Exploring Timor-Leste

Talking to Alcino Da Silva about Exploring Timor-Leste

• Jonty • Episode 3

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Fascinating conversation with Alcino Da Silva, a Timorese entrepreneur, about his home country.

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@exploringtimor

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@ExploringTimorLeste

Books - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D82D3TBJ

Alcino:

They said, there's something about Timor less. Then a lot of them worked in different countries, but they said when they come to Timor, when they leave, they feel like there's a hole in their heart,, it's just the immediate love for this country.

Jonty:

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. I'm delighted to welcome our first guest on the podcast today, which is Maran Sino DaSilva. He has many years of experience in the hospitality and tourism industry, and it's a real pleasure for him to join us today. I really appreciate your time today. So I'd like to ask you a few questions just starting off with a little bit about where did you grow up in Timor, Este. Give us a little bit of an idea of your background.

Alcino:

Good morning to you, JTI, and thank you for the opportunity to talk with you and being your first guest, I grew up in dhi, the capital city of Tim Este, I was here for about eight years. Before we had the civil unrest in 1975 and then off to Darwin, and then stayed in Sydney for about 24 years before returning back to Leste in 2000, just after the referendum. And I've been here ever since. So 25 years, basically on and off. A lot of changes. When you talk to different people coming at different stages of demo list there. Sometimes they think it's underdeveloped but from day one when I dropped in here in 2000, it was absolutely nothing. A lot of the buildings were destroyed. And there was no government. There's no nothing in place. So when you look at where it is today people sometimes don't estimate what Tim's gone through. But a lot of efforts have been put in place to bring Tim molested to where it is today.

Jonty:

It's an incredible story of Tim Este and people.. Forget how new a country it is and how far it has progressed. Hopefully later this year it'll be joining as end. So that's a great milestone. Yeah. In this new country and it's

Alcino:

done. We've had little, we've had hiccups along the way but. We haven't fallen. And a lot of people sometimes expect that Tim molested mean classed as a failed state and whatever, but definitely it's not. While we have differences in political opinions and here and there, but at the end of the day, I think that there is a common thing is that Timor suffered a lot over the years. We've had colonial rule, we have Indonesian occupation. I don't think it's going to go back to where like it was in 75 or in 99. People are, have grown a lot smarter and wiser since then.

Jonty:

So you are a successful team race businessman with a few different fingers in different pies. What if you meet somebody, what would you say that you do?

Alcino:

I don't even know what I do. Sometimes we just do things here. Honestly, I just remember where I, I come from. I used to be a public servant in Australia I, I wasn't an entrepreneur if you say, but coming here, Timor gives a lot of opportunities. And if you fail, you fail small. If you make it, you make it. Just wasn't something I thought about, but initially we started a security business. At that time, because we catered a lot for the UN personnel that grew very well, I ended up employing like 2,500 employees And then by the time in 2006, seven, I thought maybe it was time to move on to other businesses. So started to do investment in villas and we have apartments and then restaurants. Having a few restaurants here, it doesn't make you, millionaire overnight, it, it provides okay, good income every month.

Jonty:

How would you describe Tim Oreste to somebody who's never been.

Alcino:

People are cautious when they hear the word istic.'cause I think most of the time when you Google it, it comes up as conflict and unstable government and all that. But the reality is, and I think you would agree with me most visitors that come here love the place. They fall in love with the place and the people here. The good thing is that you can come here and expect the unexpected. Basically, you probably get off the plane and. Fuel a 33 degree heat and thinking, wow, what am I doing here? Every step of the way of your journey here is an experience. When you come here you can visit many places that aren't touched by tourists. Sometimes there are negative impacts are having. Too many tourists visiting your country. So at the moment it's virgin. It's you can come and experience Tim Oreste as you would probably do in Bali like 40 or 50 years ago. So you can make a comparison if you come now as, as you were, if you did come in 2000 and you'd come now it's not the same. And probably another 10, 15 years, you'll find the team, more or less dealer in particular will change a lot.

Jonty:

It's quite hard these days to find somewhere that doesn't already have a large number of tourists or tourists infrastructure. And I would agree to your point, when I arrived in Team Este, I didn't really know much about Team Este and I was just constantly surprised in a good way at the things that I found and things I managed to do then. And it's definitely, for better or worse, everything in team war is a memorable experience. Yeah. I'd love to hear about what is some of your favorite places in Timor Lester, and what makes them so special to you?

