necessarily sentient but nevertheless present.


A traditional house

“You remember how to change a tire?” M. asks me. Somewhere between Lospalos and Tutuala, a gentle fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap told us we had a flat, so we pulled over in the middle of the village and set about finding the tire iron, the jack and the handle. We get the spare off the back, but as soon as we make a go for jacking up the car, the entire village, it seemed, had assembled, and a few of the stout and stalwart young guys appropriated our tools and set about changing the tire. First the jack wasn’t sufficient to get the car up high enough, leading to a creative construction involving beams of wood and rocks to support the undercarriage enough for them to figure out how to jack it up higher. Removing the lug nuts was also not simple, and at first they were turning in the wrong direction, but soon all was sorted out and fixed, with an entire assembly of small kids watching the process. When we looked like we might be getting out money or something to thank them with, the “leader” held up his hand, saying only, “no” and shooing us on our way.

Tutuala is a tiny town perched on a hillside, overlooking the sea. On top of the hill, where we thought the road continued on down to the beach, we instead found a kind of villa. It looked abandoned, and the outbuildings were actually abandoned, giving the place a haunted feel. Dilapidated gardens spoke of better times, and tethered horses grazed where once there was topiary. Why did no one live here? Who owned this place? It had, with no exaggeration, a million-dollar view: behind, the tree-covered hills and mist-covered mountains; before, in 270-degree panorama, views of the sea and distant Indonesian islands. Not that Timor-Leste really needs rich foreigners, but the spot was perfect for a luxury villa, and easily reachable if one adds a helipad.

With the strong sense that we could count on the locals in case of any further problems, we set off to Walu beach. The only problems with counting on this aid were the twin facts that (a) we were driving out of civilization into an even more sparsely inhabited area, meaning the odds of someone running across us was slim, and (b) we had just used our only spare tire, which belonged to the few remedies available to our immediate disposal. And to top it off, the “road” down to Walu beach should not be called a road. It’s basically a strip lacking in trees and undergrowth, hugely rutted and covered in rocks. It’s even slower going than the road to Hatubilico, and at 8km, it took us a jolting good half hour to cover the distance, and all the while as we are bouncing up and down so much that you’d want to cling to the “oh shit handles,” (as my family affectionately terms the handles in the car) to avoid concussing your head on the ceiling. It’s hard to give an adequate report of how terrible this road is. Some people have reportedly gotten out and walked because they couldn’t handle the ride up or down. The last stretch was relatively smooth and straight, which I enthusiastically bounced down before coming to a complete halt before the tree which had fallen across the road, blocking it completely. Someone had helpfully beat back the undergrowth enough that we could drive around the tree, but no one had bothered—or had wanted—to cut the tree itself.

Down to the good stuff: Walu beach. Imagine white sands four or five meters deep, picturesque rocks jutting out of deep blue and turquoise water, cliffs or rocks or shoreline gracing the edge. Close your eyes and really imagine it. Then take a look at the pictures and realize it isn’t just hyperbole. It was beautiful, spotless, untouched—and empty. Paradise for us alone. We found our “eco-resort,” which, contrary to our expectations, did promise to be able to feed us, and made off for the beach. M. took a nap so I was on my own for a bit, splashing about in the surf before finding a suitable rock to lizard on. Somewhere off to my left, a big darkish thing was in the water a few meters from the shore, which I initially assumed to be a log—until it moved. I was too far away to really see properly what it was, but I had heard quite a bit about Timorese crocodiles, of which there are both salt- and freshwater varieties, so I wasn’t too keen on finding out what it was. When M. eventually showed up and went for a walk, his first order of business was taking a closer look at our moving log. So he sets off down the beach, and I watch. When he gets somewhat near to whatever it is, he quickly turns around and begins jogging back, looking over his shoulder every now and then. What IS that thing?

An ox.

