Tag: Travel
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I forgot that it would be fun.
A confession: just over a year ago, when I was preparing to depart Australia for Timor-Leste, I let myself get very nervous, anxious, scared and worked up about my trip. I think that’s understandable: then, I was a solo 24-year-old who’d never lived overseas before preparing to uproot her life to work in a low-income…
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Timor’s best weekend away?
It might just be in Dili. This is a post for friends coming to visit Timor-Leste, and for newly-arrived foreigners being urged to see the country. Our starting point may well be closer than we think. Last weekend, I accidentally had something of a holiday in and around Dili, and it ended up being one…
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My favourite places in Dili
I have steadily Instagrammed (and consumed coffee and cake) from coffee shop benches in Dili for almost a year and still haven’t put together a go-to list of my favourite places. What am I waiting for?! Here are 19 of my favourites. If you just want coffee: 1. Letefoho Specialty Coffee Timor-Leste’s only dedicated specialty…
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What’s your job?
A couple of days ago, I asked on Instagram what kind of posts people would like to see on this blog. “I’ll have a lot of time to write in transit as I return to Perth for Christmas,” I explained in an Instagram Story. “What would you like to know more about?” A lot of…
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Away to Venilale
A couple of weeks ago I took a special road trip to Baucau district with my friends Laura, Celeste and Simon. We took two nights and three days out of Dili and visited both Baucau town and a tiny village in Baucau district called Venilale, which sits close to a beautiful, naturally-formed limestone bridge and…
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What do you do when a stranger on the street asks you for money?
A couple of weeks ago, I was having brunch at a popular expat beach spot with a researcher friend, another Australian. As we sat chatting with our feet in the sand, men carrying wooden poles strung with fruit wound their way through tables, offering tightly bagged passionfruit and spiky fresh pineapples to brunch-goers. They’re a…
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The last 12 months
Remember, remember, the end of November. Snatches of déjà vu this week, like trying to remember a dream upon waking but instead of chasing the thoughts they somehow find me. Looking back at it, last November was one of the most important months of my life so far. This week, I’ve been reflecting on everything…
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An update on my anxiety
“Is your anxiety better or worse in Timor?” Two friends now have asked me this question since I’ve moved here, and I’ve answered each differently: to one I said better; the other, worse. Both answers were true. The first friend asked me in the weeks immediately after I moved to Dili — acknowledging that an…
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A weekend in Maubisse
This weekend marked the end of Timor’s second-ever Festival Kafe Timor, and as a diehard coffee drinker seeking any excuse for a trip out of the city, I joined with a pair of friends to attend the festival’s closing ceremony a few hours out of Dili in mountainous Maubisse. Beautiful, unassuming Maubisse town, viewed from…
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Language learning: An update
Lately, it feels like my Tetun is progressing at a rate of one foot forward — and 30cm back. I enjoy reflecting regularly on my experience of learning a second language, because I’ve neither seen nor asked someone else about it before: in my eyes, clever friends have just magically gone from monolingual Australians to…
Sophie Rai Liur 