Rickety cabins of mirth: spending the afternoon on Dili’s public buses

Andy Hill

On a recent trip to Dili, the capital of Timor Leste, I found one of my favorite things to do was to ride around on the public buses, meeting the young country at 35 mph.

Prior to my trip there, I had studied a bit of the history of Timor Leste, one of the youngest countries in the world. Before it gained its independence in 2002, it bore the tragic brunt of a brutal, decades-long invasion and occupation by the Indonesian military. 

The world noticed little of this until the infamous 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, when Indonesian soldiers attacked some Western journalists as well, bringing the plight of the Timorese finally to global attention.

Around 150,000 people are estimated to have been murdered during the horrific period of 1975-2002, all for having the audacity to proclaim independence after their former colonial oppressors, the Portuguese, left the small half-island in 1975.

Today, as with any young democracy emerging from a turbulent past, there are plenty of problems to be solved on the ground. Factional violence, a mostly-destroyed infrastructure, steep unemployment and intense poverty still afflict the country, in spite of the fact that its territorial waters contain billions of dollars of oil and natural gas. It will be some time before they fully develop, but for any group of people with a recent history of theirs, this is more than understandable.

I went Dili for a week in order to explore this tiny paradise island country that sees so few tourists. As could be expected, there is little of international standard to see in Dili. Besides some impressive Portuguese colonial buildings, museums, and a gorgeous beach, it offers little to the seer of sights. However, in my own bizarre way, I realized that my favorite thing to do was riding up and down the city’s main drag on its public buses.

More like a van with benches and an open side door, Dili’s public buses are similar to those you would find all over much of the developing world. Hailed from any point on its route, you hop on and signal when you want it to stop by tapping a coin against the railing along the ceiling. 

With an impossible amount of people stuffed within and hanging from the side, they are not the apex of comfort, however I found an incredibly cool group of people who were very politely curious about why I was there, as I was very politely curious about all aspects of their everyday lives.

So I sort of decided to spend the afternoon riding around, changing buses every once in a while, not really caring very much about where I went or ended up. I was invited to many people’s houses, villages; even a wedding. Although my country supported and contributed much to the Indonesia invasion, a fact all there are surely aware of, there was never even a sinew of awkwardness about that. They were extremely happy that I’d come to Dili, and offered a broad spectrum of things to see and do while there.

I eventually got off in the evening with a group of guys who wanted me to come watch their friend’s band play at a community center and drink with them. That was an incredible evening. 

But the afternoon I spent rambling around on the public buses in Dili is one of my favorite in recent memory, and I look forward, sometime in the not too distant future, to waving my hands, hopping on the side, and riding around on them again.