Pride & Superstition in Timor-Leste

AJT— Visited Dec. 2025

I’ve been to Japan enough times to be self-conscious, my defence for the last trip being to accompany my siblings in celebrating their joint eighteenth birthday. Of course, I wasn’t just going to head there and back, my mantra being to never waste a layover.

I flew from Tokyo to Perth via Taipei, the Matsu Islands and East Timor for a cost only marginally greater than the one-stop option, aided in part by my resistance to the concept of checked baggage. I don’t have much of a wardrobe anyways, I had all four of my winter jackets and five of my hiking shirts on hand the entire trip.

Upon arrival at Dili, the capital of East Timor, my backpack was a Santa-sack of sorts, full of winter clothes in a city where the December mean is 27 degrees. Without space in my backpack I had little choice but to drape some winter jackets to the bag exterior.

Dili airport, whilst relatively close to the city centre, is sporadically connected. The public transport of the city coming in the form of minivans that run along dedicated routes called Microlets. Having a foot over the average East Timorese and hauling a backpack twice its typical size, I was simply too large to fit inside, hence I had to walk.

I quickly came to the view that Dili isn’t the prettiest city, it’s dusty despite being between a beach and mountain-range, there’s no shortage of sun-exposed pavement, next to no shade.

This was my first visit, so I can’t attest to trajectory beyond the sight of a lone glass high-rise building. It’s also worth noting that the country started the twenty-first century from behind, the victim of an oppressive Indonesian occupation from 1976 to 2002.

A considerable amount of time between touchdown and hostel check-in was spent in the presence of Nicolau Lobato, East Timor’s first Prime Minister. Dili’s airport, main highway, and largest roundabout all wear his name.

It took a little over an hour to reach the hostel, my arrival anticipated, I was treated to tea and a tour by the staff, who outnumbered guests two to one. The only other guest an untidy man wielding Bulgarian citizenship, who seemed as keen to shirk his link to the country as I am to embrace my own (partial) Balkan heritage.

He argued that he didn’t belong to a country, claiming that he was one with the world. He boasted about how open minded he was, whilst shooting down my attempts in asking him about our homeland in common.

I could play the “post-identity” character too, citing the fact I have two citizenships, but really I think our common-thread lay with the fact we’re both privileged enough to cross paths in Timor. Similar circumstances, different conclusions, in his words perhaps “we didn’t cross paths for no reason”.

He must have been at the hostel for a little while, check-in involved adding your name to the bottom of a long list of paper asking name and nationality. I could see my stay preceded only by guests from Portugal, Italy, The United States and Australia.

The staff took a more authentic interest in my story, despite hosting Australian’s dime a dozen. They adorably addressed me as “brother” and put me in a private room, a mosquito net protecting me from bugs, a thin door defending me from conversation.

If a landmark didn’t honour the heroes of the nation’s liberation, it paid homage to Catholicism. Murals honouring Jesus, Mary and everybody in between lined the streets, making the trek between attractions more interesting. I could even have sworn I saw a Microlet depicting Pope Francis flying a fighter jet.

The first attraction I visited was the Timorese Resistance Museum, filled with relics and information detailing the young nation’s history from Portuguese colonisation to independence in 2002.

I entered a long conversation with an elderly staff member, his first question “Does your father serve in the military or is he a civilian?”. He elaborated and said that he served as a translator for foreign peacekeepers prior to independence, this opening line a habitual relic of the time.

He told me my name sounded like “Augustus” and that, because East Timor voted for independence in August 1999, it would bring me good fortune. I noted that I was born in 2002, to which he replied that I would have been crowned king had I been born in May, the month in 2002 they actually became an independent nation.

We must have conversed for over an hour, concluded by the gift of a selfie, a WhatsApp contact and the plea to shoot him a message whenever I return, I’d be accommodated for free.

These big-picture associations quickly became a recurring part of the trip. In another conversation I received praise for having been born in Darwin, purely because that city was the staging base for foreign sympathisers during the Indonesian occupation.

The final image depicting the preserved belongings of a protestor killed during the 1991 Santa Cruz Protest

Another notable attraction is the world’s second largest statue of Christ, the Cristo Rei Dili. I had first seen the statue thirty-seconds from touchdown; from my hostel a five-hour return walk.

I took a route along the coast, kept busy by periodic human interaction. For part I was joined by a jogger who ended conversation with an invitation to attend a soccer game, albeit the next match was to happen the week after I’d leave.

A graduation ceremony was occurring at the foot of the staircase up Cristo Rei. A keen father asked me to join, introducing me to his son who he wanted to give further incentive to study abroad. He pushed his son to “be like him”, though all I really noted was that I work in an office.

I ascend in the presence of a series of so-called “stations”, which re-tell the story of Christ prior to his crucifixion, before encountering him myself. The statue sits atop of a hill on a peninsular, with a 180-degree view of the Ocean and Dili to the West.

The statue was erected in 1996, built by the Indonesians to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of East Timor’s annexation. A polarising symbol at first, it’s become an embraced attraction within Dili, central to the little nation’s identity. It’s a fitting coincidence that the nation’s Portuguese-speaking colonial cousin, Brazil, is home to the only larger statue of Christ.

The globe upon which the prophet stands had recently been repainted, albeit Christ himself could use a hose-down, blinded by what appeared to be swallow nests.

I spent my final night in Dili amongst a dozen other tourists in a beach-side restaurant. A lucky dip of Australian retirees seeking to burn off a few Qantas points, diplomats and aid workers, every person had some kind of story to tell.

Despite the variety of backgrounds, my foreign company was all united in having transport home sorted, I was left with an after-dark walk alone if not for the kind offer of another patron. Refusing any offer I made of payment and insisting that I wouldn’t be safe walking alone after hours, they drove me back to the hostel.

We spoke for thirty minutes, the drive only taking ten. I hear a story relative to their lived experience in East Timor, a story deeply personal that’s not mine to retell. A human cost associated with the same catholic superstition that had served me so well.

I’ve got my reasons to be averse to taking taxis, an unexpected reward the succession of conversations I would have otherwise missed, everything from the fruits of pride to the consequences of superstition.