Exploring Timor-Leste

Helen Reynolds on exploring Balibó and Baucau, and where to eat in Dili

• Jonty • Episode 14

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Excellent conversation with Helen Reynolds, a New Zealander volunteer and artist who has lived in Timor-Leste on / off for a decade. She shares why she loves Balibó and Baucau, and her favourite places to eat in Dili.

Her website - www.helenreynolds.co.nz

Website - www.exploringtimor.com

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

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

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

Helen:

I've heard it described as being like Bali in the 1960s. But I didn't go to Bali in the 1960s. I don't really know. It's a wild, beautiful, quiet island full of exciting places to discover. It's really an adventure to be there. when you're in tenor less day, there's a real feeling that it's not the job in getting things done that are most important. It's the people that are most important and spending time with people that you love and care for and enjoy their company. It's like there's almost a mantle of happiness that you can enter into because of this warmth that people have for other people in their lives.

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. It's my pleasure today to welcome Helen Reynolds to the podcast. Hello Helen. Hi,

Helen:

JTE. Nice to be here.

Jonty:

Thank you for joining us today. So what took you to Timor Less day and what did you do there?

Helen:

Oh our first trip to Timor Less day, me and my husband Alistair, was in 2016 when we were doing VSA volunteer service abroad. And so that was a three year contract, although I think we ended up only doing two years.

Jonty:

And then you returned?

Helen:

We returned many times, yes. And we would've returned many times more if COVID hadn't come in between 2016 and now. Yeah, it's a wonderful place. It's really, it's a really special place to go to.

Jonty:

And I guess you've had the experience'cause you've visited over a period of times, you've been able to see how it's gonna change over the last decade or so.

Helen:

Yeah, it has been a decade and it hasn't actually changed super much, which is nice if you're visiting somewhere to, to feel that you're in a place that's not just swept away by Russian development.

Jonty:

Yeah. There's a sense of familiarity and Yeah. Continuity. So how would you describe Tim Oreste to somebody who's never been?

Helen:

I've heard it described as being like Bali in the 1960s. But I didn't go to Bali in the 1960s. I don't really know. It's a wild, beautiful, quiet island full of exciting places to discover. It's really an adventure to be there.

Jonty:

If you can remember back to when you first arrived, what your first impressions were?

Helen:

Yeah, our first impressions coming into the Dilly Airport. You've really stepped into another world, so you're circling over this tiny little airport and coming down into the middle of palm trees and walking out, there's definitely nothing like any sort of air bridge or anything. And it's just a very small building in the middle of a field. And you've come somewhere really different. It got a little bit of a wild feeling about it. And you've got these scatterings of Chinese hardware stores all around and a few building stores and the old Portuguese colonial buildings and the old Indonesian colonial buildings and there's still ruins from the war. Still burnt out buildings, even though that was 25 years ago.

Jonty:

It's an interesting combination of things I've visited quite a few places and I haven't come across anywhere that's got that, quite unusual combination of things in terms of being Southeast Asia and being Catholic and having the kinda turbulent history and the Portuguese colonial side of things. It's yeah quite different.

Helen:

It does. It's, yeah, it is like interesting how different the history shapes the different islands and so it's quite a special place like that'cause its history is so unique in terms of the Portuguese influence and the Indonesian side too. That's something that you can feel in Leste is that sort of connection to the Pacific peoples. That's something you don't feel so much in Indonesia. Because it's, I guess it's just that bit further away.

Jonty:

So what are some of your favorite places in Timor Este?

Helen:

Our favorite place, of course, Athara Island is always wonderful and everyone will probably say it's a good place to go because it is. But our next favorite place to go is Babo. We love going to Babo and we love going to BAU too.

Jonty:

What about bbo? What makes it special?

Helen:

Partly it's the journey down there because from Dili you drive down the coast and it's. A spectacularly beautiful drive. And there's an old forts and then you get deeper and deeper down into the country and you are starting to pass traditional houses passing some of the sacred houses people have there. And then the road gets rougher and rougher. And then finally you get to bbo and you get to this amazing fort I think it's the best view in the world, to be honest. And so you've passed through really rough roads. You've passed through beautiful seaside scenery. And as you're getting deeper and deeper into the mountains and the roads are getting rougher and rougher, you think, oh I'm experiencing quite a lot of leste in this, one journey. And finally you get to A luxury hotel built in the old Portuguese for, and the experience of the contrasts that you get in this one journey is amazing and once you get to BBO of course, there's all the history from the BBO five and how critical that was to making the world aware of Tim Oreste problems me as a New Zealander with, one of the bbo five being a New Zealander.

