East Timor What You Need To See And Need To Know

Problem
Where is it?


Answer
Timor is a banana shape island lying East-West north-west of northern Australia. You can get there with a hop skip and jump by ferry and plane from Singapore and go trekking. That's what a member of my family did.

The airport has those traditional high roofs, reminiscent of Welsh hats.

If you arrive by boat, you'll see more traditional high rooftops.

Drive off around the country, and / or go trekking and you will see the sacred houses, also called totem houses, or legged houses. 

Me? I've just come back from walking the levadas, water ditches cut by farmer seeking irrigation around the mountains in Madeira, which are ledges built around the hillsides, up and down, with trip roots from trees, strong winds on the coast, and a death rate rivalling Scotland's hiking areas, about 30 a year, which I learned about only after I got home.

Walking - I can just about manage the walk from my desk to the fridge. I'm safe at home hiding under the kitchen table. I emerge at intervals, to scan the screen, trying to track down where my family have all gone and what the chances are of them coming back.

After spending a fraught week reading about the Thai boys trapped in a cave, brought out underwater, my urge to travel is having a weekend off.

Back to Timor. The message home to me said the group had visited a harrowing Resistance Museum, then recovered drinking Portuguese wine. Portuguese?

A look into Tripadvisor and Wikipedia and the country's own websites reveals all. The largest, most populated city and port is Dili. The chief attraction is the Museum about the resistance - and massacre.

To sum it up:

The Portuguese were running the place. That explains the fact that one of the three main languages today is Portuguese (like in Macau). The wine is Portuguese, too.

The population had a mixture of Catholic and multi-God beliefs. Catholic churches in Dili, as elsewhere in the world, have lots of statues, inside and out. (Protestants are likely to have plain crosses and no statues, neither on the cross nor standing around.)

A Catholic Church, Motael, in Dili, with statues.

So the Portuguese, with their elaborate statues and wines were in charge. Older folk who remember the good old days of their youth, before the fighting, think things were better in those times. Then the country declared independence.

Indonesia didn't like that, the unrest. On the border with Indonesia to the west, at Balibo, five journalists working for Australian news, three Australians and two Brits, were shot by the Indonesians who claimed that the journalists were caught in crossfire.

A lone man, sent from Australia to investigate, also ended up - you've guessed it, dead. In Balibo you can see the graves of the Balibo Five, the grave of the man sent afterwards, and a monument (a man on a pillar, a bit like Nelson's column).

What happened next? Indonesia invaded.

Australia, the USA and the UK, voluntarily kept out. This was, and is, seen by the locals as being in league with the Indonesians.

Why did nobody 'help'? The USA kept out, let the Indonesians get away with it, partly out of fear that East Timor would otherwise turn communist.

You could argue that the USA and the UK and Australia should have kept out. That intervening in Korea and Vietnam only led to more bloodshed in all countries and resentment of the foreign troops by locals.

We had WWI and WWII because of the domino effect of the entire world taking sides. As for South Africa and the Middle East ...

Anyway, whatever your views, let's at least get a rough idea of what happened. The locals resisted for more than 25 years.

Religions
Indonesia has a one God policy. You can be Muslim or Christian but not animist. So the population had to abandon its traditions and convert to being Catholic.

The other Christian, and Catholic, country in Asia is the Philippines. That is another island, connected not with sea-faring Portugal, but its neighbour and rival, Spain.

No Jews. Nope. That's official.

Wiki says:
Indonesian Jews face the challenge of declaring a religion on their government ID cards called KTP (Kartu Tanda Penduduk). Every citizen over the age of 17 must carry a KTP, which includes the holder's religion and Indonesia only recognizes six religions: Islam, (non-Catholic) Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. It does not officially recognise Judaism and other religions.

Back to the history: Meanwhile, on East Timor, resistance continued. The funeral of a VIP resistance fighter, ending at the Church of Santa Cruz (Holy Cross) attracted hundreds of people.