There was an ox, or a water buffalo or however you want to call it, wallowing in the cool waters near the shore. A perfect beach, and the only bather is an ox.


Walu beach near Tutuala

It turns out that the eco-resort, or this area in particular, also boasts a few lovely and huge caves, so after breakfast the next morning we arrange to go visit them. Accompanied by our two machete-wielding guides, we reach the mouth of the cave after a brief climb, and they ask me for a dollar, which they place at the entrance. The caves are almost invisible from afar, appearing as cliff faces more than anything. The flora in this area consist of trees, low, scrubby bushes, but not a lot of thick growth. Still, it’s good there’s a trail there, which was not always easy to see amid the dead leaves. The caves themselves were a good three meters or more at the entrance, opening up in the back to five or six meters in height. Near the cave mouth are some petroglyphs dating back at least 500 years. Heading into the main cavern with a weak torch, I was able to illuminate only my next step and not much more. Every time I swept my feeble beam across the ceiling, a kind of trembling followed the path of the beam, and the air seemed to vibrate with the bats disturbed by the light.

The road back to Com seemed to take half the time of the road there, but that seemed to be the norm on our trip. We stayed one last night in Com and left early the next morning to return to Dili. Our wheels were still on, our engine still running, and the scenery still beautiful.

Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 2

Maubisse, Mt Ramelau and Hatubilico

I’m not sure whose idea it was to have the road zig zag up the mountain. Almost immediately past the market in DIli, past the other market and the mikrolet loading station, the road climbs steeply into the hill, clinging to the corners as if hanging on for dear life. It’s a “good road”, meaning, the potholes don’t come all that often, the road is ostensibly sealed, and you can, at most times, fit two cars for dual-directional traffic. Notwithstanding, the space between two cars and the respective edges of the road isn’t significant, and it’s a bit of a nerve-wracking endeavor. The road climbs and climbs and climbs, hairpinning back and forth above Dili. On each side, accessible from staircase-like little steps or trails, are houses and even the occasional palatial building. Mikrolets, buses, trucks of all kinds, 4x4s, and even the occasional taxi venture up this road into the mountains of Maubisse; below, Dili in all its grubby glory stretches along the waterfront in both directions ending at the Jesus statue in the East, and with the wisps of Autauro visible in the distance. It doesn’t take long before the city becomes a distant view, and the vistas are more green hills, forests, and little streams running along the waterway.

Our endless ascent in view of the city eventually becomes only little thatched buildings and rice padies, with cattle and increasingly horses visible in the muddy fields and paddies. Goats, children, dogs, and chickens line or, alternately block the road, but almost nothing looks like something you might term a settlement. Occasionally, roadside stands would sell a few vegetables or bananas or the ubiquitous greens, or litres of gasoline in old water bottles. Sometimes, the road would disappear entirely, to be replaced by a muddy, rocky stretch with massive potholes. Almost worse were the sections where a narrow strip of pavement continued through the rough patch, with the respective potholes dropping off deeply to each side. There is no good path through it and it’s a bumpy ride either way. At one stretch, a group of youths had placed some branches on part of the road, and waved us aside; when we stopped, the one of them peered into the window. He had on a baseball cap perched high on his head, or maybe not, and a pair of jeans; he grinned. “Money,” he said. We didn’t really understand. “Money, one dollar?” he continued hopefully. “No, I’m sorry,” we replied, and continued. I couldn’t tell if they were shaking down the road on principle, or if they were just opportunists seeing a pair of Malei (foreigner). Traffic became more sparse, which was a relief, as the potholes often forced one or the other lane into oncoming traffic, most curves were blind and the trucks seemed improbably large for the road. People walk along the roads, and when school lets out, the trickle of pedestrians becomes a steady stream of schoolchildren. On the road before Maubisse, we suddenly found a truck coming around the corner in our lane; in the truck’s lane, a line of schoolgirls dived screaming into the ditch as the truck sped past. If they hadn’t jumped, they’d have been hit.