Jonty:

The BBO five, just for reference, they were a mixture of British, Australian and Kiwi journalists who were based in bbo in, in 1975 when the Indonesian army invaded, they were executed by the Army. So there's quite a tragic history there. there's a good film, I believe that tells the story.

Helen:

Yeah. A really good film and good books too. A really dramatic story. So having all those layers of history that you can dig into a bit in your trip to BBO is something very special too.

Jonty:

How did yourself and Alice get to Bbo? Like, how would you suggest that people travel around Timor?

Helen:

Yeah. Traveling around Timor is not easy. Is maybe a theme in a number of your podcasts. It's adventure travel. And Alistair and I are a little bit older and we've got sore hips and sore shoulders and sore backs. So we have hired cars to get there. But the problem with hiring cars in Timor less day is it's really expensive. You're well advised to get a driver because. The roads are weird and scary. it costs you about 150 US a day at least, and maybe up to 200 depending on your luck. So that makes it really quite expensive. So Alistair and I go by Scooter, and so Alistair drives the scooter and I'm on the bag. Um, so the best way to get around is really to hire a motorbike of some sort. And you can do it on scooter if you're not going too far into the real mountains.

Jonty:

It's amazing where they can get to on a scooter. The road to Bacal is good. The road to BBO is good until you go in land and then it's pretty bad. It's, half an hour, I think into the bad sections. If you want to head further into the mountains, then motorbike or a vehicle is probably the best way to get up there. Are there any particular travel experiences that really stand out to you looking back on your time in Timor?

Helen:

The other place I love to go, as I mentioned before, is Bal which is comparatively close to Dilly, so it's easier to get to. And the thing that. I always loved about BAU too, is again, this sort of weird contrast is that in the seventies, the Portuguese had decided that BAU would make a wonderful honeymoon destination. And so there used to be an airport in Bau that was the airport for Tim Leste. In the middle of all this sort of lush, tropical jungle, you will come across a giant luxury swimming pool built for Honeymooners in the 1970s by the Portuguese it doesn't have the sort of typical water system because that would be impossible with the Timorese infrastructure. So it's fed by mountain streams, so just fresh mountain stream water filling up the pool and they empty it every other day or something and just get more fresh mountain water. So Timor can be really hot and sticky and quite hard to swim in because of the number of crocodiles, which you may have mentioned before on your podcast. But does make swimming in the sea a bit problematic in most places. So to finally be cool and refreshed in this sort of rather bizarre pool that looks as if it's been flown in by aliens from a 1970s movie set. It's so much fun. I love it. And you can stay at the, pose presided to Baal, which was built by a soap company, the sort of a Portuguese guy who was made as money from making soap. And so again, it's that sort of special, strange. Clash of cultures that makes that makes it a really interesting and different place. Tim Leste,

Jonty:

I do like the color scheme. So the Posada is quite a strong pastel pink kind of color. And then the swimming pool wear area is greens and blues and everything's painted. It's a beautiful place as you say to take a break from the heat and relax. What are some of your favorite dishes that you, or places you ate at in Timor?

Helen:

The best dish in Timote. They have the best chili sauces in the world. I think I can say that's definitely true. That's a fermented chili paste and that's fermented with lemons as well. So it's got the flavor of those pickled, those middle and pickled lemons combined with a very fresh tasting chili ferment. It's delicious. You can get really nice fish at quite a few restaurants. Me and Alistair always enjoyed the Portuguese restaurants. Not everyone loves it because the Portuguese food is quite a heavy, meaty style of cuisine. A lot of pork chops and steaks and chips. But to be honest, we loved it

Jonty:

do you have any recommendations for restaurants or places to eat? Maybe in Dihi?

Helen:

One of our favorite restaurants was Uma Val, which is one of the few places you can get actual Timorese food.'Cause a lot of the food that you get there is based on Indonesian ONGs rather than the traditional Timorese food. So Val, and they're really into, using local produce and having interesting recipes. For example, the Timorese would eat a lot of rice porridge. So rice cooked with corn and beans into a porridge. So that's one of the places that you can get the traditional Timorese food. For Portuguese food, the Hotel Timor is quite a good place for a fancy night out. We had a Christmas dinner there one year and ate the traditional Portuguese salt, cod and olives that they have for Christmas. And that was a lot of fun. And there's another great, the really probably the tastiest Portuguese restaurant was Restaurante tci. That's really popular with all the Portuguese people. And right next to it is a Brazilian bakery, actually powder to Brazil. And you'll see the Timorese lining up to get the Portuguese bread fresh outta the bakery every bakery they know when it comes out. And so it comes out fresh several times a day. So that's rather delicious too. And the other really good place to eat, of course, is to go out to the beach and sit in the sun and watch the waves go by and drink coconuts and eat the typical sort of. Pancakes and pizza and very typical food. But the setting is so delightful

Jonty:

If you had friends to visit you when you were living in Dilly, where would you take them?

