Had a chance to head to the countryside over the weekend… it is a whole new world out there. Dili is a nice place to hangout, but only for so long. After a month checking out the sites in the capital city, we rented a driver and car and headed out to Maubisse. We weren’t sure if taking my huge UNDP truck would have been worth it given that people were telling us about road conditions outside of Dili. The Pajero is made to rough it, but it made us a bit nervous to take it through the winding 3-4 hour ride to Maubisse, which is 1400m above sea level.
Something else I learned about Timor-Leste is its quite similar to my time in Yellowknife… there’s a housing shortage (most places in TL were burnt down or destoryed in 1999 by the Indonesians), electricity is a privilege, and infrastructure development is constantly happening but slow.
I’ll put up more photos of the trip to Maubisse when I have more time… in the meantime, check out some interesting stuff I’ve seen/read.