Maubisse was the first thing you might call a town that we had seen, discounting Ainaro (which one shouldn’t, but Maubisse is considerably bigger); it had a church, whitewashed and solemn among the hills. The air was cooler, blowing in from somewhere higher up and bringing mist, moisture and the chill of the mountains; after the almost oppressive heat if Dili, I relished the goosbumps and the beads of moisture on my arm. Guesthouses ringed the church, boasting beautiful gardens and the quiet serneity of a place—from my perspective, at least—far away from anywhere. A crowd of kids collected around us, posing for photographs, and waiting eagely for their chance to see their faces in the tiny screen of the digital camera.

From the church, a winding road heads down to towards the marketplace, dropping violently, as if the pavement were rippled, giving us place to park amidst the several stalls selling veggies and bananas. We head towards the “only” restaurant in Maubisse, recommended in garbled portuñol by the old man at the guesthouse. It’s behind the market stalls, dimly lit and containing a few tables and plastic chairs. Before the window, a row of women sit, chewing betel and selling their wares. We sit next to this window, and only a few inches away but separated by the pane of glass is an old man, with wild eyes and wild hair. He waves, saying something in Tetum. I wave back, but he persists, waving wildly. I don’t know what he wants and can’t find it out, so I preoccupy myself with my coffee and ignore him and the curious stares of the market women.

About five kilometers beyond Maubisse, the road to Hatubilico splits off from the main street, and we look back on the road from Dili as a happy memory. This road, insofar as you can call it such, was more or less flattened collection of stones, sending us bouncing and jolting along up and down and around. Sick of slipping and scrambling I put on the four wheeled drive, and the remaining eighteen kilometers more or less proceed in first and second gear, taking over an hour. The hills fell away to either side in verdant green. On the corners, a waterfall or stream trickled down across the rocks and into the distance. Occasionally, a traditional hut would appear out of the mist, clinging to a hillside, forlorn amid a backdrop of white, only to disappear again. We could have been in the middle of nowhere; near and far there were nothing, not even houses the last few kilometers. An old woman and a small boy were carrying heavy sacks, heading into the mist, and the kid flagged us down. We cleaned out the back seat and they pileed in. The old woman is wrapped in a tais, traditional skirt, her head wrapped in another cloth, with lips stained crimson from betel juice. The kid hung on the back of my seat with giant eyes, staring with excitement at the rumbling brumbling diesel motor pulling us along the mists. We stop at the next cluster of houses and let them back out; as soon as we are stopped, the entire youth population of the hamlet piles out and surrounds our car, calling out in Tetum, grinning and whooping wildly. We wave goodbye and continue on.

They say the temperature drops with the sun; it also drops with altitude, and the air turned chillier the higher we went. A couple of times we stopped by passerby and asked “Hatubilico?” Always, they waved us on. We reached the town, wondering how we would ever find our guesthouse, our pousada, when we saw the giant yellow structure with a sign to that effect. It was in the “middle” of town, past the small cemetery of concrete crosses huddled on a flowered knoll and across from a shrine set high into the hillside and accessible from a set of irregular concrete stairs shrouded in flowers. We parked. We knocked. We wandered around, peered in the windows, knocked again, tried all the door handles, and still no one. Eventually two younger guys wandered by, and after we managed to explain what we wanted, one of them jogged off down the road, returning with a pair of keys.

“We found the Shire,” M. said, referring to the land of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. We had found a town with no tourists, no restaurant, no café, no post office, and no electricity. We followed the one path down towards the cemetery, looking out over the valley and the mountains beyond. Next to the cemetery, an older guy was digging around in a flower or vegetable bed, looking at us with some measure of suspicion. A pony tethered nearby let me stroke its nose, though the halter had rubbed its face bloody it was still friendly. On the other side of town, rolling down from the mountains and set in a giant green carpet adorned with rocks was a little stream, which passed under a stone bridge to continue down into the valley. Wildflowers were everywhere, and only the occasional crosses set into the side of the road—and the frequent cemeteries—gave hint of a haunted past.