Alcino:

I think it's changing, I used to like Dili, but as you get older, I think depends on your taste, but I tend to spend more time in uh, I have a place there. It's quiet for me. I prefer that, but for me it's, it depends on the visitor, it depends on the person, because Timor it's like having, different countries in one country. And then the geographies or. Different too. I it provides different expectations depending on where you go and how you tailor your holiday here. But I, I think it, it's better to, it initially maybe go through a travel agent like a local travel agent. And. Tie up a package so that you can have a, an introduction to Tim Oreste. That's how I see it, but where my favorite place is. Anything outside Dili.

Jonty:

So the rest of the country, other than Dihi, the

Alcino:

rest of the country's beautiful. It's quiet, pristine. There's, if you like peace and you actually sit down and just let your mind at rest, honestly, JTI, sometimes it's hectic here. I don't get much sleep in Dihi. So when I go to Lake East, I do have a 30 minute nap in the car. You're not driving,

Jonty:

I hope.

Alcino:

No, I'm not driving. That's why I prefer not to drive. I get my staff to drive my car so I get a 30 minute nap in my car.'cause it's so peaceful. And then when you're looking out in the ocean, if you have an ocean driving it's beautiful.

Jonty:

Tell us a little bit about, for somebody who's not visited, what can they expect to see there?

Alcino:

It, Lakeside provides a lot of different environment when you go past Dili, you'll see the coast on the right hand side, and then if you look to the left, you'll probably see the mountains. To me, a an historical place as well. An old prison there in nlu. I think it was established in the early 19 hundreds. And I believe my grandfather also came here in 1927 and was posted in nlu. My grandfather was Portuguese. So he came out here. He left Portugal in 1924 and must have gone around different places, different colonies of Portugal, and then they end up arriving in Timor in back in 1927. So it's interesting for me to go back to Lakey SA as a, his historical connection with the family as well. Yeah, and the people are nice and you can grow basically anything. Also. In all around Timor, but in it's famous for custard Apple, is it Ata papaya bananas. It's quite good.

Jonty:

So on the theme of food, as you mentioned just now and earlier, so what are your, some of your favorite Timur East dishes? So if you had visitor to Timur, what would you recommend that they eat

Alcino:

Timur food. We normally have mainly, vegetables in our diet. So the famous, what we have is Kko that's very nice. A lot of people eat that. We, because we had like different colonizers all the years, so we've had Arabic influence. Portuguese influencer. There's also fusion of foods here in Timor Chinese influencer. You can be cooking one thing, depending on different backgrounds. They have different taste, but yeah, so food is paramount here. When you come to Timor, it doesn't matter where you are. Food always tastes nice. It is a basic food, not. Chef style, quality food, it's very tasty. So a lot of my diet includes VE vegetables and fish. Fish is common here as well.

Jonty:

What are some local restaurants that you'd recommend?

Alcino:

They come and go over the years jti a lot of good restaurants have opened and some have closed and some have moved on elsewhere. But basically depends on your taste. So if you have Chinese. Food. There's a lot of Chinese restaurants here. My favorite is The Great Wall. Then there's the Malaysian restaurants. I think there's Ocean View a touch of Malaysian food there. We serve Indonesian style seafood in our restaurants. I have a few, so the. The one in, in, we tried to incorporate a lot of the local product. What's the name of that

Jonty:

one?

Alcino:

Alma Dumar. I opened that in 2020. So we've been operating there for five years. When you look at food, there's naza also. There's a lady there her name is iida. She's a spectacular cook. Then there's gone So Naza in

Jonty:

dli.

Alcino:

Yeah. So most of these restaurants are in, in dilly. So when you go to the districts, the, you're probably. Come across a lot of the local restaurants there, but as I said, a lot of them are quite cheap and very tasty. But don't expect chef style quality food, but it's edible and it's healthy

Jonty:

A visitor to Tim or less day. If they really wanted to understand traditional Timorese culture, what would you recommend that they do or where they could go to understand, or you maybe could explain a little bit about your culture?

