Exploring spectacular Aileu and Ainaro

Exploring the spectacular municipalities of Aileu and Ainaro.

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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.

0:31

Today's episode I'm gonna talk to you about the municipalities of Ale, and Narro, These are some of the more spectacular parts of Timor, to explore. If you are looking at a map of Timor-Leste Ale and a narrow are basically due south of Dili. So if you head outta Dili on the road to the South coast down to Mani, you're gonna go through Ale and Anau. so talk about each of them in turn, starting with a layer.'cause that's the one that's closest. It's one of the smallest municipalities in terms of population home to only 54,000 people. And it's one of only two landlock municipalities. There are a number of historic and religious sites to visit in AEO, along with local markets in 1999, Alea was briefly considered as a potential capital for Timor Less day before they decided to keep it in dli. In terms of things to see and do in a layer, the first thing you'll come across is potentially the BOLO waterfall. This is a 35 minute drive south from if you head through the Kama Road rather than the Dary Road, there's kind two roads that eventually join going from Dilly into aeo. and so the Karo is at the west of Dili. So if you drive up from there, the road basically goes through the waterfall. You can't miss it depending on the time of year and the amount of water coming from the falls. There'll either be a puddle to drive through or quite a large pool of water for your vehicle to navigate. And it's quite an impressive and cynically located waterfall. The road continues up into the hills with some amazing views back down towards the coastline. And then you're gonna get into ao, which is the name of the main town in the municipality. So in the outskirts of um,, eos you come into it is the projector Quinta Portugal, which was established in 2016 as a agricultural center, which is aiming to improve food security in Timor Lessee. And so they grow around 450,000 trees, which have then been transported elsewhere in Timor Lessee. And you can do tours to see their coffee, farming, and explore the plantations. The town really is marked when you're heading into a layer by the Tegra Pillar Monument, which is a three column, red and white local landmark on the main road. You'll then go past, on your left Dili Vanilli, which are growers, buyers, and sellers of a hundred percent organic coffee, vanilla tea, and spices, including turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, which were established in 2018. There's a shop on site, which is well worth visiting, and there's also accommodation if you want to stay longer when you come into ao. The center there is a roundabout, the Rotunda ao, and there's a figure on top of the roundabout that represents the team Marie's breaking free of the chains of colonization. Now, I'm assuming it's similar design to ones I've seen elsewhere in Timor and which are all built during the Indonesian occupation. So it's ironic that the Indonesians. Even though they were pretty brutal occupiers, they're the ones who put these statues about. I think it was the idea of Asians breaking free from the Portuguese colonizers. By the roundabout is a large formal park and that's home to various symbolic structures. And there's one spot with some shade and that's where they put the playground and that opened in mid 2024. As I mentioned earlier, there are some large regional markets which are held there. Saturdays probably the best day to visit, and that's where the bus stop is to other destinations Just past the markets as the Ale Massacre Monument. So on the 31st of August, 1942, Alayah was invaded by the Timorese allies of the Japanese invaders and the five Portuguese soldiers. A number of civil servants and mission were killed. So the monument commemorates the massacres and opposite the monument is an attractive colonial style building from the Portuguese time and as a pair of statues representing uh, Manet men and feto women in local traditional clothing. A little bit outta town, you wouldn't drive past it. You have to drive to it. There's only a few minutes, but it's around the back is the Nikola Lool monument. This is quite an impressive monument with a large bust of the head of the first Prime minister of. the Democratic Republic of East Timor. So his time in office and his life unfortunately, was cut tragically short by the actions of the Indonesian government. So he only lasted I think 10 days in office as the prime Minister before Indonesia invaded Timor. He then went to hiding, but he was captured and killed three years later by the Indonesians. So this memorial also honors 32 Timorese, who helped him and other resistance leaders hide during the Indonesian occupation and 137 veterans that were involved. He's also commemorated by Dili's Airport, being named after him and the presidential palace. As you head out of ale to the South, it's worth taking a quick detour to your right to projector. Morana ha, which is an impressive local NGO, and it runs a restaurant, a guest house, a handcraft center woodwork, and even a dentistry center. It has a Brazilian influence and trains local youth in art and culinary services, and it's a great place to get some lunch. Now before you get to Alejo Town from Dili, you can turn to your right and you can head over to Sooy Crack. The main road through Ale and a narrow is sealed and is a reasonably decent road when you head off towards soy. The road is definitely not of the same standard and you can actually continue from Salo through to Glen O and Am Mirror. And that is a bad road from that on my motorbike. And that was quite a challenge. But Sooy crack is a beautiful place home to a water lily field lagoon, and it's