Helen:

The best start to, get an idea of dili is to go out to Christo ray and climb up to Jesus and take a look at the view. It's a stunning statue on a prominent tree. And so you're passing tropical beaches and this is where you can stop and get your coconut and your burgers. The next place we always go to and. Everyone finds it very moving is the Resistance Museum, which is the museum that tells the history of the Timorese resistance, strangely enough from the name. And tells the story really well. They don't have a lot of museums and things like that and Dili and Leste. But this is really worth going to. The other place that we. Always take anyone visiting is we take them to the Santa Cruz Cemetery. That was a site of one of the major massacres. And so it's a crazy beautiful place anyway, as well as being this very important historical site Right next to it too is the Indonesian cemetery and we always go there. It shows something really special about Timor-Leste is this is the cemetery where all the Indonesian soldiers who fought and killed people in Timor-Leste are buried. And yet it's a beautifully maintained. Site and you can see that the people there still really in a sense care for and look after the Indonesians there, they say as part of the reconciliation process, they, saying there is that the Indonesians were our brothers and they suffered as much from the Indonesian brain And so we are together in our suffering from that. To see the graveyard, you can actually feel like physically see this reconciliation process they've gone through and how special that is.

Jonty:

Excellent. Those are really good. Suggestion, you've got a bit of mixture of the more relaxing side, but also, Timor has had quite a tragic history and it would be a miss to visit the country and not to try and understand that better. Are there any popular misconceptions about Timor Este? That you might be able to clear up.

Helen:

Everyone asks you, is it a dangerous country? Because it came into the news when it was going through, a very violent phase. And I've gotta say it's one of the least dangerous places in my opinion that I've visited, people are very caring and very nice to you in almost every case. So that seems to be the major misconception. I say the other thing that people don't consider about Timor Lutte very much is how many crocodiles there are,

Jonty:

not some at is fine. At

Helen:

it's fine. dilly is fine, although I have actually seen a crocodile in Dilly, but I still swim there. There's one other beach down the coast

Jonty:

oh, towards Laa kind of way. Yes.

Helen:

The Lsar Beach is pretty safe too

Jonty:

I would say anywhere between UBA and$1 Beach. You're pretty much fine. But everywhere else, particularly around the south coast and out to east, down at Waterbury Beach, I saw a pretty big crocodile down there

Helen:

yes. It's a shame when you're in a nice tropical island to not be able to just jump in the water without having to think carefully about am I in a crocodile zone or not.

Jonty:

But then there is the beautiful swimming pool in Baal, so that's a substitute for heading into the water there.

Helen:

That's, yeah. That's great there.

Jonty:

Just to finish up so when you leave Timor, which you've done a few times'cause you've come and gone. What do you miss about Timor once you've left the country?

Helen:

What I miss most about Tim Leste, it's, this is quite hard to explain, so I might wrap it on a little bit, when I live in New Zealand it seems to be quite easy to get depressed. People are worried and anxious and do I have enough time to do all this? And I've got too many things to do. But when you're in tenor less day, there's a real feeling that it's not the job in getting things done that are most important. It's the people that are most important and spending time with people that you love and care for and enjoy their company. It's like there's almost a mantle of happiness that you can enter into because of this warmth that people have for other people in their lives.

Jonty:

that's a great answer. It is very easy, especially Western media. It can be quite negative a lot of the time. And in Timor there's a kind of a young population, and even though it's a hard place and it's a poor place. You're right, there's a more kind of positive kinda mindset.

Helen:

Yeah. And, i'm not a Catholic or a Christian in any way, but I sometimes wonder if there's the focus on the spirituality that is a result of everyone being pretty steady worshipers and instead of worrying about, the here and now. Puts you on a slightly different plane. I don't know.

Jonty:

Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today, Helen. Really appreciate you joining us on the podcast.

Helen:

Ah, my pleasure, JTE and hope it all goes well for the future.

Jonty:

Thank you. 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.