July 19, 2025 • 11 mins
Exploring the historic and beautiful municipality of Liquiçá.
More information on Liquiçá - https://exploringtimor.com/liquica/
Website - www.exploringtimor.com
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@exploringtimor
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jonty (00:06):
Bondi.
Welcome to exploring Tim Este,the podcast that talks about
Southeast Asia's best kepttravel secret.
I'm your host Jte, and I'llshare firsthand insights, expert
interviews and practical traveltips.
Whether you're a traveler, acultural lover, or just curious
about places rarely covered inthe mainstream.
You're in the right place.
Let's explore two more.
Less day.
(00:31):
Today's episode I'm gonna talkabout Liisa, which is one of the
easiest municipalities to get tofrom Dili.
It is just to the west, youprobably think you're still in
Dili, but when you drive pastDili Rock, you've entered into
Laar.
So Laar is both beautiful andhistoric.
It has very nice beaches.
There's some impressive hillsinland, and there's quite a few
(00:53):
historic sites to visit.
You could probably see mostthings in Laar within a day if
you had your own transport andonce you escaped the DLI
traffic, a scooter or a twowheel drive car.
We'll be fine to explore theroads of laa.
So let's talk about some of thesites and places you can visit
in the, this won't be quite inthe order you do, if you drive
(01:14):
out of dili, but more in thekind of order of which ones I
think are the best ones to visitas a tourist.
So the first site is the AploPrison, this is about 40 minutes
drive west of Dili.
So this is a prison that wasbuilt by the Portuguese in the
late 19th century, and theyexpanded in 1914.
And it was used to housecriminals and political
(01:34):
prisoners from across thePortuguese Colonial Empire at
the time, which included placesas far away as Macau, and it was
an operation until just beforethe second World War.
It was a site of torture andcommon mistreatment of
prisoners, including mixingbroken glass in with inmates
food, and apparently Apolo meansbitter water, which refers to
the abuses that took place thereduring World War ii.
(01:56):
The Japanese used it as acommand center before it fell
into disrepair.
In 2012, the site was restored,and it is probably one of the
only sites in Timor-Leste thathas informative, information
panels for tourists.
So there's maybe half a dozenpanels around the site, which
explain the history and whatyou're seeing.
Hopefully there'll be more othersites in Timor, less estate to
(02:17):
come, but at the moment this isa bit of a novelty.
They did plan to build a museum,a shop, and a restaurant, but as
of 2025, they don't exist.
But it is still an atmosphericand a relatively easy place to
visit for those interested inhistoric sites.
And there's actually quite anice beach, the prison is.
Pretty much built by the beach.
As with many of themunicipalities in Timor Day,
(02:37):
there is a town which has thesame name as the municipality,
so is the largest town in themunicipality.
It's home to about 5,000 people.
So it's a pretty small town bymost places, standards, but it's
very large by Timor standards.
And there's quite a few historicsites around.
The town, but in varying degreesof disrepair may not be that
easy to find.
The town was very heavilydamaged by the Indonesians when
(03:00):
they left in 1999.
They had very much a scorchedearth policy when they left, and
it was a site of some of themost notorious events of that
period.
So April the sixth, 1999, up to200 Timorese were massacred by
the Indonesian militia as theysheltered in a priest's house
next to the main church.
The bodies of many of thevictims were disposed of in Lake
(03:21):
Uba, which I'll come on to a bitlater.
The church has been restored andquite extensively expanded.
I noticed when I was flying mydrone in the area that there's a
shrine to the Ver and Mary ontop of one of the neighboring
buildings to the church.
So you could only really see itfrom the air.
It was slightly unexpected, butyeah, it's just to the left.
If you're looking directlytowards the church, opposite.
(03:42):
The church is the wellmaintained park deza, and that
has various monuments andstatues and the attractive form
of residence of the colonialadministrative.
Laar is also across the roadfrom the park and was restored
recently in 2023.
When you first enter the town onthe eastern end, there is a
colorful memorial to a hero ofthe Timorese independence
movement with blue tiled stepsleading up to a painted bust.
