Timor Leste 🇹🇱 A Gem That Will Remain Close To My Heart

Timor Leste is a new country in South East Asia(SEA), which broke off from Indonesia after decades of struggle and got their independence in 2002.

It was my long-time dream to visit this place as I have completed travelling to all the countries in SEA except Timor Leste. However, I was unable to go earlier as the flight was very costly with multiple transits and long waiting duration before reaching my destination.

Fortunately, Batik Airlines introduced a direct flight from KL to Dili, which was around 4 hours, and  flight tickets cost only half the initial price. Hence, I decided to travel this July with my dive master and good friend, Ben.Luckily, our  accommodation   and transportation got sorted out as Ben's good friend was a principal at an international school in Dili.

Well,I was happy about the arrangement because at Timor Leste, the official currency used is US dollars, so it can be expensive to travel in this country if we need our own lodging and transportation. These two are very expensive due to the scarcity of it and the distance between places to visit. The road system is also poor due to the developing stage of the country.

So we went on a 5-day trip and planned for lots of diving at Timor Leste.

At the airport, we were welcomed by  Dr Danny(Ben's friend), who was waiting with his motorbike along with the breakfasts he  bought for us.

We got into a discounted taxi, and the fare was only 10 dollars, which passed  through the town and villages,  surrounded by the beautiful hues of the seawater and long stretch of beaches.

Since it was a new country, it had a layback countryside view with  moderately developing towns and villages. Most of the vehicles on the roads were motorbikes rather than cars.

The people, on the other hand, were mostly the younger generation who were very friendly, humble, and helpful. They did not take advantage of tourists, and most of them can converse well in English, although their national language was Portugese and their own local dialect.

As we explored Dili and  chatted with the locals, we realised the local living standards were reasonably cheap as most of their meals and daily needs can be bought with less than a dollar.However, as tourist the  meals at the restaurants can be expensive that you feel a burn in your pocket after the meals.

Our travel in Dili was mainly by motorcycle. We visited many places like Cristo Rei, the beautiful beaches,the mountainous terrain, and local peoples usual hangouts. We saw a number of  futsal courts with active participants as football was their favourite game.

The diving activities can be expensive, but in this part of the world, the dive spots are very pristine as not many tourists are aware of this beautiful gem.

It was very  exciting as most of the dives were done by shore entry and unlike other parts of the world where boat dives are more common.

My 1st dive was a bit stressful because the waves were very high, and I lost my  balance and fell. It was a struggle to overcome the waves and enter the sea.

Once we entered, the sea bed was serene with good visibility despite the heavy waves above. There are good number of sea creatures I saw at the sandy bottom like frog fish, sea horse ,various size of puffer fish, sea worm but I wasn't lucky enough to see a dugong  during the dive as it happen to be a common habitat for it.

The next day, we went to K41 dive spots, which required a tedious four-wheel drive ride through the midst of road construction on dusty and bumpy roads.We reaches the dive spot after an hours' drive. We stopped at the beach with shady trees and saw a few fishermen mending their nets while their children were happily playing by the seashore.

Our diving team, quickly set up a foldable tent with table and chairs for us to sip on cooling coconuts while they setup the scuba diving equipments.It was a moment to cherish their pampering service, while we were waiting for our dive.

This dive spot had clear water with excellent visibility and lots of soft and hard corals of various colours and sizes with colourful schools of fish swimming past us to the corals. I was engrossed with the picturesque view that I forgot to check my bottom time and went way past it.So, I had to do a longer surface stop before coming out of the water.

The following day, my good friend Dr Danny requested me to give a motivational talk to secondary school pupils on taking up medicine as a career.

It was an interesting sharing session with the enthusiastic students and teachers regarding my experience and inspiring them to be pillars of their new country by becoming professionals, entrepreneurs, and leaders of the future. With this session, my memorable and beautiful memories at  Timor Leste came to an end.

I hope in future I'll be able to revisit this country to see it transit to become a developed country. Of course, I hope to see the dugongs and whales which I missed this time round....till next time...