Exploring Lautém, inc Jaco Island and Com

Exploring the varied municipality of Lautém, home to Jaco Island and Com.

More information on Lautém - https://exploringtimor.com/lautem/

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

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

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

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

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 is on the municipality of La Te. So la Te is the Eastern most flattest and second largest municipality after Quek in Timor-Leste. It is popular with visitors despite the distance and time involved to get there. The capital of LA term Los Palace may only be 210 kilometers from Dili, but allow at least five hours to get there by road. Jaco Island is the best known site, an uninhabited sacred island at the Eastern most end of the country. But there are also interesting sites in Timor Estess only National Park, the Nino Cones, Santana National Park, traditional fat, KU spirit houses, Timor's, largest lake, and the relaxing coastal village of com. So to start with Jaco Island, which is one of Tim Orestee's two islands, along with Roo Island. Jacko is an uninhabited island, about 10 square kilometers, about 700 meters off the eastern end of mainland Timor less day. It's home to beautifully clear waters off a white sand beach. There really isn't anything on the island other than an impressive set of whale bones to the south of where the boats land and the thick bush interior with no paths. But it is a quiet and relaxing place. Just offshore are several patches of coral, although they're less diverse or lice field than those around Roo Island. You have to be careful around the currents. And there is some risk of crocodiles, which is why I never went in the water there, but plenty of people do do. So. Um, It is impossible to hire snorkel gear locally, so bring it with you if you want to do that. Jack Island is considered sacred by Timorese, and staying overnight is not allowed, but it is a popular place to visit for a few hours. Jacko Island is not the easiest place to get to in Timor Este'cause you effectively have to go all the way across the mainland. And then you're gonna end up at the end by Valley Beach where there is a number of different accommodation options. And then you can get a small boat from the southern end of Valley Beach, which costs$10 per person for a return trip. You pay when you get back at the channel between Value Beach and Jacko Island May look swimmable say it's about 700 meters, but the currents are very. Strong. So swimming is not recommended at all. The crossing can be a bit rough, particularly in the afternoons when it gets a bit choppy and life jackets aren't available locally, so you may wanna bring one with you. Let the boat operator know how long you want to be on the island. Normally, a couple of hours is plenty and they'll come pick you up, although timings may be approximate. But they will come and get you. Now on the value of beach side, crocodiles are irregular there, so it's advisable to stay out of the water. The strong currents do deter, but not entirely the crocodiles in visiting Jaco Island. So technically you could get from Dili to Jacko Island and back in two days, but you're gonna spend 12 to 16 hours driving. With a couple of hours at the beach. So it's much better to spend at least three days if you're heading out to jao. Ideally maybe a couple of days extra to really explore LA term.'cause there's quite a lot of other things to do other than just Jao Island. You could break up the journey by staying in Baal or calm on the way or the way back. So it's about. Five hours into Los Palace, the capital of La Te, but it's about six to eight hours drive to valley Beach. The road between dili and com is good. But from common onwards, the roads get increasingly poor. So things do take a bit of time it is possible to reach Jao by public transport, but it's not easy. So you'd need to get a bus from Dili to Los Palace. Then there is apparently a daily bus from Lost Palace to, to ala which runs but no schedule. You might want to speak to some locals about when the bus may or may not turn up. And then from to Tulo, it's a steep eight kilometer walk downhill to Valley Beach, and then you get the boat over to Jao. So it is. Technically possible with public transport if you've got plenty of time and patience. But for most people, you are gonna want your own transport or to do it as part of a tour. The Jacko Island is part of Timor Lesser's first and currently only National Park, the Nino Conis Santana National Park. This was established in 2007 and it's named after an independence movement hero who is a former commander during the resistance against the Indonesian occupation. And he was born in Tulo, which lies within the park. It is quite an unusual park. It is both land and sea. So 55% of it is land, 45% of it's ocean. It's over 120,000 hectares, and it includes, areas, which kind of feel like an obvious national park and quite a lot of towns It includes com which is a coastal village. There's to Alah, it's Jaco Island. There's the largest lake in Timor Lesses. So quite a variety of things exist within the National park. In fact, there's about 15,000 people live there. And activities such as fishing continue as they did before 2007. People have lived continuously in this area for over 40,000 years, and over a hundred archeological sites have been documented. The most visited sites are I and Lenny Harra Cave. Both should be visited with a local guide and not entirely obvious to reach. And they're also sacred places and you should be respectful of the local community and their wishes. Your accommodation should be able to help you arrange a guide to visit the sites ili Keke is tenuous dollars per person. And Lenette Harra Cave is five US dollars per person. So I is about a two and a half