On the road we ran across César, the son of the pousada-owner, who agreed to guide us up Mt Ramelau—we’d meet at 4 AM—and told us his mum would cook us dinner at nine; the dinner, as it turned out, arrived on its own about 7:30, carried by a small procession of little kids. The pousada itself was a solid structure, newly painted a bright yellow, and featuring many small rooms with many small beds. Communal toilets and showers downstairs. A big room at the end of the hall offered an impressive view out over the valley, boasting a table, a set of chairs, several low couches and, surprisingly, several treadle-powered sewing machines made in china. The funny thing about the big room with the sewing machines is that nothing matched. There were at least two different patterns of wallpaper, both yellow, and a different pattern on the ceiling. The ceiling itself wasn’t straight, and nor were the several columns parallel or perpendicular to each other, the walls, or the ceiling. We ate our dinner of cabbage, potatoes, meat of some kind, and rice with a certain relish, prepared our things, and went to bed.

At 3:45 our alarm went off, and we groggily got up, got dressed, and got packed. The moon was mostly full and we could see without a light, so we spent a good bit of time gazing over the moonlit valley, attempting unsuccessfully to take pictures of said moonlit valley (as you can imagine, the pictures were predictably just black), and eventually going back to bed as 4:30 rolled around and César still wasn’t there.

Sometime around 6:30 I awoke to someone looking in our door (which I thought we had locked), knocking and demanding insistently we get up and go: César had arrived. Apparently 4:00 means 6:30 around here, or our mixed portuñol-English-(his)Tetum had led to a misunderstanding. M. gave me the keys and wedged himself in the back, as César directed me and the car up the steep and steepening hill. The road lurched up into a green meadow in the pre-dawn, the road curving suddenly around almost imperceptible corners, and I desperately hope my sleep-fogged brain reacts sufficiently. At one stretch the wheels don’t grip, and despite the fourwheel drive the car begins sliding left with each attempt. I finally roll back a bit and give it another go, hoping to get enough momentum to make it up. Coming around another curve, I see with dismay what looks to be a washed-out corner—not too uncommon—looking like a dangerous bridge which I am convinced will crumble under my car. César gets out and guides me slowly around the left-hand corner; my right bumper is almost brushing the rock face. We make it.

We make it up to the meadow, scaring off the few grazing horses at our approach, and begin the climb up a set of incongruous stone steps. For my part, several months of good food and no sports have taken their toll, and I find the hike a challenge, though the path itself is neither particularly tricky nor particularly steep, and I need a lot of breaks. César bounded up like a mountain goat and even M. was soon out of sight up the hill, but my legs wouldn’t get me up any faster.

The valley fell around us like a set of green curtains. Trees, and trunks of former trees scattered the hillside. We could see for practically forever, and everything was a brilliant, emerald green. Little wispy clouds floated by, hinting at fog to come. Towards the top, an abandoned hut stood forlornly amid several wooden crosses; I didn’t dare ask what had happened here, but César did tell me the crosses were grave markers. There were several along the path. At the point I wanted to send the others off, so they wouldn’t have to constantly wait for me, they pointed to the crest of our hill—which I was sure was just the next of several ridges—saying “that’s the top”.

And the top it was. Unfortunately, for all we saw at that point, it could have been a statue of the Virgin Mary set in or on a cloud; the mist, by now, had rolled in and completely obscured the view. We sat on the top, and we could have been sitting on the edge of the world. Beyond us was nothing; the ground fell sharply away below us, but even after five meters the view became a milky white. Nothing. But as we sat, munched our rolls, drank our water and caught our breath, for a few seconds at a time the mist cleared and we were granted glimpses of the incredible valley so very far below.

