East Timor

East Timor has all the makings of a tropical paradise – friendly locals, great beaches, diving and fresh and cheap seafood. It’s much more laid back and chilled out than many other parts of SE Asia. In development terms however it has a long way to go to even Indonesian Standards. This has positives and negatives – during our entire stay not a single kid asked me for money, there are no touts, traffic is very light. But infrastructure development outside of Dili is very basic, tourist services are pretty limited and English is not widely understood. So you really need to be prepared to be an intrepid traveler if you come here. And you really should come here, this is a country one can easily fall in love with.

In terms of safety, this is the first time I’ve been somewhere with such a large UN presence and it’s been interesting. It seems like you can’t take 10 steps without seeing an NGO or a UN office, and the UN vehicles are everywhere on the streets. I don’ think they actually do much anymore apart from drive around and be visible. But their very presence is very reassuring; it definitely creates an atmosphere of safety and security. In any case foreigners are not and have never been a target. One journalist I spoke to used to get right in the middle of fights to take pictures and all he ever got was “Hello Mister!”

Another side effect of the UN presence is the false economy it creates, where prices are about twice to three times what they are for a comparable product /service in Indonesia. Also after the Indonesians left the USD was adopted as official currency (to avoid inflation I assume), but this also doubled prices overnight. East Timor is not a cheap country to visit if you are not working and honestly I don’t know how people survive here is the average salary is $50 a month and a bottle of water costs 50 cents.

In terms of its colonial past, East Timor was never a jewel in the crown of the Portuguese empire, and so it lacks grandiose colonial architecture. Don’t expect anything like what the Spaniards built in Peru. But there are still interesting buildings around, and will be even more interesting once some money is found for their restoration. Many of them very used for Government purposes and were burned out by the departing Indonesians and the militia gangs.

There are plenty of signs of reconstruction, mostly in Dili. It seems like the government here is motivated and committed, and they need to be because there is certainly a lot to do here. The economy right now is very simple – foreign aid and subsistence agriculture. It is the poorest country in Asia by a wide margin. But the East Timorese do have some oil and gas fields that are currently being developed with Australia (who tried to cheat them out of it by the way and only relented under international pressure). Hopefully they will make the most of the revenue. Tourism needs to happen here if this country is to have a future.