Tag: East Timor
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Practical tips for living in Dili
Over the two-ish years I’ve been writing on this blog, I’ve covered topics from anxiety and anorexia to Dili market shopping, catching microlets, and what to do when work forgets to invite you to the workshop. As I’ve mentioned several times, I started this blog partly to record my new life abroad for friends and…
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The Timor-Leste list
Would I be my giant sooky self if I didn’t make an ambitious list of final things to do before I leave Timor-Leste? I made a similar list at the end of the the year-ish I spent living in Melbourne — a long, thorough, and consulted list, peppered with suggestions from friends who loved and…
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3 ways to make work in Dili easier
You’ve just arrived in Dili with a brand-new job contract, AVID assignment, research project or consultancy offer in hand, and you’re anxious to get started. But on day one, they forget you were meant to be starting now. Then, the power goes out and the internet’s off too. Your office doesn’t have a window and…
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9 ways to find work in Timor-Leste
Coincidentally, two different people have asked me this week how to find work in Timor-Leste. I do not consider myself particularly expert on this — in fact, I feel more like a hapless good-luck magnet who’s somehow flopped from job to job and remained gainfully employed for the entire time I’ve lived here — but…
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A Dili packing list
Are you about to move to Timor-Leste? Have no idea what you can get here and what you must devote your precious checked-bag kilograms to? Here’s a short list from my experience of what you need when you arrive in Dili. Read more: Your first weekend in Dili First-day stuff Chuck this in your carry-on.…
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Travelling to Maubisse, Timor-Leste
The town of Maubisse in cloud-wreathed Ainaro municipality is one of my favourite places to visit in Timor-Leste. It’s an easy couple of hours’ drive from Dili, a welcome break from the often-oppressive beachside heat, and a chance to see a different part of Timor-Leste without forcing yourself into a madcap epic adventure you’re not…
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9 things that are better in Dili
When I go back to Australia, I’m inevitably met with the question: “Why do you live in Timor-Leste?” For the most part it’s nothing more than curiosity. You’re from here and you’re living somewhere else, tell me how that happened and what you’re doing over there. But on occasion it feels skeptical; disbelieving. And that…
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A Dili survival guide
I’ve had a few friends visit me since I moved to Timor-Leste, I’m hoping for more (hint), and I thought it’d be useful to both my prospective visitors and perhaps you to put together a short survival guide for a first few days in Dili. Can you drink the water? How do you get a…
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Travelling to Oecusse, Timor-Leste
I’ve just returned to Dili from a long weekend away in Oecusse, the western enclave of Timor-Leste completely encased within the island of West Timor, Indonesia. To be honest, I had low expectations of the trip — all I’d heard previously of Oecusse was from Oxfam fundraising emails (drought and despair; can you help now, Sophie?)…
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Everything we didn’t do in Maubisse
I’ve written before about how much I love the dreamy, mountain town of Maubisse, which sits just 30 kilometres inland of Dili in Ainaro municipality. With Timor’s wind-ey, potholed roads, it can take up to four hours to reach Maubisse by car, and the town thus feels like a real holiday spot: where 30km is…
Sophie Rai Liur 