(04:06):
These are quite common sitesthroughout Timor-Leste and then
when you drive through LakesideTown, it's not entirely obvious
'cause the main road is set awayback.
But Adas has quite an attractivebeachfront and there are a
number of restaurants and hotelsalong there.
Including Lahuta Beach Escapeand Almar Dumar Resort.
Which are popular places withparticularly expats or Timor
(04:28):
escaping dilly liquor size onlyabout 50 minutes to an hour's
drive, so it's easy to get outtatown.
It's much quieter than things indilly.
Heading further west from ArdTown is the town of Uba.
This is about 50 kilometers westof Dilly, so maybe an hour and a
quarter, hour and a halfdepending on road conditions.
UBA has quite a lot of interestto explore.
(04:48):
It's best known for the DutchFault, which was built in 1756,
which was swapped with thePortuguese for the Island of
Floris which is now in Indonesiain 1859.
The impressive walls and acouple of canyons remain and
inside are huge trees.
And a late 20th century buildinghome to a small local restaurant
and handcraft store run by alocal women's collective
(05:08):
opposite.
The main entrance there is alsoquite an extensive handcrafts
market.
A little bit further up the roadis Mobar Church, which was built
in the late 19th centuryNeoclassical style.
There's quite an extensivecemetery, a bit further along,
and if you head inland, whichwill require either a four-wheel
drive or a motorbike,'cause theroad's pretty rough.
There's SSA de ra, which is abit of a mouthful.
(05:29):
Pos are typically, homes ofimportant Portuguese colonial
administrators, which have oftenbeen turned into hotels.
And that's the plan with thisSada is to turn to a hotel, but
it's currently in progress.
And once you leave Mobar,there's not a lot, to be honest
until we get to Aaba in Bob,although it is a scenic coastal
road and it is one of the betterroads in the country, as it is
(05:51):
the main route between Dili andwest Timor.
Just to the east of Mobar isLake Mobar.
And this, although it has quitea tragic history, as I mentioned
earlier as, Indonesian militiadumped bodies from the massacre
there in 1999.
Yeah, these days it is a verytranquil and peaceful place.
There's a lot of seasonality.
So during the wet season it cancover up to eight hectares.
(06:13):
But during the dry season, it issignificantly smaller.
It's quite unusual.
It's one of the larger lakes.
In Timor less, 80, more, less.
There has surprise in the fewlakes, but it's very close to
the coast.
So basically you've got thelake, then you've got the road,
and then you've got the coastand it's home to thousands of
birds, including Australianpelicans and the occasional
crocodile depending on when youvisit.
And the lake and the surroundingarea has been identified as an
(06:34):
important bird area.
Although I have to say I've wentthere three times.
I didn't see a lot of birds.
I did hear some birds, and it'scertainly quite a tranquil place
to explore just by the lake iswhat looks like quite a nice
little resort, which wasactually set up with support
from Korea in 2017.
And they did a lot of work interms of developing the site and
planted lots of trees and theybuilt these resort buildings.
(06:56):
But unfortunately, it seems tohave been abandoned.
Due to a lack of anybody to runthe place and when, when I
visited last time, it was fencedup and seemingly abandoned.
So this is somethingunfortunately you will see
around Timor Este as thingsstarted with great intent and
often with some overseas aid andfunding.
And then the sustainability is areal challenge to keep things
going in Timor, just given therelatively low number of
(07:19):
tourists, makes running asustainable business quite
challenging.
And then Timor Estee can bechallenging business environment
in of itself.
Now closer to Dili.
There is a community run projectat Kahu.
Which is to protect and hatchsea turtles.
So this is near Nia in, so maybehalf an hour outside of Dili and
(07:41):
your center can be visited andif you're lucky, you may get a
tour and chance to see theturtles.
But the best chance to see theturtles is they do a release of
the hatchlings, the babyturtles.
Releases usually happen from5:00 PM one Saturday a month,
and check out their Facebookpage to see the details of when
that will happen.
even closer back to Dili, likeliterally across the bay from
(08:01):
uh, where Dili ends is the TbarBay port.