kilometer return walk off the main road. The walk gets increasingly rough and steep. It's a bit downhill before reaching the best known rock art in Timor-Leste, which is quite a beautiful depiction of a sea urchin. And then there's some other images such as cock fighting and other rock cart, which is a little bit harder to decipher. And as you walk around the base of the cliff, you get fantastic views. Looking towards Jacko Island, you wanna allow at least an hour to visit the site. And also just above where the rock cart is, there's these very impressive giant beehives hanging off the rock face. There are a couple of other rock art sites close to I headed, which are far less visited. If you've got the time and interest, they may be worthwhile then the path down to the caves starts from the main road. It's about one kilometer return walk. It's quite an impressive cave and it's got some rock art inside, so that's also worth a visit. The Visit those sites, you're probably best to stay in to Chihuahua. There's a very nice sdo, which may or may not be open. There's been undergoing some refurbishment and there are a couple of accommodation options in Value Beach as well, close to the waterfront. Another good option for exploring LA term is to staying calm. This is one of the most relaxing places, probably in Timor, less estate. There's not a lot to do, but it has a lovely beach although there are crocodiles in the water, but it's a nice beach to sit on or walk along, and it's just quite a relaxed place. There's a couple of good guest houses to stay at the far eastern end of town. There's a sizable wrecked ship on the beach, which is quite interesting to see. And then if you go further around, there's the remains of a Portuguese colonial era building. Then heading from com, there's some crossroads with one road going east of Jao Island and one going south to Los Ballas. This is at for Loro and this village has got more to see than it might suggest on the map. So there's the remains of a Portuguese fault, and just to the north there's the most unusual cemetery I've seen anywhere in Timor Ete. And I've visited a lot of cemeteries in Timor Ete where the tombstones have got animal bones on top of them, so antlers from deer and skulls of cows So it's quite an interesting combination of the Catholic faith and the traditional animalistic beliefs are not something that I've seen elsewhere. And the main town in Laer is called Los BAAs. Again, there's a few options for accommodation there. There's not a huge amount to see and do in town, but the Catholic church also has an interesting accommodation of a traditional Catholic kind of church main structure. And then where the Tao would normally be, there's a Timor, fata Lu style roof, which is quite a distinctive motif of this part of Timor-Leste. You'll see it on their Luli, their Sacred Houses. They're quite a different design to other parts of Timor-Leste quite narrow, thin, and tall. And so that's quite a distinctive site to see in town. And LA term has the largest lake in Timor-Leste Lake era Laro which is a seasonal body of water. So the size really varies. So if you're going in dry season, it can be a thousand hectares. If you go in the wet season, it could be five and a half. Thousand hectares and it's quite difficult to really appreciate it unless you've got a drone and you can see it from the air because there's basically a large area of kind of grass land and then it starts getting a bit boggy and marshy before you even get to the water. And in the wet season it's home to about 300 crocodiles. So you don't really wanna go in the water. But it's quite cool to appreciate from a distance note that if you are driving towards jacko, there are two options. You can go around the northern side of the lake. Or the southern side of the lake. The northern side of the lake is the usual way to get to Jao. And it is a passable road. It's a bit bumpy, but it's fine. If you go around the southern side of the lake, as I decided to do for a bit of variety. You cannot take a car. There is one crossing of the river where there's a very terrifying rickety wooden bridge, which you can just about get a motorbike over. If you've got the confidence, it's not for the faint hearted, and that's the only way to progress there, there is no way really to forward the river. If you're in a car, you wanna go across the northern way and really the southern route is only for those who are pretty adventurous and confident on a motorbike. And the final place to mention in Laer is the coastal town of Laer named the same as the municipality. And this you'll see on the way in before comm. And it's got quite a few things to see. So there's quite extensive remains of a Portuguese fault, most of which is on the hillside as you come into town. So you don't really see it obviously from the road, but if you head up into the hill, you can see it. Or if you've got a drone, you can get some views from the air. There's some Japanese bunkers on the beach and there's quite an interesting church on the hill behind the town. Just before we go into LA term, you'll see a monument on your left and that commemorates nine people who were killed during the violence in 1999 that accompanied Independences. Those included two nuns, three priests, and Indonesian journalist, the bridge that crosses the river. There is also a popular place to spot crocodiles in the waters below. So that's giving a bit of an overview of La Te. It's definitely a bit different from many places. In Timor Less Day it is unusually flat and some of the culture, and sites like that are quite different to other parts of Timor less estate. So if you have the time on a one week itinerary, you may be pushing it'cause you probably need at least three days. But if you're here for two weeks, I'd definitely recommend spending some time in LA term.

Jonty: 10:39

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.