Exploring Dili, Timor-Leste's Capital

Exploring Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. Jonty shares some of his favourite places from a year spent living in Dili.

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Transcript

Jonty: 0:06

Bondi. Welcome to exploring Tim Este, the podcast that talks about Southeast Asia's best kept travel secret. I'm your host Jte, and I'll share firsthand insights, expert interviews and practical travel tips. Whether you're a traveler, a cultural lover, or just curious about places rarely covered in the mainstream. You're in the right place. Let's explore two more. Less day. today's episode I'm gonna talk about Dili, which is the capital city of Timor-Leste. I lived in Dili for a year, and during that time I literally walked almost every street within the city, so I know the place quite well. I'm going to share with you what I think some of the highlights are of Dili as a destination for tourists. People's first impressions of Dili can be a bit mixed. Visitors may be slightly underwhelmed if they've been traveling through Southeast Asia and are used to some of the bustling metropolises of other countries, but it has quite a lot of low key charms. I really enjoyed exploring the place and there is a lot of history and culture and it's also quite a beautiful city in my opinion. It is home to about 325,000 people out of Timor less day's, 1.3 million population. It has quite an interesting history with Portuguese, Indonesian, and Timor's era heritage, although about 80% of all the buildings in Dili were destroyed when Indonesia left in 1999. Dili is setting quite a spectacular setting, the city is on the flatland with an attractive coastline, particularly if you head out to the east or the west of the central city. There are some very nice beaches in Tassie Tolu and over towards Cristo ray and back beach, and then behind the city, the houses extend up into these beautiful bush clad hillside, which is excellent for hiking and for great views of the city. My top three experiences in Dili are to, number one, explore the Christo ray area. So Christo Ray is a large statue of Jesus out to the east of the city center. There is good hiking and snorkeling and you'll see lots of locals and expats there at the weekends, in the morning in particular, number two, I would recommend understanding the history of Timor-Leste. Almost all the museums in Timor-Leste are in Dili, and the main ones are the Timorese Resistance Museum and the Shaer Exhibition. And it's also worth visiting the Santa Cruz Cemetery, and I'll explain a little bit more about those later on during this podcast. The final of my top three, would be to stroll along the dilly waterfront. Buy a fresh coconut and see how the timur is relaxed. Either side of the port you can walk along by the coast there's sea walls and there's just quite a lot of life going on. Little stalls and some park areas, so that's a nice way to see some of the city. Going into each of those in a bit more detail. So Christo Ray, as I say, it's a 27 meter high statue of Jesus. It's 27 meters high to represent two more less day was gonna be the 27th province of Indonesia it opened in 1996, just three years before the team Marines gained independence from their Indonesian occupiers. There are 14 stations of the cross, which lead up from sea level up to the summit of about 600 steps, and the statue itself faces Jakarta. It's a great place to go for a walk and afterwards you can go for a swim or a snow hall at the beaches. It's easy to get there. Not on foot. It's quite a long walk on foot, but the number 12 Mette, which is the local buses, goes out to Christo Ray, the Timorese Resistance Museum opened in 2005 and it tells the story of Timor Este from pre-colonial times, but the focus is really on the brutal 24 year long Indonesian occupation is quite central and easy to get to, and it's definitely worth a couple of hours of your time. The Shaker exhibition was opened in 2016 in an old prison. It went under a big revamp in 2024. And it tells the story very well, almost as well as the national resistance museum. But you also have a real sense of history in place because you are in this prison where a lot of terrible things happened. And so it is quite a confronting place, but definitely worth visiting is a little bit. Out of the way, but it's relatively easy to get to by local bus. A landmark on the dilly waterfront is the Montreal Church, the site of the oldest Catholic church in Timor-Leste. Although the current building dates from 1955'cause it was badly damaged by bombing during World War ii, this was the cathedral for Timor less estate until the Imma Conception Cathedral was built. It also has an important part in Timor's history because there was a funeral service for an independence activist, and the procession went from the church to the Santa Cruz Cemetery, and during that procession, the Indonesian troops, this is the 12th of November, 1991, they opened fire on the