Travel Log of the First tour group to Timor-Leste: Day Five
2012-11-14
Source：Embassy
Day Five: Traditional house in the green mountain, red coral in the blue sea.
We headed to the Island at 6 o’clock in the morning among the mountains and it was foggy. The sun came out of the clouds and it became clear suddenly. There were unique red and white plum blossoms, huge trees, coconut trees and banana trees on the side road. However, we barely saw birds, it might because it was dry season at this time. We ran into some pupils with neat uniforms when we were passing small towns in the mountains. We noticed that there were elementary schools in towns and the elementary education in Timor-Leste was free. Atauro means goats in local language. All the livestock were free-ranged which showed the local people’s purity and honesty. The traditional house was made of wood with couch grass covered pinnacle and windows on each wall and the house was on stilts. People could not get in without ladders. What excited us was that the house was two traditional house connected with a channel. This was the original mode of the presents that the Minister of Tourism gave us. This kind of traditional house was used to perform grand ceremony or sacrifice, and only males were allowed to get into the house.We rode a speed boat to the island. The water turned from light blue to deep blue. . The white sand beach with small crab holes was very soft and warm. There was barely seaweed and rocks. It was like we have our own private beach and island. So we swam, dive, watched corals. Some of us even made a spear to catch fish. Mr. Sun suddenly found a precious red coral. We all dived into the water to see the red coral. Linda even cut her feet when watching the coral. Mr. and Mrs. Pei took out band-aid and treated her with iodine.We wanted to take out the red coral, but we did not in the end. On our way back to Dili, we visited the Hybrid Rice project team. The team heard that we would visit, so they prepared a pig, a sheep and Hunanese food for us. They cooked male and female chicken separately according to the local tradition which was similar to Chinese regimen. The food was organic, purely from the nature without any pollution.Some of the experts came to Timor-Leste in 2006 to help the local people solve the food shortage. They said that Chinese hybrid rice technology could feed Chinese people, and it also could feed the people all around the world. Their modesty inspired us. Timor-Leste was having the free electricity policy which has Chinese contribution. which made us proud.We had all different kinds of food when we were in Timor-Leste. It was because of Ambassador Vicky’s arrangement, and also because Timor-Leste is an island country with rich seafood resources and organic agricultural products. Timor-Leste was colonized by Portugal and invaded by Indonesia, so the local cosine combined ancient and modern, eastern and western, mountain and sea.