You can probably see this fromthe air when you come in on the
plane, but certainly if you headwest from Dili, you cannot.
But it's noticed the very largeport structure.
So this was the largestinfrastructure project in Timor
Lester's history when it openedin September, 2022.
And it replaced dilly port asthe main port for the country.
And it was the country's firstpublic private partnership with
(08:24):
a French group gaining a 30 yearconcession to build and operate
the container port.
As part of the concession forbuilding the port, they did a
lot of regeneration work on thenearby mangroves in Tbar, which
was handed over to localcommunity in 2024.
Now there are extensiveboardwalks.
There must be at least 500meters of boardwalk.
There was a lot more boardwalk Iwas expecting when I walked into
the place and it is afascinating place to visit.
(08:46):
And you can see there's lots andlots of crabs and there's
interesting kind of wildlifeliving in the mangroves.
So that is a very interestingsite to see and it's relatively
easy to access.
You can get a Mik app to TassieTolu and then get a 50 cents
Tom, Tom from Tassie Tolu toTBAR, and then you can walk
around the mangroves.
I think it's$1 entry for adultsand it's open every day,
(09:06):
normally from nine till seven.
Now to get even more off thebeaten track in Lita, if you
head up into the hills, there isa small village called ba.
Which is about 30 or 40 minutesdrive inland from Aela.
There is a road to it from ARDTown, but when I did it, it was
under construction and it wasabsolutely terrifying to ride up
very sandy and slippery.
(09:27):
So if you're gonna do it, it'sbetter to take the sealed road
from Aela.
You just head inland.
There's only kind of one road,and that's home to a sizable
church and shrine.
And there's also a waterfallnearby.
Now the road is sealed, but itis narrow and winding, but there
are impressive views out acrossthe coast from that.
And it's obviously a bit coolerwhen you start getting up into
the hills.
Other than that, just has lotsof nice beaches.
(09:49):
So if you're just driving alongthe coastal road towards Bobro,
you will see Almira Beach, whichhas beach huts.
There's sandy bottom, which isgood for snorkeling and diving.
It's opposite the star concretefactory.
That's your landmark lookoutfor.
And it has an unexpectedly largenumber of public toilets, which
is a rarity in Timor they're notnecessarily very well
maintained, but there's I know,15 toilets there, which is more
(10:11):
than you probably have in theentirety of some other
municipalities.
And then there's the beach bythe prison, which I mentioned
earlier.
In Lakeside town itself, there'sobviously a beach and then UBA
has quite a nice beach oppositethe historic fault where you can
also go snorkeling and all thoseareas are generally free of
crocodiles.
I won't guarantee it, but you'repretty unlikely to see a
crocodile there.
(10:32):
So hopefully that's given you abit of a flavor of what you can
see and do in Liisa.
Thank you so much for listeningto exploring Timor Less Day.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please consider leaving
a rating or review.
It really helps more peoplediscover the show.
If you have any questions orfeedback, I'd love to hear from
you.
Drop me an email at exploringTimor lessDay@gmail.com.
(10:55):
Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.
Bondi.
Welcome to exploring Tim Este,the podcast that talks about
Southeast Asia's best kepttravel secret.
I'm your host Jte, and I'llshare firsthand insights, expert
interviews and practical traveltips.
Whether you're a traveler, acultural lover, or just curious
about places rarely covered inthe mainstream.
You're in the right place.
Let's explore two more.
Less day.
(00:31):
Today's episode I'm gonna talkabout Liisa, which is one of the
easiest municipalities to get tofrom Dili.
It is just to the west, youprobably think you're still in
Dili, but when you drive pastDili Rock, you've entered into
Laar.
So Laar is both beautiful andhistoric.
It has very nice beaches.
There's some impressive hillsinland, and there's quite a few
(00:53):
historic sites to visit.
You could probably see mostthings in Laar within a day if
you had your own transport andonce you escaped the DLI
traffic, a scooter or a twowheel drive car.
We'll be fine to explore theroads of laa.