Our descent, predictably, took almost no time, and soon we were back at the pousada, consuming our breakfast—coffee and rolls had been left for us—as an old woman with a betel-mouth wandered in and out, tested the sewing machines and grinned furiously every time I looked at her. A betel-mouth looks as if she had recently bitten a live animal or moonlighted as a guest star in a vampire movie—it’s all a bit disconcerting to be viewing over breakfast. We tried to find someone to pay for the rooms, eventually driving down to their house and finding the same old woman. M. paid her for the room but, as we discovered most of the 18 kilometers later, as she forgot to ask for the keys and he forgot to give them, we had taken the keys with us.

Sometime past one of the last groups of houses, we were suddenly surrounded by a mob of kids yelling “photo! Photo! Photo!” Not really wanting to stop and not sure what they wanted we continued. But the mob didn’t give up, and soon we had an entire flock of children running after our car, shouting and screaming. Several of them made it at least a kilometer or two, which of course gives you some indication of how fast we were going that they could even keep up. Here and there we passed villagers transporting various goods with ponies; the ponies, for their part, were not particularly excited about the passing car but we managed not to set off any major wrecks or scare off anyone’s pony. After the eighteen kilometers of rocks and potholes, the main road—with its crazy traffic, trucks, mikrolets, potholes and missing bits—seemed like an Autobahn in comparison and we set off happily.

Sometime after Maubisse I took over the wheel, and of course, promptly the sky fell in and we found ourselves inching through a deluge. The road is narrow and set very closely to the hillside, and there is nothing that one might confuse with a ditch, a culvert, or any other means of dealing with rain; the result of this, of course, was a waterfall streaming onto the road at every corner. The potholes became small lakes, which one could never tell if they were potholes or puddles. Rocks and shrubbery were washed into the road, and as we continued, we had the impression that more of the corners and edges of the street had crumbled since we passed the first time. Even stopping the car and waiting for the deluge to pass didn’t seem to help, so we continued. As a highlight, however, were the stretches where the road was completely missing, to be replaced by muddy troughs where the wheels had passed, which by this time had filled with water. Ready, set, go! M. hit the accelerator and we went skidding through the mud, splashing up water on over the roof and generally enjoying ourselves immensely. Mit Gewalt geht’s. Finally, finally, after what seemed an eternal number of hairpin turns, we made it back to Dili as the rain cleared.

Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 1

Part 1 - Touchdown in Dili

We arrived in Dili on the morning flight from Singapore, looking curiously at our fellow passangers—many of whom turned out to be Cuban doctors—and endlessly curious at what this country would bring. We waited for our visas, looking with wide eyes at the UN police, somehow excited that they came from different countries yet were somehow here; and everyone on the plane, it seemed, had something to do here. Only a few of them looked like they could be holidaymakers or tourists. We chatted about skiing in Switzerland with the South African in line for the visa in front of us, but without asking what brought him here. Visas are available to pretty much anyone on arrival for US$30, and each person’s name, passport number, and other information is entered by hand into a large ledger book, whereupon the visa itself—a large stamp with blanks to be filled in by the actual immigration officer—is issued. We retrieved our bags and found Juvenal, “Juvy,” our host’s driver, and set off through Dili.

My first impressions of Dili is that it is unlike anything I’ve seen so far. The people selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road were familiar, but the general state of things were more reminiscent of pictures I’d seen of African villages than of anything I’d seen so far in SE Asia. A few burned-out or destroyed buildings were to be seen, here and there, a marked contrast to the Palacio da Governo (or however it’s called)—still splendid, despite being a historic Portuguese colonial building in a country with a rough history—and the done-up waterfront promenade, full of people out for walks and cuddling couples. A giant zig zag of one-way streets, though I was soon lost on the many corners and turns we had taken from the airport, the city is actually quite small and not too difficult to navigate. One stretch of road seemed to be a giant open-air market, congested with taxis and motorbikes and everyone on the streets, hauling around produce and hawking water and gasoline.

