South coast info

Firstly, Hi to the rest of the tripadvisor forumites....

I%26#39;m planning a trip over to Timor Leste in September and although I know the north coast pretty well I ned some info on the south. ie accom, road conditions places to go etc

Anybody been there lately, any recommendations?

Cheers all

Mark

South coast info

Hi Mark

I notice you don%26#39;t have any responses to your forum query from the beginning of the year, which is a shame. (I guess Timor Leste is just not on the tourism ';radar'; yet.)

I%26#39;m interested to travel there next year. Intrepid Travel was running small group tours, but has cancelled all planned departures because of political instability. So it looks like independent travel is the way to go.

Do you have any tips about accomm, beaches, sights to see etc, even if it is only on the north coast which you know? Any warnings, safety issues?

I have a great curiosity to visit Timor, but I%26#39;m not an aid worker and I%26#39;m not interested in going there as a ';do-gooder';. Is it easy to go there as a tourist just to relax. For example, are the Timorese OK about Aussies lazing around on their beaches? I feel that I would like to support their economy with my tourist dollars. Or is it all too hard and too soon after Independence, and I%26#39;d just look like out of place and out of step?

South coast info

Hi, I realize this is a late answer to both your questions, but may be useful nevertheless.

I have been in East Timor in 2004 as a tourist. Apart from everybody finding this very strange, starting from the police in the airport, I never had any problem and everybody was extremely nice. At the time things were very peaceful, in fact I would say it was one of the most peaceful places I have ever experienced. Unfortunetly things have changed, but still I have problems imagining such a radical change in just 3 years. I would really like to know how much of it is media exageration (when I was there the US and other countries did not recomend travel for safety reasons).

You might think because I am Portuguese it would be easier to comunicate... wrong. I traveled with another Portuguese and two Brazilians, and together we spoke Portuguese, English, Indonesian Bahasa and had a phrasebook of Tetum and still often away from Dili comunication was by hands... many villages speak their own dialect.

despite having had a wonderful human experience, I heard often Australians complaining about how much nicer locals were to Portuguese than to them and other foreigners. Then the locals told me this was so because many foregneirs would not leave their guns and had a more distance approach... I don%26#39;t know how much of truth there is in any of this, but definitly having a relaxed atitude helps a lot. We traveled to mount Ramalau once together with a new zealander and noticed no different behaviour.

The roads are extremely bad apart from the one going from Dili to Baucau which is just bad. I never got to the south coast, so I don%26#39;t know what to recomend.

All this sayd, I must say it was one of the most rewarding trips I have ever done. I will never forget it. And if you are a diver you will loveit! I went to the great barrier in Australia after and I was disapointed... Although it was espectacular as well. In East timor there is no reef lagoon. The coral reef is in a drop of directly from the coast, with very cold currents from the 2000 meter depths bellow... which means an incredible diversity of life! I never saw them, but an english guy there even saw killer wales once!

Hope some of this helps...