Tell friends you are off to Timor-Leste, and you'll be met with uncomprehending stares. Timor what? Timor where? Why? The answer is simple: because it's there, because no one I know has even been there, and because most people I talk to, even around southeast Asia, have never heard of it. Yet there it undeniably is, waiting to be discovered. For a few short years after it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, Timor-Leste had the honor of being the world's newest country. Sixteen years later, the best that can be said about Dili, the country's capital, is that it remains work in progress. In many ways, work has barely started. Each day, the sultry serenity of Dili's airport, the country's only international gateway, is shattered by a half-a-dozen flights, mostly from Bali or Darwin and
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