Welcome to one of the most peaceful slices of East Timor. Wait, that’s an understatement. This 2700-sq-km remote enclave, surrounded on three sides by Indonesian West Timor, a series of jagged mountain ranges and fronted by the sea, feels like one of the most peaceful places on earth. Oecussi’s sweet cocktail of wild beauty, isolation, a deliciously slow pace and the incredible warmth of the mostly Dawan population, whose traditional conical-shaped lopo and ume kebubu houses dot the landscape from the peaks to the shore, oozes serenity. There’s a reason the international members of the current occupation force (the UN) consider his assignment to be a ‘five-star mission’, and it ain’t the luxury lodging.Pantemakassar is the main population centre, but its deserted, dusty, counter-intuitively wide streets see far more goat traffic than vehicular movement. The rest of the 50,000 or so inhabitants are huddled in traditional villages scattered throughout the coastal mountains and along the Tono River. When Dominican missionaries settled here in 1556, Oecussi became the first Portuguese colony in Timor, and this is where Catholicism initially took hold on the island. Portugal moved its colonial capital to Dili nearly 200 years later, but Oecussi remains aligned with Dili, regardless of the fact that geographically, culturally, linguistically and economically, Oecussi actually has closer ties to Indonesian West Timor than East Timor. Alas, religion has once again trumped logic, and today, travel between these three distinct territories is a bit complex. Nevertheless, Oecussi is well worth a detour, and if you do make the effort, you will be handsomely rewarded.
Stay two days in Dili and you may be anxious to leave; stay longer and you may never want to leave. That’s the conundrum of Dili, the scruffy capital of East Timor that’s always in the news for the wrong reasons. It wears scars from years of occupation by the Portuguese, the Indonesians, the UN, refugees and more, and is where the independent nation of East Timor’s messy birth is most on display.But it’s also a place of great hope, where East Timorese and people from around the world want to shed the decades of tragic legacy and become known for something good, something positive.Yes, the drive in from the airport is grim. And really, there’s not much to drive around and see that will have you thinking ‘postcard’. But just as you’re obsessing about dodging a rock, you’ll come face to face with a goat blithely munching a shrub on some quiet street and you’ll pause and realise that, for all its reputation, Dili is actually a surprisingly mellow place. Everybody hears about riots but nobody hears about the simple pace of everyday life. A rhythm of family and friends that soon draws you into this welcoming place. Just slow down and go with the flow.Dili will play an important role in your East Timor trip no matter what your plans. This is the only place with any choice of sleeping and eating options. It’s where you’ll make all your plans for seeing the country and where you’ll buy anything you might need for your stay – if you can’t get it here, you can’t get it anywhere in East Timor. And it’s where you tap into the local ju-ju to find out what’s really going on here and in the rest of the country. You may feel more than ready to leave town, but you’ll also feel oddly compelled to return.
Go when the weather is best. During the May-to-November dry season there’s little rainfall and you’re assured of good weather. By the end of the dry season, it can be rather dry and dusty. The December-to-April wet season can be very wet indeed, making travel difficult, particularly if you get off the main routes where unsealed roads can become impassable and unbridged rivers uncrossable.
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