Upon our return from Atauro Island, we we checked back in to the Sunset Inn and spent a day and a half in Dili, capital of Timor-Leste. If you’ve never heard of the country, don’t be embarrassed. It only became an independent country in 2002 (the first new country of the 21st century) after 450 years as a Portuguese colony and then 24 years of occupation by Indonesia.
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, Timor-Leste is the 14th least-visited country in the world. However, there’s a bit of a hitch in those stats since the UN only measures countries that actually report tourism. There are many countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and North Korea that don’t appear on the tourism list. We’ve been to a few of these countries, including Somalia, Turkmenistan, and Djibouti, but whatever its actual rank it’s safe to say that not many travellers show up in Timor-Leste.
And the lack of visitors is a shame, because the East Timorese are friendly and welcoming, the Portuguese left a legacy of great food (and wine, still imported from Portugal), and as we reported in our visit to Atauro Island post, they have fantastic beaches, snorkelling, and scuba diving. That being said, there aren’t a whole lot of major tourist sights in Dili, so we enjoyed the tropical weather, dined on fine Portuguese cuisine (with a Timorese interpretation), and adopted the laid back lifestyle of Timor-Leste, if only for a couple of days.
We did not bother to visit the second largest Christ statue in the world (having already been to the #1 in Rio), but we did vist the Tais Market, devoted to the selling of the UNESCO listed heritage weavings of “tais”. UNESCO is absolutely right that “that the concerned communities consider require urgent measures to keep tais weaving alive”; many of the market stalls display machine-made weavings from China, but there were some fine examples of the traditions tais too. We also had a short tour of several of the sites devoted to Timor-Leste’s struggle for independence, including stops at the site of the Santa Cruz massacre, the Dare Memorial, and a display about how Dr. Ramos-Horta and Timorese Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for their work toward a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.”. All in all, a very enjoyable short visit!
Check out a few photos on Flickr at: www.flickr.com/photos/100countries/albums/72177720312299252