Alcino:

For me it's like this if you look at the history of Timor, we're very religious country, but we also believe animus as well. A lot of that. So there, there is the country. Is it's reaching both, our belief in Catholicism and also in our traditional culture. So when people arrive here, the first place you probably go to is Chris Ray. It's a nice walk, it's east of Dhi about probably six, seven kilometers from the main city. So you can walk up to the Christ statue there, or can visit some of the cathedrals in Dhi.'cause I think they said after Vati and Timor Les is the. The most populous Catholic nation in the world. So that, that's one. So you'll probably see a lot of procession here, a lot of praying. We also have here in Kalo there's a moji there. So there's a small percentage of Muslim people here. And it's a nice place to visit also.'cause you have a lot of these stalls that sell Indonesian food there. The

Jonty:

mosque. Yeah. There's always people selling food outside the mosque.

Alcino:

Yeah. It's different different moni, different family heritages, they have different customs. What I recommend is tourists to come and talk to locals, and get to know more about our culture.'cause it's it's interesting. People here like to tell stories too. By talking to people you get to hear their side of the story, their history, their culture.

Jonty:

Could you explain a little bit about Luli, what they are? Yeah. Put you on the spot.

Alcino:

It's basically, the origin of us, our families, and our history We normally, in each of our generations we have our own worship to, the nature, we call it za and then we built this to, to protect the family and to conduct every year, every just to honor the dead. To ask for protection for those that are leaving and to guide us, if we make mistakes throughout the year or whatever, sometimes we need to fix all that. And if there's family issues and things like that it can be resolved. And we also make reference to the ul so it's more like a sacred site for families and the origin of families and where they come from It's important part of our culture here, the lic and you find that it's different. There's different styles, the different shapes of building, depending on which part of Timor you go to. But the most common one you probably see is the the one, they call it the Los pa one. But if you go to different areas, they built it differently using local material.

Jonty:

It's quite interesting how much they vary. Like the ones in KU were, quite different to the ones out in Los Palace or in the KK or in parts of the kind SCHs SW also. So it is you don't see many in Dili, but when he gets outta Dili you'll see a lot of luli as you travel around Timor-Leste do you have any tips for people in terms of. Getting around Tim Este. So obviously you can fly into Dili, that's where the international airport is. That's relatively straightforward, but if you want explore the rest of the country, how would you suggest that people could best do that?

Alcino:

A lot of people just rent cars. Four-wheel drive. So you can do like adventure driving. Most of the roads, connecting the cities are pretty good. However, if you wanna go off trail a bit, then you probably need a four-wheel drive and you can easily hire that. Now there's a lot of car hire places in dhi, normally cars with insurance they probably come at around. Between 90 and$120 a day. Us and the driver, I think if you can include drivers is$20 a day and you have to provide food and probably accommodation if you're staying overnight. Different places.

Jonty:

I would say from my experience having I've ridden a motorbike in Timor Lesso for the best part of a year. I would probably recommend that people do get a local driver, unless you're familiar with driving. Yeah, on Southeast Asian roads with a few more potholes thrown in, then yeah, it can be quite a challenging place for, it's for visitors, but so a local driver particularly also the lack of signage is quite an adventure kind of destination, so a local driver would know the best ways to get places. It's

Alcino:

highly recommended and it gives you comfort too. And you have someone driving, then you can have the opportunity to just look around at different places.

Jonty:

Exactly. You can relax, you can enjoy the view, relax

Alcino:

more, relax.

Jonty:

And I say there's always something happening in Timor. So if you're traveling around the country, it's great just to look out the window and see life happening. And there's always something unusual or something that catches your eye. Your eye. Yes.

Alcino:

Yes. It's like different rock formation or, different shaped trees or I dunno I enjoy chickens running

Jonty:

out across the road or dogs running around, or cows or the water buffalo.

Alcino:

Yes, but not as often now. I think when you came, the early years, I guess there are a lot of that, but now it's a lot better. It's more controlled But having said that, you still have to be alert for those kind of things.

Jonty:

You do.

Alcino:

And the odd potholes.

Jonty:

The odd pothole. Correct. We mentioned at the beginning just around the kind of safety side of things and that I think you're right, is a big misconception that people have about Timor less day that they have safety concerns. And I can speak from my own experience that it is a very safe place to explore and it's a lot more stable than the media may make out.