The Indonesians were either angry or frightened or both. The troops fired on the supposedly unarmed, peaceful civilian procession and hundreds were killed.

I read about Tianmen Square, 6/4, in Beijing, China. Even amongst those in power, some were in favour of firmness, against 'disorder'. Others wanted a softly, softly approach.

In the case of East Timor, the publicity about the deaths resulted in more protests and outrage. A film of the massacre, taken by somebody surreptitiously recording the funeral was sent worldwide and brought worldwide condemnation.

The result was UN support for a demand for a national vote by the people on whether they wanted to be independent, or stay with majority Muslim Indonesia (officially secular, unlike Malaysia which is officially Muslim, with no intermarriage allowed). One report I read suggested the UN called for the vote. Another says that the death of Suharto led to a change of heart and politics in Indonesia which led to the 1999 referendum.

The result was a resounding vote for independence.

More violence followed. A UN peacekeeping force went in. Their numbers have gradually reduced as the situation and safety improved.

How safe is it now? As usual, before travelling, check the current safety advice for travellers from the  websites of the government, in the UK, the USA or Canada or Australia. To be on the safe side, why not check all of them.

I hope I have not over-simplified or mis-represented the situation. You can read up about Timor's history, geography and attractions for yourself.

Although the main Wiki doesn't have much on East Timor, you'll find more in Wikivoyage, Wikitravel, and Lonely Planet which all have pieces on the country. So does Tripadvisor.

As far as I can see the island is mainly a rural retreat, with only one Resistance and history museum in Dili, and the museum takes an hour and a half and costs a budget-friendly one dollar. The museum is closed on Monday, so if you plan to head for the hills next morning, don't arrive on Monday.

Hotels are all in Dili, except for two. Other than that, it's guesthouses (usually very cheap and very good in Indonesia), or camping - or convents. I think a convent would make a nice change.

Souvenirs
Now let's turn from violence to more cheerful subjects, food and shopping. I must admit my eyes opened when I read about the strong highly caffeinated coffee. I need to stay awake in a hot and humid place, which makes you feel tired. A glass of cooled coconut milk would be refreshing.

I also like the sound of the silver jewellery and the weaving. I might not buy the weaving. I do not need another piece of weaving. I am awash with tablecloths and runners, and getting nails peeling off from hands in soapy water hand-washing clothes and household items. I'm now into plastic table clothes and mats.

If you'd like to see the pieces of woven cloth, large scarves, called tais, which can be worn as part of male traditional costume, they are hung up on display decorating the National Parliament building. You can see a picture of tais if you look in Wikipedia under Tais. In the capital, Dili, you see bright colour stripes. Elsewhere you get black and white patterns, pictures of pigs, or text, or you can have one custom-made or buy a scarf or bag. Locals are married in Tais and buried in Tais.

What to do?
Go with a group trekking.
With your group, you are bound to visit the Independence/Resistance museum. The museum, the church, the cemetery and monument opposite the church to the surviving heroes, are all related to the theme of resistance and independence.

What else? Hiking.  Lots of diving, to see coral.

See and photograph the 'houses on legs' - built on stilts with high thatched rooftops.

Languages
Three main languages used locally are Indonesian, Portuguese, and a little English.

Hurray! Another Portuguese-speaking place! I'd just learned Portuguese for a group hiking holiday in Madeira. If you have used Portuguese in Portugal or Brazil, you have a head start.

I've also been working on Malay-and-Indonesian, like American and British English, Malay and Indonesian are more or less the same.

See Duolingo for both Portuguese and Indonesian. Read my other posts about learning Portuguese.

Travellers' information
duolingo.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tais
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/timor-leste/dili/attractions/motael-church/a/poi-sig/1582043/356192
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Timor
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/timor-leste/dili/attractions/resistance-museum/a/poi-sig/427839/356190
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/timor-leste/dili/attractions/santa-cruz-massacre-memorial-monument/a/poi-sig/1398696/356190
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balibo_Five
visiteasttimor.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.