mourners. And killed at least 271 people. There was only been a lot of massacres during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste, but this is one of the few that was recorded. There was a British journalist who managed to film the massacre. He hid the videotape in the cemetery and he went back at night to retrieve it and then got word out to the world. So this was a big news story in the early nineties, and it really raised the profile of what was happening to Timor, less state under Indonesian occupation. Santa Cruz Cemetery is one of the largest cemeteries within Dili. It is useful to understand that context, but even if you haven't got the history, Timorese cemeteries are quite fascinating places to visit in terms of the tomb design and how they commemorate their dead. Another landmark within Dili is the Dili Lighthouse. So this dates from 1896 and it's a 19 meter high lighthouse on the Dili waterfront. So it's not. A destination in of itself, but you will see if you go along the waterfront and it's a useful lamb up to get your bearings along the waterfront, as I mentioned before, is a nice way to walk. So if you walk from the lighthouse to the fruit market, so that two and a half K walk, that will give you a really good experience of the city. You'll walk through the attractive gardens in front of Maal church. There's some park areas. There's an old Japanese pill box from World War ii and there's the only AstroTurf pitch in the country. and there's also the Tourist Information Center, which is open during weekdays and it's worth a visit if you are in D and wanting to find out more information. And then you finish at the fruit markets, which are one of my favorite places when I lived in Dili to go and buy fresh fruit, bananas, passion fruit, avocados, pineapples, lots of fresh tropical fruits. As I mentioned before, the Immaculate Conception Cathedral. This is one of the largest Catholic cathedrals in Southeast Asia. It was visited by Pope John Paul ii and blessed as a cathedral in 1989 and Pope Francis visited the cathedral in 2024, it can hold up to 2000 people inside and there's space for many more outside it. It's relatively plain for a Catholic cathedral on the inside, but it is in a nice setting. It's got nice gardens around it, and it is one of the more notable landmarks within the city. One of the little gems of Dili, which many people don't know about, but it is quite central. It's only a couple of blocks back from the waterfront is the Chinese Hagan de Temple. This is one of the few buildings in Dili to have survived over the last hundred years this is a Chinese temple established by immigrants from Macau, and if you've been to other Chinese temples, you'll recognize the design and the shrines. It is a very attractive building and it's an interesting experience to go and see how Chinese worship takes place within Dili. There is a large Chinese community here that has been here for a long time. There's also been Muslim population, Timor Lester for some time. Their main place of worship is the Anne nor Mosque. This was constructed in 1955 and renovated in 1981. It's a very green mosque. Recently got painted, so the roof and all the walls and everything very green, which is obviously the Islamic color. To finish on the theme of religious sites, the third largest Balinese temple outside of Bali is in Dili. It is on top of a hill, but it's not necessarily the easiest place to find. It's quite close to the to BC markets, which is one of the three main markets within Dili and it's undergoing restoration work at the moment. So you may or may not be able to get access to the interior. It depends if you can find the guy with the key, but even if you can't, you can still get a good view of the temple from the outside. And there are some quite nice views from the hill. In terms of museums obviously mentioned the Sher and National Resistance Museum. It is more of a personal museum, but I would recommend the Galleria Memorial. Viva. And this opened in 2022 and it's dedicated to Jose Ramses Horter. So he's the current president of Timor-Leste and he's had a very important role in Timor Lessee's history both during the occupation and post independence. He's held the role of president before and he holds it now. