TIMOR-LESTE - days 22-27

A teeny AirNorth turbo-prop carried 25 or so of us from Darwin into Dili airport on the north-western edge of Timor-Leste

Few quick facts: East Timor/Timor-Leste occupies the eastern half of the island of Timor; it's ringed by coral reefs which are as near to pristine as you get these days. Landmarks in the capital, Dili, attest to TL's struggles for independence from Portugal (1975) and then Indonesia (which invaded from across the border, 9 days after independence and remained until a UN-backed plan was negotiiated in 2002). On a hilltop east of the bay is the 27m-tall Cristo Rei de Dili statue (we'll head there at some stage but, first, into town to get our bearings)

Xanana Gusmao was a painter-cum-freedom-fighter who became the country's first president in 2002

Here's your man; I bet there's a statue or two somewhere...

We wandered around Dili to soak up the Timorese atmosphere

 

and watched the locals going about their business

and located the hut just along from our hotel where we will catch the speedboat tomorrow morning to Atauro, a 25km by 9km island of 8000 people

 

 

Next morning, after breakfast at our Dili hotel

we wandered along to the harbour, where the water looked happily calm for our 25km crossing of the Wetar Strait to Atauro where the good folk of the Beloi Beach Hotel were waiting for us.
 

And off across to Atauro, an hour and a half or so

Bit choppy at times

Docking at Beloi, the main town on the island, we were taken up to the Beloi Beach Hotel, decked out in the colours of the TL flag

Cute cups with the flag too

Kitted up with masks and fins, we waded from shore to the inner coral reefs - very very fine, with many colours and types of coral in excellent condition, inhabited by lots of small multicoloured fish.  Almost like being in an aquarium.

We turned out to be the only guests tonight - place to ourselves for a fine dinner of spicy goatmeat-balls

Another enjoyable morning's snorkelling at the inner reef and the afternoon was even better when the hotel organised for us to hop into a traditional carved wooden fflat-bottomed fishing boat (sadly no camera with us as we were unsure how damp we might get! This wasn't the actual boat but you get the impression)  

to reach the outer reef; it isn't a long swim but requires crossing the (occasional) ferry-lane which we didn't want to risk, plus who'd miss the experience of clambering into the boat....  Our last Atauro sunrise

and down to Beloi harbour for the speedboat back to Dili.  Market day stalls were being set up

including local women wearing tais (a tai is a length of fabric worn around the waist and, like a Timorse version of a kilt, each family or district has its own design and manner of weaving - there's a tai market in Dili which we plan to visit)

Another bumpity-bump back

and a great view of the western half of the bay with the lighthouse and St António de Motael, the country's oldest Roman Catholic church (rebuilt in 1955 in the old Portuguese style) and site of a confrontation in October 1991 between activists in favour of integration of the two halves of the island and those for independence; when Indonesian troops killed two resistance members who were hidden in the church, the international outcry focused minds on the Timorese issue

A little further west of the lighthouse 

was our hotel for the next three nights.  We'd chosen a jolly nice apartment with a dive company called Dive Timor Lorosae ("Lorosae" means "sunrise")

and, after lunch, hailed a cab to take us all the way along the coastal road to the eastern end of the town to the statue which you can just make out on the far-lefthand hill in the pic-before-last: Cristo dei Rei.  You travel round the bay

past children playing, adults fishing or digging for clams

to the foot of the steps to the top

A long long way, past stations of the cross

(I only managed about halfway in the 30 degree heat, before letting Duncan go on alone)

 

As I said, we'd chosen Timor Lorosae for its dive school - snorkellers can join any SCUBA trips

Our destinations for the day were Marble Rock, Behau Village and K41; all of which afforded great views of coral and anenomes, and diverse marine life: pufferfish, cuttlefish, clownfish

Travelling about also gave the opportunity to see some more of the country, albeit mostly on the coast-road

Next day, oir last day in Dili, we were out and about in town: the Protestant cathedral,

the tais market,

the parks,

church and memorials

And, next mormimg, we finally found that statue of Xanana Gusmao, just outside the airport, waving us goodbye, as we left Dili to head towards Denpasar