Sign In
Blogs from Dili, East Timor, Asia
Advertisement
July 2nd 2012
We have arrived back from our four day jaunt out to the majestic Jaco Island and Tutualu Beach, both refreshed from daily life at the clinic and exhausted from the trip. A long journey on pothole laden, poorly paved Timorese roads is quite a bumpy adventure. We left early Friday morning, stopping to pick up Jake (the American premed from Brandeis) and a 24-case of Huda beer (12% Danish beer that tastes like armpit), before hitting the road east of Dili. We didn't have a map, but were told that you can't get lost. Our destination was the eastern end of the island, so we figured that would be easy enough. The Timorese who were scheduled to come along with us bailed for various reasons so our crew was left with Crab, Lisbeth, Jake, Pinky, and ... read more
June 27th 2012
Like my first weekend in East Timor, this weekend was filled with plenty of activity. After taking a half day of work on Saturday, me and Josh went to the biggest farmers market in Dili, where we hunted for ingredients to cook dinner with on Sunday night for our home stay family. The public market appears small at first, but as you begin to wonder through a maze of stalls, you get a feel for truly how large it is. The market has stalls with everything from fresh meat, vegetables, clothing, tobacco, live chickens, and of course Roulette and Bingo. After wandering around a bit, we picked out some fresh produce and spices to bring home and use the next day. Then we went to our obligatory Saturday cockfight with Senor Lopez where Josh won 35 ... read more
June 25th 2012
Today we took a couple hours off in the afternoon to accompany Dr. Robin to the Chega exhibit. Chega is a Portuguese word meaning “stop, no more, enough.” The exhibit is placed in an old Portuguese prison that was used by Fretilin, a Timorese group fighting against the Indonesian occupation, as well as the Indonesians themselves. In these walls, countless human rights violations took place, and the Chega exhibit is an attempt to retain a memory of the brutal history of the Timorese people as well as help build towards reconciliation. It was a depressing afternoon, but a valuable history lesson. I read one book on the history of Timor before heading over, but it was written by a Westerner. It was good to get a refresher and see the story from a Timorese perspective. So...a ... read more
June 21st 2012
After the usual breakfast we jumped into the car for Dili via Dare. The fog shrouded the mountains on our way out and the drizzle and cool air meant that we left Maubisse in jumpers. The drizzle was soon behind us though as we lost altitude and by 10:30 the sun was blaring hot and we swapped the thermals for sunscreen. The memorial/museum/cafeat Dare was not as impressive as we had hoped mainly aswe were disappointed about the lack of coffee (ie none) the coffee grown here is strong and black and smooth and we havent yet had a good cup of it – saving it for Dare. But the museum did have a great exhibition about WWII and copies of the flyers dropped from planes by the Australians as they left saying ‘your friends do ... read more
When in Timor Do as the Timorese Do...Part II...Football and Tuasabu
Published: June 20th 2012Asia » East Timor » Dili
June 20th 2012
Now that I've been in East Timor for almost a week, Josh and I have gotten into a routine. As many of you know, we have been doing a home stay with the Lopez Family, a Timorese family that lives a short walk away from the clinic. I've been quickly getting to know them day by day. As I learned during my home stay in South Africa, the experience is so much able when you are able to find commonalities with them and to try your best to integrate yourself within their community. The quickest way that I've been able to do that is through my favorite sport—soccer. Just like the rest of the world who love the beautiful game, Timorese people are avid fans. As Josh has posted before, the UEFA European Championships are currently ... read more
Advertisement
When in Timor, Do as the Timorese Do...Part I: Cockfighting
Published: June 18th 2012Asia » East Timor » Dili
June 18th 2012
WARNING: If you support PETA or avidly disapprove of Micahel Vick, then you should probably just not read this post so you don't think less of us as people. I know cock fighting is wrong, but they're just chickens, it's a major aspect of Timorese culture, and an opportunity not to be passed up while visiting this country. Furthermore, I strongly advocate the death of all roosters who crow indiscriminately 24/7 and prevent me from sleeping. We left the clinic at 2:30 on Saturday because Senor Lopez had big plans for the afternoon. We arrived home, but found him down the street at a campaign rally for Fretilin, a major political party in the upcoming election who he avidly supports. So he sent us on ahead and promised to join us after a while. A little ... read more
June 12th 2012
Visas. One of the fundamentals of travel, had been carefully worked out and timings carefully scheduled. We even thought of whether we'd need them for transit countries, or so we thought... Then we got to Wellington airport and nearly didn't go anywhere. We were flying via Sydney to Darwin where we were overnighting before hopping over to Dili, the capital of East Timor. Its only Oz and we're NZ citizens now so have got the mindset that we an go an live and work there whenever we want. Which of course we can, but not when we're travellingon on our British passports. we both panicked momentarily at the mention of visas at the check in. Umm how can we get on we tentatively asked, oh just walk over to the ticketing desk and they can do ... read more
June 12th 2012
We decided over dinner that the 3 of us would spend the day exploring Dili. After breakfast we headed out to the Christ statue at the far east of greater Dili. You can see it from the waterfront anywhere in Dili. To get there we hopped in a mikrolet, a micro sized minibus with a bench seat on either side. East Timorese are not big people and you never see a fat one and even they are cramped in, our heads are pretty much on the roof so hunching over is mandatory. The mikrolets usual do a set route at a slow pace picking people up and dropping them off anywhere on route, but it was quiet at that time of morning and for the price we paid we figured that we probably actually chartered the ... read more
May 22nd 2012
It would seem that there are many of you, family and friends, who are under the impression we are on some sort of glorified extended holiday. We are NOT on a holiday! Riding a bike from London to Sydney is more like unpaid work, really. Expensive unpaid work at that. For example, we are very busy every day with planning routes, finding food and accommodation in strange countries, crossing borders, arranging visas, arranging bike shipping, writing blogs even! Well, ok, perhaps not so busy writing blogs as this one is somewhat overdue. Hmmm, so where were we when I last wrote something? Lombok for my birthday… two months ago.Yes, definitely not so busy writing blogs. Turning… older (the nice thing about being old is you can forget how old you are) I would like t... read more
September 17th 2011
It’s early Saturday morning and I’ve been in Dili (East Timor) since late on Monday. Once again I’m travelling with a group from work to train some local people in the use of some software that has been developed at work and to also run a workshop on climate and climate change for a larger group of people. We had to travel from Melbourne last Monday because we could not arrange flights from Darwin to Dili for the weekend. We initially thought that this was because a lot of Army personnel use those flights but I think that it was because of a bike race. For the last few years East Timor has been running the Tour de Timor. This is a bit like the Tour de France but for mountain bikes. I also imagine that ... read more
