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Published: August 14th 2014
Most if not all these months of July and August had been planned back in January and February. Only one part was left to the last minute, these little few days in Dili.
Dili, is the capital of Timor East, aka Timor Leste, the newest country in Asia independent since only 2002. More on the history of Timor later. To reach Dili, there are....few flights. Sriwijaya is flying once or twice a day from Bali in a short, old 737. AirNorth is flying also once or twice per day on small planes from Darwin, and Silk Air has three flights a week from Singapore.
As I was in Bali, Sriwijaya was the ideal choice. Slight problem, you cannot buy tickets outside of Indonesia, and via the internet, the only way is with an Indonesian credit card. So my only option was to wait my arrival in Bali end of July, 10 days before my flight. Availability was scarce...the morning of my flight from Bangkok, checked on intrnet...flights were available in economy to Dili on the 9th August....but no return available on the 14th, nothing on the 13th. So when I show up at the airport
in Denpasar...was pretty happy to find a single seat back on the 13th August....even if it was in business at a small premium...I was going to East Timor. Oh, and those flights, you pay them cash...
Arriving in Dili airport, you understand pretty fast the situation. The baggage carroussel is overwhelmed by cartons, not suitcases...and outside the airport....it's local taxis...and luxury white SUV...is this Asia....look more like what I know of Africa!
So before going further, a little history of Timor Leste. First warning, history here is highly political, and how could I resume the history of a country in few paragraph...so whatever I'll be writing, this is a shortcut, and shortcut, are never perfect!
First, if you do not even know where it East Timor, it is just north of Australia, and East, of the province of West Timor which is Indonesia. There is a picture of the country and it's neighbor just below. what is interesting is that they have a small enclave at the West of the country, which is fully encircled by Indonesia and only "easily" reachable by sea...
Before 1975, Timor Leste was
a colony of Portugal. Shall I say a neglected colony of Portugal. It has had better days when sandalwood was the prime wealth of the province. The dictatorship ended in 1975 in Lisbon, and Timor Leste got independent.....for few days. The new leaders of the country were serious pro-communists. It was 1975, you remember, the Cold War, Vietnam, the domino policy...US, and Australia wouldn't see it very well to have one more communist country in the area...so they let the Indonesian go in. And Indonesia invaded Timor Leste. Followed a guerilla war till well in the nineties.
Today, the population of Timor Leste is just over a million people, after 1975, and for a good 20 years, it is said that up to a quarter of the population perished under the Indonesian Army. In 1996 the Nobel Prize came for East Timor leaders, if peace was not yet there, independence was on his way, UN was seriously involved. And in 2002, Timor Leste become the newest country of Asia, with a seat at the UN.
I'm still remember few of the news. I'm 40 years old, and even if I have live in Asia
from 1996, I knew not much about this place, and I guess, most people don't even know about this place today...do you remember the news 15 years ago?
So I landed in Dili...to dive...shall we start by the diving, by Dili....or by the luxury SUV phenomenon?
Let start by Dili. The capital of East Timor is easily walkable. Most streets are paved...not all...and sewage seems to go right to the sea. But what is impressive, is how young the population is. Never seen so many youth, and should I say, smiling and welcoming youths! The country is over 90% Christians, I think they have even a higher percentage than the Philippines. The national language is Tetum...which is an Austronesian language mix with a good dose of Portuguese...trust me, it's pretty interesting simply to listen to it. The people do actually to me look closer to Papua than to Indonesia...the Australian Outback is not that far either....they are more Austronesians than Asians.
So more than once, I took my feet, and just walked around for hours. The city is pretty small. This is South East Asia...way back in the time. They have
a huge kind of shopping mall, but I only drove in front of it on the way from the airport. What I did, is spend some time visiting the Resistance Museum to try to understand better the history of this place. And at least, to learn a lot.