Our host lives on the south side of town, in buildings set amid leafy gardens—a mini jungle—and featuring a large terrace with large bamboo furniture. We’re shown our little bamboo-hut, a simple two-room affair offering all the comforts we need and a mosquito net to boot; the (bucket) bath is just around the corner. We’re given the keys to a little blue SUV with which we immediately and enthusiastically fell in love, and we set off, armed with the map in the Lonely Planet, to tour around Dili. The one-way streets are confusing, driving on the left is confusing, and watching out for kids, pedestrians, carts, motorcycles, people who suddenly stop, change lanes or do much of anything suddenly and/or without signaling, and the traffic lights we almost never see complicates the driving a bit, but we each take a turn and are soon on our way, with only minor detours (and a complicated reverse movement). The good thing about driving, though, is if you do something relatively “crazy,” i.e. stop suddenly, decide you really wanted to turn and so skip across several lanes to do so, or reverse by backing into traffic and blocking both directions, traffic adjusts, you’re not honked at angrily or glared at by the police, because everyone is doing the same thing.

Another point of mention is the continued presence of the UN, who, it seems, spend all of their time and likely inordinate quantities of gasoline driving about the city. Every fifteen seconds you see another UN vehicle, most of them “Polis”. Sometimes it’s just the U or just the N (as the other letter has fallen off). Perhaps they get awards for how many times they can drive every street in Dili in one hour, but at least none of this all even looks halfway serious.

We park at the promenade, walking past the fruit and the fish markets, seeing groups of young Timorese in school uniforms just hanging out, sitting around and chatting; here, it’s mostly separated by gender, though one young pair is visible strolling along the sand and another young pair—as a grinning boy hinted—was hiding in the bushes. A lot of people were just hanging around, watching the football game or just sitting, and empty bottles and wrappers littered the low grass and weeds. A falling-down statue paid homage, I assume, to independence, but the words were faded and grass was beginning to sprout from between the pavestones. The heat was oppressive and we moved sluggishly, sweating profusely; athletic-looking types jogged up and down the promenade and performed painful-looking contortions.

We drove up to see Jesus, perched high on a hill on the East side of town, built by the Indonesians a symbolic 27 metres tall, to represent Timor-Leste as Indonesia’s 27th province. It’s a nice (read: sweaty) hike up there, but the views are stunning, and the white sandy beach on the back side looks promising, curving along the inside of the cove and shimmering promises of white sand and solitude. The mountains stretch up above, here a deep, vibrant green, almost glowing. Sitting up on a hilltop and looking out to sea is like watching the stars – it gives a prescient sense of one’s own insignificance.

Juvy picked out our dinner, a massive Tuna fish the length of his arm and surely destined to feed another ten or fifteen people, plus chicken and chips and rice and vegetables – yet somehow, despite massive quantities of food we did them justice. The restaurant was directly on the water, graced by a gentle breeze as we perched on moveable furniture. Dili seems to be a very small world, so it was almost unsurprising to run into people our host knew, and only slightly more surprising to run into one of the few people with whom I’d made contact. It’s a city of 300,000, of which only a portion (though a noticeable one) are foreigners, so it’s not surprising that everyone knows everyone.

Our first full day out on our own sent us on a few errands before we headed out for the beautiful coastal road towards Liquiçia (pronounced, I think, LI-ki-sah). The road is a narrow two lanes, barely wide enough for dual directional traffic, and crumbling a bit at the edges like a bit of toast. Leaving town it winds its way along at the base of the hills, passing properties owned by oil companies and something which looks like a factory or manufacturing area, sprouting ugly steel out of the flat ground like metal insects; heavy trucks carry the product on down the road. But shortly thereafter the scenery gives way to little thatched bamboo huts sprinkled among the grassy shores, more or less with the look that most tropical beach resorts try—and fail—to imitate. We see little houses or structures rising out of mounds of earth, like meter-tall anthills sprouting a wooden and thatched canopy. Are these houses? My guess is some kind of underground storage, but perched not much above the water table, that doesn’t seem likely. After a straight stretch, misleadingly enticing us to believe we could go faster—this when we still believed the challenge of the road was its curves, and before we learned better—we were surprised to see the cars in front of us at a standstill; they’d stopped to negotiate a particularly tricky pothole.

