Timor Leste (2013)

I was back to Timor Leste in Oct 2013. Not much changes to the country with UN being pull out from the country. Life still goes on as normal. What was noticeable was hardly any vehicles into the villages as we drove into the villages. I then realised it was the absence of the UN vehicles. The road conditions are slightly improve making the drive into the villages a bit easier. One significant impact is the price hike at about 20% for meals and accommodation since one or two years ago.

Menu

We chanced by this Pintang Restaurant, selling a variety of food. Nice food and reasonable pricing. Do drop by an give it a try. We are too hungry by then and forgotten to take any photos of the nice food we had. So far I still did not get the chance to visit Plaza Timor. It has WIFI and a spacious food court.

Dili District, Timor Leste (Part 4 of 4, 2012)

We had lunch at New 88 Restaurant before we took our flight back to Singapore. The food was nice. You can either go for the buffet lunch or opt for individual main dishes.

Landmark Plaza

New 88 Restaurant

Hor Fun

Claypot Hor Fun

Cutlet Fried Rice

Buffet Lunch

Buffet Lunch

Drink

Dili District, Timor Leste (Part 3 of 4, 2012)

Content : Shopping | Food

If you stay at Sakura Tower Apartment, you can shop at Salmi Mart. It is just next to Sakura Tower Apartment. It is a mini mart. If you crave for some snacks or tibits, just grab them from next door. 

Salmi Mart

Just some walking distance, you will locate W. Four. It is another mini mart place. They sell almost the same things in all the mini mart, just a slight difference in pricing.

W. Four

W. Four

I was surprised to find fast food in Timor Leste. My first time at Eastern Burger and seemed to be opened by Chinese. I didn't get to eat the food here, as we were too full after a delicious dinner at Saigon. However we had ice-cream here, since the usual ice-cream place we visited had closed down. We ordered banana split where there wasn't any banana inside.

Eastern Burger

ice-cream

ice-cream

Dili District, Timor Leste (Part 2 of 4, 2012)

Content: Hotel

Back to Timor Leste for the fourth time. This time I got to stay in another place, at Sakura Tower Apartment. At the first sight of its entrance, I was disappointed. Once you are inside this apartment you will be full of surprises. You will be surprised at the room size with the same price you pay at Tropical and Audian Hotels. I recommend to stay here if size of the room matters to you. The rooms are huge.

front view of Sakura Tower Apartment

reception area

corridor of level 1

Sometimes I find that room photos from hotels websites do not give reader a real feel of the place travellers will be staying. I had taken the pain to take some photos of the rooms, in hope that it will come in handy for travellers. You can end up with a room that comes with living room, dining area, cooking area, toilet and a master bedroom. What luxury we had!

view of level 1 room (room 1)

view of level 1 room (room 1)

view of level 1 room (room 1)

view of level 1 room (room 2)

view of level 1 room (room 3)

corridor of level 2

view of level 2 single room

view of level 2 twin sharing room

view of level 2 twin sharing room toilet

view of level 2 room (room 1)

view of level 2 room (room 1)

view of apartment backyard

view of apartment backyard

view of apartment backyard

Now is the breakfast part. One can't have the best of both sides. The breakfast is not fantastic. If you want better breakfast, then stay in Tropical Hotel (read and view the photos in earlier post).

breakfast

breakfast

breakfast

breakfast

Dili District, Timor Leste (Part 1 of 4, 2012)

My last visit to Timor Leste was in year 2010. I got to visit Timor Leste again in May 2012. What are the new changes? Hotel room rates have increased, this is bad news for traveller. New eatery outlets and new shopping mall can be seen. At the same time, some of the usual places we used to visit have either close down/ shift location or no longer value for money service/food. You can read my earlier posts on Timor Leste, where updates of the changes or developments are included at the bottom of the posts.