surrounded by atmospheric rice fields. It is a very beautiful place to visit. You can have on a clear day views of Mount Ramlow. There are camping opportunities. There's some eco lodging, there's quite a lot to do around soy crack, and so that is definitely worth overnighter from Dili. You can go there as a day trip or if you're going up into Alaya, I definitely recommend spending some time there. Apart from the detour to soi, there's basically one road through a Leo. so if you just keep going up through that, you'll go through a Leo town, you get some beautiful scenery, some nice rice fields, and then you'll come into a narrow, and that's home to some of the most dramatic scenery in the country, including Mount Ramal, which is shared with the municipality of Amira next door. But most people access it from the a narrow side. It's also home to dock mile waterfall, which is probably the most impressive in the country. Now the main town in Narro is Moisi, which is a popular by Timor standards. It's still pretty quiet tourist destination. So Moisi is a decent sized town, about 1500 meters above sea level. It's definitely cooler up there than it is in Dilly. It's quite nice to escape the heat, although it can be quite a lot wetter, it's a really great place to relax and enjoy the mountain air or go for mountain biking or hiking. Now when I visited in late 2024, the Prasada DUI was closed, but it is being renovated, and so hopefully it'll open at some point in the near future. And even if it isn't open, the site is worth visiting. This was a mountain retreat built for the Portuguese governor, and it was subsequently turned into a hotel, it's got very nice landscaping and spectacular views of the landscape, so very worthwhile. Taking a quick visit to explore in moi, there's the sizeable church of Saint Matthew, which can't really miss and that's worth a visit. And then on Thursdays and Sundays, large local markets are held in the bc which attract people from across the region. Heading through MO a few kilometers down the road is quite a beautiful waterfall. A waterfall, which has quite a deep pool. It's about a 20 or 30 minute walk from the road, but there's quite a range of path that's very easy to get lost. So it's best to get a local guide from the local Hama cooperative. And they also offer some basic accommodation and provide other tours including of coffee. Heading further along the road from Umi uh, Mount Lau, not lau Lau is a prominent peak close to the town and that's been developed for tourism over the last kind of 10, 15 years with the training of locals. And about three years ago they started building some camping facilities. It cost a couple of dollars to enter, but if you go to top. There's a Catholic Shrine site at the top with a statue of Lady Mary and incredible views. When I visited last in late 2024, they were building a new road, which will make access a lot easier. Generally every October they hold the Lau festival, which has local cultural events and music. And it's a pretty popular place for Team MAs in particular to visit. They're heading on from moi to one of my favorite places in two Leste, which is how to licko. This is the highest village in the country, which lies around 1,950 meters above sea level. It's the base for hiking, so the summit of Mount Ramlow, but there's also quite a lot to do in the village itself. A lot of people will just come and do the Ramlow Summit and then head away. But I would definitely recommend spending a couple of hours to walk around town. There's a very large and strikingly blue church, which was inaugurated in October, 2022. Like when BC the Portuguese Colonial administrates built quite a nice place in the prime location in the center of ha bco opposite it, they hold local markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays. On the hillside above there's a large white tomb to an important local clergyman. And then going along the valley, there's a beautifully located cemetery on the hillside and there's quite a lot of traditional Timorese thatch buildings in the village, including a number of luli sacred houses, and there's lots of day walks as well around how to BLE coast. So it's a great place to spend some time. I say the main reason for most people visiting is to hike up Mount Ramala, which I've talked a bit about in my hiking in Timor Este podcast. Heading on further in through a narrow dock. Marley waterfall, as I mentioned, is probably the most incredible waterfall in, in Timor-Leste. Although it's not the easiest place to reach in Timor. So if you continue along the road from obesity for about 45 minutes south, and then pull over from the road, there's a one and a half kilometer path, which is quite steep, which goes up to the waterfall and back. So you need to allow probably at least an hour. The path is generally decent with a number of steps, but closer to the falls care does need to be taken as it can be very slippery and enterprising Local has built a bamboo bridge to access the waterfall for which it's$2 for Malay or foreigners to, to visit. So you have to pay to, to get across the bridge and then get up and close with this incredible waterfall. And the final spot heading further into an narrow, is actually a narrow town, which is quite different to moi in how to bco as it's much lower elevation based in the Lush River valley. It's one of the largest towns in Timor and therefore has a. Large church, and there's also a number of memorials and other things in town to see, but it's not really a major tourist site. But I guess if you're heading down to the South coast, it's worth stopping in a narrow town and having a look around So hopefully that's given you a bit of a flavor for some of the things you can see and do in AO and Ro.

Jonty: 11:01

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.