Obrigada Timor Lorosae!

Turning 30 seemed far too simple and stress-free, so I decided to shake things up a bit by ducking up to East Timor to spend my birthday weekend with Romain. For those who haven't caught up on the goss, Romain is based in Dili at the moment on a short-term contract with the UN.

After a 20 hour trip from Port Vila through Sydney and then Darwin, I finally arrived in dry and dusty Dili, to be greeted by Romain and bizarrely enough, one of only two Ni-Vanuatu soldiers based in East Timor at the moment. He happened to be rostered on airport duty that morning.


A quick power-nap gave me the strength I needed to meet all Romain’s high-fallutin’ colleagues without making a dork of myself. We chowed down at the UN HQ cafeteria and then jumped in a UN truck and fanged off down the coastal road. Destination: Baucau, the second largest city in East Timor, and home to the Big Pink Portugese Palace – the Pousada de Baucau, where I was to spend my last couple of days as a twenty-something-year-old.

The trip through the countryside was amazing. East Timor is at the very end of its dry season at the moment so the place is wheezing for some water. The scenery is spectacular, and spectacularly dry!

Moo!

Baucau is lovely – mountainous and interesting. The Pousada was very pleasant and they served yummy Portuguese food ...

....although I think there was a bit of a miscommunication over the “cheese platter”.

Pics from around Baucau:

Bathing boys

Baucau kids with Bob

Fishmongers at the market

More market wares

From Baucau we took a day trip into the interior of Timor to visit the villages of Ossu and Venilale. I donned my newly acquired tais skirt (thanks Romain!) for the trip. Tais is the traditional woven fabric from Timor.

Here is a pic of a Timorese lady in the market weaving tais on her loom.

And here I am hanging with the local ladies in Ossu. Seriously – we were all having a good laugh until Romain pulled out the camera.

Romain had more luck cracking them up with his bad jokes in Portuguese (or were they good jokes in bad Portuguese?).

Beautiful buildings around Timor:

Boys with their donkey

Nearly everywhere we went we saw constant reminders of war. Smashed up buildings and burnt out houses and in some places just the heaviness of recent horrors.

But the people seem strong, both physically - all along the road side we saw people carrying impossibly heavy things on their heads - ...

...and spiritually. Still lots of smiles and curiosity with most people wanting to stop and chat to us ‘malai!’, which is tetum for 'foreigner'. We had this word shrieked at us constantly outside of Dili. In most places we visited we really were the only tourists, which was a strange but good feeling. We nearly always felt completely welcome.

But sometimes we had to accept that the love just wasn’t there!

After a trip through the mountains we came back to Baucau and Romain decided a dip in the ocean was just the ticket to freshen up.

I wasn’t so convinced.

Mostly because of this sign, which was 10 metres from the water’s edge.

Next day – back on the road and back to Dili town.

Stopping on the way for a swim (sans crocodiles) at One Dollar Beach, so named because the cheeky-yet-entrepreneurial local kids used to charge the expats $1 to not smash in their car windows while they went swimming.

That night Romain took me out on the town for a birthday feast of lobster and champagne!

Which nicely capped off what had been a wonderful weekend.

So Obrigada Romain! and Obrigada Timor Lorosae! (thanks Romain! thanks East Timor!).

My birthday was GUD TUMAS!