Alcino:

It's very stable. A lot of people travel the country alone. You don't get harassed or anything like that. And the other case maybe. If there's an incident, I think it can be managed here also, I think it's quite safe. Here. Although it says it's come from war torn country, but, it's quite stable. It's quite peaceful here. So highly recommend it. If if you come here and you just gotta be, I think cautious about what you do. A lot of the security you have to self-reflect and realize'cause. You, you have to understand also, JTI initial phase is also, we had a lot of different foreigners here from the un. And I don't recommend going to, beaches with, tea strings and bikinis and things like that. It's not part of. For us here. It's different in Bali, but in Timor I think it, it probably'cause it's a Catholic country and you gotta respect that and as you take away of what you are wearing and things like that here yeah, a bit conservative as well. But if you're here for. An adventure holiday and things like that. I think it's fine. A lot of locals will welcome you,

Jonty:

the welcome you get from Timor is incredible and I think that's because there aren't huge numbers of tourists, it's almost quite unusual, but of an novelty factor to see visitors and everybody is very. Welcoming and as you say, is you just have to be respectful. If you're traveling to a country, you need to be respectful of their their culture and traditions. And as you said, like the, it is a very safe place. You just take your usual precautions. If you are walking around at night by yourself, anywhere in the world, you're gonna be at more risk than in other situations. To be honest, the biggest risk you're gonna have in Dili. You might fall down a hole in the pavement rather than anybody doing anything to you. So there's there's a different sort of risk profile, but it is certainly a safe place for people to explore. And I know people have hitchhiked around Timor Este without any issues.

Alcino:

That's right. I've had, a lot of my memorable moments, I think I, I remember a few years ago I was in, and I was staying working there for a few weeks. And I really enjoy, just getting a case of beer and just sitting out at the beach front there and having a drink and talk to your friends. You can go fishing here in Dilly. A lot of people now go night fishing just on the outskirts of dilly at night. I see. That's with the torch increasing a lot with, is that

Jonty:

where they you weighed out with the torch and you're trying to trap the fish,

Alcino:

the torch? Yeah. When the sea goes out, they go looking for those the pippies that what they call'em yeah. Clams and things like that. So yeah, there's a lot of activities at night in there, but no, there's very little in terms of criminalities here. So it's quite safe that's what I wanna put out to people out there. If you wanna come to Timor less, it's quite safe.

Jonty:

I think that's a key takeaway.'cause that's not necessarily what you read on the internet, as you mentioned earlier. Just to finish up, if a traveler could take away just one thing from Timor Lester, what do you hope that would be?

Alcino:

For me, the probably it's the wow factor when. When you go, not so much in Dilly, but outside dhi, you have a lot of beautiful places. So I think, bring a good camera and then definitely when you walk away you'd be really surprised when you look back and how beautiful those photos will be and those places that, and bring you back memories. I, there, there's two things too. Jte, a lot of people that worked in the UN and I spoke to a lot of them when they were here. They said, there's something about Timor less. Then a lot of them worked in different countries, but they said when they come to Timor, when they leave, they feel like there's a hole in their heart,, it's just the immediate love for this country. I. That's one. And then some tell me that they come here and they fall in love with this country and with the people. I think that people that come

Alcino (2):

here and go back, they'll feel like they'll be missing this place, honestly. I do it whenever I leave Timor, I come back

Alcino:

normally less than two or three weeks.'cause at that time I'm starting to feeling a bit bored and missing the place.

Jonty:

I can completely understand that. I know towards the end of my year in Dili, it can be somewhere to live. It can be a bit challenging in terms of the heat and the noise and the traffic and the infrastructure, and so it got a little bit frazzled towards the end. But then I got home and remarkably quickly I was homesick for dili and missing the excitement and the buzz and the vibrancy of life there. You get perspective when you leave a place. And when you're in a place, it's harder to see it, but once you go, you're like, oh, that was such an amazing place

Alcino:

that's right. Jti. I'll tell you something. My, my father lived here a long time before we moved to Australia. We left, but in 19 nine, he said to me after he won the referendum, he said, Sino, you can go to Timor, but be really careful. He said, it's like a big hole there. Once you go there, it's very hard to creep out of there it is to crawl out of the hole. In a good way. Yes. Yes. He said, you'll fall in love with the place and it's difficult to get out. And I said to him at that time, I said, they're not me. I've been living in Sydney for a while. I've got all my footy mates and this and that. So for me it's difficult. I said, but here it's 25 years later, I'm still here.

Jonty:

Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated you coming on the podcast and sharing your thoughts and experiences of Timor Less Day. I'm sure people will appreciate your insights.

Alcino:

Okay, thank you John t for the opportunity and for whoever's listening, please consider if you're trying to think of a holiday, come to Timor and

Jonty:

yeah, have an

Alcino:

experience here.

Jonty:

Always a memorable experience in Timor Este.

Alcino:

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Jonty:

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.