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to Timor Lester becoming an independent country. And he's turned his old home on the waterfront into basically a museum to himself. But it does have a lot of interesting artifacts and things to see, and he's met pretty much every major figure in world politics over the last 30 years. He has a photo of himself with them, so that is an interesting place to visit. If you walk along the waterfront, you will see the government palace. That's one of the largest, probably the largest building in Timor Este. This was the official palace for the Portuguese. It was destroyed during World War ii, but they rebuilt it and then it was also badly damaged after the Indonesians left in 1999. Had a scorched earth policy and destroyed a lot of infrastructure into Leste, but it's been rebuilt since then. This is the official workplace of the Prime Minister and of the government, you can't go into the grounds, but you can get a good views from across the waterfront towards the palace. Slightly random site, just opposite the government Palace is the Lotti clock tower. So Lotti is a major. South Korean business, all South Koreans will know Lotti and they were a sponsor of this memorial, which commemorates the relationship between Timor Lester and Korea, which is a lot stronger than I had thought before I moved to Dili. I wasn't something I've really necessarily thought of, but South Korea and Timor Lesser are on the same time zone. And the South Korean government provide a lot of aid and support to Timor-Leste. Also close by, just off the waterfront and next to the government Palace is the Cassa Europa. This is the oldest building in Dili. It dates back to the late 19th century when it was built by the Portuguese as infantry barracks. It was then turned into the municipality administration building for Dly, the 19th thirties during World War ii, it was the headquarters for the Japanese, and then it returned to Portuguese military use until 1972. And then the Indonesian army used it during the occupation. It was badly damaged in 1999, but they got money from the World Bank, UNESCO to restore it as a cultural center, which unfortunately didn't happen. But it was the home of the European Commission and Timor-Leste, which is why it's called Casa Europa. They left but the building as of 2025 was undergoing some renovations to potentially turn it into a cultural center. It may not be open to visitors, but you can get a good look at the exterior as you walk by. If you're driving from the airport into town, you may see on your right hand side the Nicholas Lovato presidential Palace, which is the. Official workplace of the president. It was named after a team Rise, national Hero, who was the first prime minister of Tim Molester in 1975, for about 10 days until the Indonesians invaded, and the Dillys airport is also named after him. The palace itself is close to the public, but the grounds are usually accessible and they've got a very nice, paddling pool for kids, and they often have events there. If you're visiting Dili around Christmas, I would highly recommend that you visit the Presidential Palace because they have an exhibition of nativity scenes made by local communities from around the country, and so you've never seen so many you. Variations or, so many nativity scenes in your life. I think when I visited there were probably about 70 different nativity scenes of different sizes, of different designs, of different materials, and it's just quite a fascinating Catholic Timorese cultural experience to visit. Behind the Presidential Palace is at Morris. It can be a little bit tricky to find but Google Maps is correct. At Morris, which is an art center. A community run center for Timur artists. Atti Morris has an international reputation and it's well worth the effort to try and track it down to take a look at some of their artwork. To finish today's episode, I wanna talk about Tassie Tolu, which is my favorite place in Dili. So Tassie means sea, and tolu means three in Tetin, the local language. So three Cs. In fact, it's three lakes, although in the wet season it's two lakes because they merged together. This is just to the west of the airport. So if you're flying into Dili, you will see. There large bodies of water and they're surrounded by quite impressive hills. If you visit first thing in the morning, there are often some beautiful reflections on the lakes. There's quite a lot of bird life to see there, and there are great walks. Either you can just walk around the lake at the bottom and you'll see lots of local communities and get a real feel for how a lot of team Maries live. And it's a very straightforward six kilometer loop. You just keep the lake to one side of you and you can't get lost. Or if you're feeling a bit more adventurous, you can head up into the hills above Tassie tolu and you get fantastic views around. Once you finish walking, you can cross the main road and there's the beach at Tassie Tolu, which has reasonably good snorkeling, and it's quite a nice beach. Hopefully that has given you an idea of some of the things that you can do in Dili. If you want more information on these and ideas of more things to do, because I found quite a lot there during my time, you can visit exploring timor.com/dili and there's a lot more information on that webpage. Thank you so much for listening to exploring Timor Less Day. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please consider leaving a rating or review. It really helps more people discover the show. If you have any questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me an email at exploring Timor lessDay@gmail.com. Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.