Next, the comments about the luxury SUV industry. You see them in Asia....but here, it's just out of proportions. NGO and embassies are everywhere. Seems they have taken a good 80% of all properties in downtown. Since when does a country gives itself to the foreigners? So you find these huge SUV everywhere...and for info, it's also pretty easy to find any kind of food in nice restaurant to feed all this crowd of foreigners working in Dili. The only tourists you will find here are coming from Australia....for the diving, as Australians seem to be the only ones to know where East Timor is. Than you have the backpackers going around Asia and who have a shock once they cross the border from Timor West...this is not Australia, but it's way more expensive than Indonesia. And than you have the few others like me...but mostly, at the terraces
by the seas, it's NGO and Embassies staff...a lot of them.
Timor Leste also made the brilliant choice of choosing not only Tetum as a national language, but Portuguese too, so money is flying in from Portugal and Brazil...brilliant idea...
So the country is living on it's oil reserve...well...what they can claim as that is still not really well settled with Australia, but I must admit, I didn't go much into that part. They have coffee too....and there is...diving!
Well, there is one full time dive operator. Dive Timor, run by a guy call Luke and his brilliant team. Good job running a place like this Luke when you are not even sure your guests can get on a plane to reach you. Good for them, a good 50% of their divers are locals...trust me, a lot of NGO workers have serious allowances to play around, and why not diving when it's...just in front of our office!
They have DM from France, the US, Singapore, Britain, sorry guys if I forget one r two of you, but you are all great guys! What do these guys are doing
here...that was my question...seems the answer is always the same...wanted to be somewhere where not everybody is going...that's for sure! Dive Timor also run a small guesthouse at the back of the dive shop. Nice and cool place. Remember, this is not Indonesia, so forget about dirt cheap...but I would not call this place expensive either.
The diving...well...you don't dive when you have a serious sinus infection. I should maybe not have pushed it to the end on the liveaboard to Komodo...but I did. So 12 hours after leaving the Mermaid 1, I was in bed....the next day, on self-medication. Well, medical facilities are not really adequate in Dili...I knew what I had, and went for the full cocktails of pills. The plan was simple, the original one was to dive 3 days in Dili....my new next option....as to get ready as soon as I could to at least dive...once...
So it was...antibiotics, the basic but efficient ones...a lot of fluids....lots of them...and bed...bed...and bed. Next day was better, but I would have been crazy to dive...gave myself 24 hours...and in the water I was for a single muck dive.
So
diving in Timor. Well, it's windy season, so no boats to the island of Atauro, across Dili. So it's all shore diving from Dili...from just outside the city, to up to 50km away. There ae some corals, we went on a muck dive. Warning, this is not Komodo, and I knew about it. Don't plan a diving holidays here out of Europe or the Stats, you may be disappointed...but this is a perfect place to dive...on the go, with great people! There was a lot of sand...well, it was one dive, I was happy to be back in the waer, look at the pictures to give yourself an idea.
They have dugongs...and I never saw them...well, this time I got as close as I could...we spotted one from the beach....I have to dmit, I didn't see much. Thse guys are shy, really shy...and they don't like divers bubbles....so the only way is to properly spot one and swim to him. Slight probem, by the beach, the first many meters have bad visibility due to the sand...making close encounter rarer that you think...they are there, just there...but so well hiding...
So this was it for
Timor Leste. If you are a diver and on a fat NGO package, go for it...you can even go to Bali for as cheap as 250usd return for your days off...and food was pretty nice too. UN left Timor Leste in 2012...many people in Timor Leste have been struggling since then, that were a lot of people...with some serious cash to spend in the city. Oh, and they left vehicules behind them, not really gracious...
I understand thatI'm not going to make so many friends with this type of entry. Remember, the people of Timor those children were so smiling and welcoming...and how many proper homes could we built with a single luxury SUV...mainly used to go from the villa, to the office, to the terrace of the restaurant...
And if you need a place to dive or to stay...contact Luke, these guys were really nice...and I wish I could have done a little more than a single dive with them....
For now, I'm sitting by the sea in Bali, waiting for Tiffany and Leslie to land in Denpasar in a few hours....didn't really sleep well yesterday, missing them big time.
My sinus are not doing fine yet, they are doing better, ready to blow some bubbles with Leslie and Tiffany pretty soon! It's going to be a pretty time for the next 24 hours...Smile!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Corals and colors
Ah the joys of diving