View of Timor from the plane

The airport is still the same, except that it has finally invested in a scanning machine. All baggages have to go through the scanner now. In the past, you walk through the exit without having your bag being check. This is bad news for us, as we bring in many items to the villages which face the danger of being confiscated. The officer do confiscate stuff without much reason. For example, one of our team-mate had her umbrella taken and the other had her torch taken. We concluded that these items may have looked nice, interesting, high-tech and unique in their eyes, so they like to keep it. Luckily, they only eyed on some items and not things like iphone, ipad etc.

Quick Travel Guide to Timor-Leste

Getting There

There are 3 flights to Dili, Timor-Leste (DIL).

From	Duration	Airlines	Remarks
Singapore	3h 55m	Air Timor using Silkair aircraft	Tue, Thu, Sat
Darwin, Australia	1h 15m	Air North	At least 1 flight a day
Denpasar, Bali	1h 50m	Merpati Nusantara Airlines	Daily flights, can't book on internet
		Batavia Air

Visa

Apply only on arrival at International Airport in Dili, Timor-Leste (DIL). Visa fee is USD30. For more details on visa application, please visit Immigration Department of Timor-Leste

Departure Tax

Remember not to spend all your US dollars. Do set aside USD10 for departure tax.

Currency

The official currency is US dollars. US coins are not used, hence do not be surprised to get change in centavo coins.

Languages

The official languages are Tetum and Portuguese. Indonesia Bahasa and Makasai are mostly spoken by older folks.

Climate

Tropical; hot, humid; distinct rainy and dry seasons 

Time Zone

UTC +9

Divided into 13 Administrative Districts

• Aileu
• Ainaro
• Baucau
• Bobonaro
• Cova-Lima
• Dili
• Ermera
• Lautém
• Liquiçá
• Manatuto
• Manufahi
• Oecussi-Ambeno
• Viqueque

Manatuto District, Timor Leste

On our way back to Dili, we stopped by this resturant in Manatuto District. Cock & Bull is one of our favourite place for lunch. Nice cool place to have a meal under the humid weather of Timor Leste. If the missionaries from another church (who stationed in Manatuto District) happened to be at home, we do ask them to join us for lunch. A time to update one another on the wonderful works that were done in Timor Leste. Much thanks to them for allowing us to use their home toilet for our toilet break every time we travelled into Viqueque District.

The black stuff doesn't look appealing. But you must taste this dish of beef. It is the local signature dish and taste delicious. I must find out how the locals cook the sauce. The dish of noodles is not to replace rice. It is considered as one of the dish. The electricity is quite regular in districts nearer to Dili, so you can still get chilled coke at this place.

Updates @ 12.05.2012
No longer can get good food for the same price we used to pay.

Local Home, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

The intepreter had invited us to visit his home. I didn't manage to find out where his home town is. It was full of danger to reach his home, with damaged bridge, up very narrow and steep rocky hill. You need very skilful driver to drive the car.

Have you ever drink coconut water, where the coconut is plucked right before your eyes? Well, we had ours at the interpreter's house. You can see how he climbed up the coconut tree with bare hands and feet in the clip below. Freshest coconut drink I ever had in life.

Luca Sub-district, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Luca is not a village that was adopted by our church. Due to the raining season, we were not able to get into Bibileo. The road conditions did not permit us to get anywhere near to Bibileo. Instead we went to Luca and chat with the village head whether we could bless the villagers by setting up the medical mobile clinic. They were willing to receive us, as such we gave some medical attention to the villagers.

Lugasa, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Lugasa is another village that we had to visit and do our programme with the children. This is the toughest village to get the children engaged in the programme. Despite of the difficulties, we still had a good time with the children.

Fatudere Sub-district, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Here is another village that our church has adopted. Fatudere is near to the sea, so after the volunteer work we went to the sea with the children following us there.

Bibileo Sub-district, Viqueque District, Timor Leste

Bibileo is one of the adopted village that our church is working on. Volunteer teams have been making continuous trips to support this district-building efforts. Due to the frequent trips into this village, they are familiar with us. Whenever the cars arrived, the children would run out of their houses to welcome us.