East Timor

After my long and exhausting journey to Dili and directly jumping into New Year's Eve celebrations, my body demanded some rest. So after a few days resting, mostly lying in a hammock and not doing too much, I started to explore the city a little.
The contrasts are huge, as only around main roads and the city center the infrastructure is good, but in most of the other areas everything is very basic. Still you can see a lot of development, a lot of constructions and new built housings, especially around the coastal road and the city center some very modern buildings are built, the ocean promenade was newly built in a very beautiful way, there's clearly progress going on. Nevertheless you everywhere can see and feel the lack of resources, a lot of places need maintenance, repair or have to be renewed - a poor but developing country. As usual in bigger cities, people are not that much approaching, except of the kids, but as soon as you're asking for help or advice, you'll receive very nice and kind support. Public transportation is limited to taxis and the microlets, small public buses, run by private companies, going around the city on 13 different routes.

As Timor Leste decided to not have its own currency they're using the US Dollar for amounts from 5$ upwards, any amount below is paid with local Centavos, coins worth from 2$ down to 5¢. Probably due to this, but as it's a small country with only around 1.3 million citizens, too, everything here is relatively expensive, especially compared to neighbouring Indonesia.

It seems sometimes as if Timor Leste is focussing a lot onto it's history and it's fight for independence, but as this fight was ongoing for around 25 years, it's clear that this is an important part of their identity and obviously there are a lot of outcomes of this long time suffering, still affecting present times. The Museum of Timorese Resistance was an impressive experience, a very detailed exhibition, guiding through the history of that time, explaining and contextualizing the whole situations and the political backgrounds very well. No need, but nevertheless important, to say, that the so called "Western world" did act shameful and selfish, completely ignoring Timorese people's suffers, as long as public attention wasn't big. Again I was reminded, that it's usual (and way more easy) to point fingers on other countries' cruelties, than acting by himself with moral integrity. But this leads again to the unbelievable ability of Timorese people to forgive their suppressors all the cruelties and live in a peaceful neighborhood with their past enemies.
Several monuments are reminding on their history and suffers, but still it feels as if this place is moving forward, without forgetting it's past, it feels as if this city is full of life (even if after around 8/9pm not too much is going on, in most places 😅), vibrant and busy.
Have a look at some sights I've seen, there'll come probably another posting about Dili, showing more places and perspectives. 😉

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Learn about Timor Leste:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor

Wanna help?
https://www.unicef.org.au/donate/child-protecti…;

https://bettertimor.org/Read more