Travels to Balibo and Baucau

While our Timor tour began and ended in Dili, the nation's capital, the group also travelled to Balibo (near the Indonesian border in the west) and Baucau (to the east of Dili). While neither place is, theoretically, very far from Dili the roads range from bumpy to precarious so it takes a long time to get from A to B.

In Balibo the group visited 'Australia House', associated with five Australian journalists who were killed in 1975 in the lead up to the Indonesian invasion. The house is now a community facility and small museum.

We stayed at the elegant Balibo Fort Hotel:

It was interesting to see traditional dwellings, subsistence agriculture and all manner of free-ranging critters:

A couple of days after returning from Balibo we set off in the opposite direction. On the way to Bacuau we went snorkelling at K41 (pragmatically named as it is 41 km from Dili). It was magnificent. It was wonderful to get to meet the reef fishes of Timor, as well as the people ;-)

In Baucau, which is Timor-Leste's second-largest city, we admired relics from the Portuguese colonial era (the town reminded me of Melaka, Malaysia) and stayed at Pousada de Baucau, another elegant building reminiscent of times gone by.

Next post ... Timorese food. Well, obviously ;-)