tourist in dili - baucau

The past few weeks I’ve been out and about. First it was to East Timor (via Cairns and Darwin), for an excellent week of travel. Tip for any future volunteer-travellers: find out if there are other volunteers from your organisation in your country of choice, and arrange to hook up with them whilst you’re there. It is always great to have a friendly face to talk to in a strange place, but they’re invaluable in terms of information – you get the shortcut to best places to eat – markets – things must see and do – places to avoid – local habits to watch out for – language-culture-custom advice – lp guide book – maps – accommodation tips (or maybe even a free bed if you’re lucky) – it’s a fantastic resource. And the bonus was that they were cool and smart and now I’ve got some new friends. Australia Volunteers International seems to have a pretty good screening device – don’t know if anyone’s very good at capacity building or whatever they’re hired for, but they’re certainly great people.

Stayed in Dili for a few days. UN Toyotas everywhere – and this was the reduced presence; can’t imagine what it must have been like 5 years ago. Lunch on first day was a reminder of what it’s like being a traveller – that is, a naïve idiot. Not knowing where to buy food, or any of the local languages, we ended up in a strange empty bakery buying ice cream and a sweet roll, apparently stuffed with peanut butter. Didn’t quite leave me sated, but the sugar gave us energy to climb the stairs up to the huge (20m) statue of Jesus that overlooks the bay Dili sits on. As we climbed up we were overtaken by Portuguese joggers. Climbed back down and rewarded selves with beers at a beach-side café, sitting back as the sun set. Holidays! Volunteering in PNG began to look rather dingy.

As it grew dark we walked up to another beach-side restaurant. Slowly little round bobbling lights appeared above the shallow water, as locals began fishing along the coral reefs at low-tide.

Did a bit of exploring the next day, but a few hours were eaten up booking our tickets to Bali the following week (there are only 2 international flights from Dili – Darwin or Denpasar). Had forgotten this type of admin/planning stuff also takes up a fair bit of time when travelling. Wandered around some markets. Had coffee in the famous Hotel Timor, with a few Portuguese ladies and some NZ police, and lunch with a volunteer mate.

from the markets

The place was pretty quiet, she explained; maybe one third of the locals had fled the city to their villages when there had been riots at the Cormo markets a few weeks previous, when a few people died. Still, if the place was a bit tense it was certainly more relaxed, and safer, than PNG, I thought. On the way back to accommodation for an afternoon nap (it’s hot and everyone siestas, ok), explored some of the shops; entering one computer store, we turned to leave: the cabinets were all empty and the shelves had nothing on them. It looked like it hadn’t yet opened. But the manager called out and told us to wait; he had plenty of stock, it was just “out the back”. He had removed it from display since “the troubles”, he said. It’ll be back to normal next week, he assured us.

Had a Portuguese beer – a Bock – at the UN hangout City Café, which was exciting for me, having read about this place in The Floozy’s Guide to Dili, or something like that, a crappy book by an embarrassing aussie girl I will not give publicity to here.

Next day caught a bus and headed east, along to Baucau. Baucau is the largest town outside of Dili, but it is a pretty sleepy one at that. There was a beautiful old market place in the centre of town. It was built as a crescent shape, overlooking gardens, but the building itself was an empty pink shell. It had been burnt out around the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, and had been abandoned ever since.

One remarkable feature of Timor’s landscape is the burnt out building. They’re everywhere: ever-present in the streets of Dili, spotted throughout the countryside, and visible at most turns in rural towns and villages. Someone said that 2/3 of buildings are ruins, though I’m not sure that it’s that high. Still, there is an incredible amount of ruins. Rough scars left as part of the environment, not knocked down, not fixed up, not inhabited by the homeless. Just left there.

Baucau: Following advice from the vols, we stayed in Bruno’s guesthouse. Wandered around town, met some other Australian visitors, went to a community centre, wandered past school children being given marching instruction by soldiers; dinner with the other Australians and some vols …

Following day went for a wander down the road we were staying on. Passed fields of rice paddies, and the abandoned Portuguese hospital (oddly, though it hadn’t been used for years the window panes were still intact, doors in place etc. A little graffiti but that was it). My travel buddy had out his big camera and was snapping away. Rounding a bend in the road, someone passed us on a motorbike. We saw a plainclothes guy fiddling with the strap of an M-16. As you do. He was leaning against a police vehicle. He looked up and cheerfully wished us good morning. I wanted a photo of this, but we weren’t sure if it was the right thing to do. We walked a bit further, and then turned and began to head back. The motorbike came up from behind us, and slowed down. “Are you looking for something?” we were asked. As the naïve tourist, I couldn’t pick the tone: was it one of warning? Was it threatening? Or was it just helpful? Had we seen too much? Was the big camera too overt, did we look like we were from the media, was this a problem? Who knows. We just smiled and said no thanks, and walked on.

It was hot in Baucau, and a swim was needed. There was a good looking pool in town, with sunbeds and a well-tended garden; the guidebook said it was filled with the help of natural springs, and it was usually packed out with locals. But today the pool was empty; not a drop inside. So we hiked down to the beach, about 5km down a sometimes steeply twisting road, passing through the usual tropical vegetation dotted with ruins here and there. I love the tropics. Growing up in the driest state of Australia, with eucalypts and dry, tough foliage as “bush”, the stuff in the tropics is more exciting and mysterious, more movie-like.

The beach at the bottom was a bit average, but had a quick swim anyway, watched by about 12 kids who lined themselves up, as if for a show. As we began the walk back up the huge, looming hill, a mikrolet (public bus) cunningly purred along beside us and offered us a ride to the top. We ceded and hopped in.

Had a beer in the late afternoon at the town’s biggest hotel – the Pausada, pink and outlandish. They had 3 monkeys in a small cage; one was held to the ground by a 40cm chain attached to a rock. Not sure what custom this is: local? Indonesian? Portuguese?