East Timor Has Beaches Like Bali's but Few Tourists
 Seth Mydans for The New York Times Boys play on the nearly deserted beach in Dili, the capital of East Timor. |
STORM of fine, white sand blew across the half-deserted beach as a group of teenagers kicked a soccer ball by the surf; nearby, other youngsters whooped as they raced bicycles along a beachfront road.
It was the end of a lazy afternoon one recent Sunday on the outskirts of Dili, the listless little town that is the capital of East Timor, a poor, almost completely undeveloped nation in the Indian Ocean. Slightly larger than Connecticut, this nation shares roughly half of a narrow island with West Timor, which is part of Indonesia. The two-story town becomes an oven in the midday sun, with mostly jobless men and women strolling slowly past near-empty shops.
Though the weather was perfect and the water crystal clear, this prime beachfront lined with palm trees had an off-season feel to it. Only the low-key Caz Bar and one or two other sunset-watching hangouts seemed alive, with clusters of beer drinkers and a mixture of Western rock and pop music drifting through the air.
Simon Richardson, 23, a volunteer medical worker from Britain, turned his back to the stinging storm of sand as a handful of foreigners mixed with the local beachgoers. He pronounced his verdict on a place that has the potential to be an alluring tourist destination but almost little of the infrastructure to support it.
"There's not a lot to do in the traditional sense," he said. "There's not much night life. It doesn't have all those things like Jet Skiing."
Like the other foreigners on the beach, which lies under a towering hilltop statue of Jesus, Mr. Richardson was not a tourist. He was one of the small army of aid workers, volunteers and United Nations employees who help keep East Timor - officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste - functioning three years after it emerged from a quarter century of occupation by Indonesia to become an independent nation.
"The main reason to come is it's a new place to come," he said. "I feel like it's becoming safe here and tourism is about to take off in the next 10 years. We can say we were here at the beginning."
The government tourism bureau says the nation gets about 500 tourists a month - mostly from China - but virtually all of them have in fact come primarily to work, said Miguel Lobato, director of tourism for East Timor. Some hop over briefly from Indonesia to renew 30-day tourist visas.
"They say, 'What should we do?' " said Susie Mattson, 23, an American who works for an international aid organization and was sitting near Mr. Richardson on the beach. "Well, there's stuff to do, but it's really expensive. I always have difficulty recommending things."
The expense mostly involves high-priced airline tickets and poor-quality hotel rooms whose rates are a strain for a low-budget traveler. The top hotel in Dili is the Timor, a functional, but charmless hotel, which may rate a couple of stars but charges $90 a night and serves extraordinarily bad food.
The Turismo, slightly less expensive, is a seaside hotel on the eastern side of town that has been there forever with its green patio and fresh ocean breezes. In the same class, the Esplanada, a newer hotel a little to the west, offers pleasant rooms and good food.
It is indeed possible to spend very little for a room in a cheap backpacker hotel, and get what you pay for.
There are a dozen or so good restaurants that pitch themselves to foreign aid workers. Places like the Tropical Bakery, the City Cafe and the One More Bar serve good Western food and are gathering points for the tight-knit foreign community. Dinner for two in rather spartan settings might cost $20 or $25.
All of this is part of the makeshift economy that depends on the spending of the foreign workers. As the United Nations and aid agencies have shrunk their staffs since East Timor became an independent nation three years ago, the entire national economy has begun to contract and these restaurants will have to struggle to survive.
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