Pothole. If the name originated because the holes were the size of pots, the Timorese variety needs to be called bathtubholes. Sometimes there was even more hole than road, and sometimes even then there wasn’t even enough shoulder to avoid the damage and we had to ease the car in and hope nothing on our undercarriage got stuck. It’s not that you have to slow down for rough patches, you have to come to a full stop and inch your way across. An added obstacle to driving is relatively small, usually black, brown, grey, or mottled colored, and tends to wander over the pavement, sometimes halting in the middle, with an apparent supreme indifference to death on four wheels bearing down on it: goats on the road.

We reached Liquiçia, deciding to go on to Maubere, porque no? As we trundled on our merry way, a bit of tantalizing beach caught our attention, and we determined that it was absolutely necessary we test out said beach for general swimability and because we were sweating, almost literally, buckets. Of course, as any little girl who plays soccer knows, changing in public without being arrested for indecent exposure is not problematic but looks ridiculous, so by the time we had each made it into our swimsuits we had attracted a noticeable crowd. And upon discovering that (a) a dip was sufficient and (b) the current was strong such that we left it at that and changed back into our civvies, the entire shade shelter near our car was filled with two dozen grinning faces watching our every move.

On the road again. We made it to Maubere, we made it past Maubere, and eventually turned around to have a gander at the Portuguese fort on our way back to Liquiçia, where we stoped for Nasi and veggies, and coffee. Squinting in to the sun and already sweating profusely, we wanted to have a look in, and take pictures of, the town of Liquiçia. Eleven years ago, in April1999, when over two thousand internally displaced were taking shelter in the church in Liquicia, members of various armed militia, with either overt or tacit cooperation with Indonesian military and police, attacked the church.

“They started to shoot everyone. Men whom they found outside the Parish house were hacked down. The militia members were accompanied by Kodim troops and the Brimob elements. They entered the residence of the church and they started to kill people with machetes and shoot people in the house. At the time there were still women, children and men in the complex. They started to kill the men first because they were closer to the door. The men had pushed the women and children to the back.”

Brimob troops assisted in the attack by throwing tear gas into the parish house, forcing the refugees to come out. As they ran from the church, they were hacked with machetes and knives, or shot. Pastor Rafael’s account continues:

“I saw the Brimob members break the parish house window and throw tear gas repeatedly into the Parish house until those who were sheltering inside ran out because they could not stand their eyes hurting. As the community ran out of the Parish house the Militia started to kill the men, but they did not kill the women and children. The children and women were allowed to leave the complex, whereas the men were hacked down.”

From the Robinson report, p.194, from the deposition of Pastor Rafael dos Santos.

The exact number of casualties is not known, as the bodies were taken away and dumped or buried in unknown locations, but many sources place the figure at between 30 and 60. Everywhere I go I hear ghosts. I didn’t ever know these peoples, but I have read many of their stories and the feeling of walking on hallowed ground stays with me as I walk the dusty streets. The place has a desolate, almost abandoned air; it doesn’t seem like anyone actually lives here, and there is barely a soul to be seen near and far. A row of buildings forlornly stretches up the hill, but we head instead towards the broken-down football pitch and what might once have been a playground for children. There are no children, and cows graze on it now. We take pictures of some baby goats in the gutter next to the street, and a few of the almost deserted-looking place. A few old villas hint at better times long gone, a few rolls of barbed wire here and there hint at darker times not too distant, but none of it holds many hints as to what the future might hold.