So let's talk about some of thesites and places you can visit
in the, this won't be quite inthe order you do, if you drive
(01:14):
out of dili, but more in thekind of order of which ones I
think are the best ones to visitas a tourist.
So the first site is the AploPrison, this is about 40 minutes
drive west of Dili.
So this is a prison that wasbuilt by the Portuguese in the
late 19th century, and theyexpanded in 1914.
And it was used to housecriminals and political
(01:34):
prisoners from across thePortuguese Colonial Empire at
the time, which included placesas far away as Macau, and it was
an operation until just beforethe second World War.
It was a site of torture andcommon mistreatment of
prisoners, including mixingbroken glass in with inmates
food, and apparently Apolo meansbitter water, which refers to
the abuses that took place thereduring World War ii.
(01:56):
The Japanese used it as acommand center before it fell
into disrepair.
In 2012, the site was restored,and it is probably one of the
only sites in Timor-Leste thathas informative, information
panels for tourists.
So there's maybe half a dozenpanels around the site, which
explain the history and whatyou're seeing.
Hopefully there'll be more othersites in Timor, less estate to
(02:17):
come, but at the moment this isa bit of a novelty.
They did plan to build a museum,a shop, and a restaurant, but as
of 2025, they don't exist.
But it is still an atmosphericand a relatively easy place to
visit for those interested inhistoric sites.
And there's actually quite anice beach, the prison is.
Pretty much built by the beach.
As with many of themunicipalities in Timor Day,
(02:37):
there is a town which has thesame name as the municipality,
so is the largest town in themunicipality.
It's home to about 5,000 people.
So it's a pretty small town bymost places, standards, but it's
very large by Timor standards.
And there's quite a few historicsites around.
The town, but in varying degreesof disrepair may not be that
easy to find.
The town was very heavilydamaged by the Indonesians when
(03:00):
they left in 1999.
They had very much a scorchedearth policy when they left, and
it was a site of some of themost notorious events of that
period.
So April the sixth, 1999, up to200 Timorese were massacred by
the Indonesian militia as theysheltered in a priest's house
next to the main church.
The bodies of many of thevictims were disposed of in Lake
(03:21):
Uba, which I'll come on to a bitlater.
The church has been restored andquite extensively expanded.
I noticed when I was flying mydrone in the area that there's a
shrine to the Ver and Mary ontop of one of the neighboring
buildings to the church.
So you could only really see itfrom the air.
It was slightly unexpected, butyeah, it's just to the left.
If you're looking directlytowards the church, opposite.
(03:42):
The church is the wellmaintained park deza, and that
has various monuments andstatues and the attractive form
of residence of the colonialadministrative.
Laar is also across the roadfrom the park and was restored
recently in 2023.
When you first enter the town onthe eastern end, there is a
colorful memorial to a hero ofthe Timorese independence
movement with blue tiled stepsleading up to a painted bust.
(04:06):
These are quite common sitesthroughout Timor-Leste and then
when you drive through LakesideTown, it's not entirely obvious
'cause the main road is set awayback.
But Adas has quite an attractivebeachfront and there are a
number of restaurants and hotelsalong there.
Including Lahuta Beach Escapeand Almar Dumar Resort.
Which are popular places withparticularly expats or Timor
(04:28):
escaping dilly liquor size onlyabout 50 minutes to an hour's
drive, so it's easy to get outtatown.
It's much quieter than things indilly.
Heading further west from ArdTown is the town of Uba.
This is about 50 kilometers westof Dilly, so maybe an hour and a
quarter, hour and a halfdepending on road conditions.
UBA has quite a lot of interestto explore.
(04:48):
It's best known for the DutchFault, which was built in 1756,
which was swapped with thePortuguese for the Island of
Floris which is now in Indonesiain 1859.
The impressive walls and acouple of canyons remain and
inside are huge trees.
And a late 20th century buildinghome to a small local restaurant
and handcraft store run by alocal women's collective
(05:08):
opposite.
The main entrance there is alsoquite an extensive handcrafts
market.
A little bit further up the roadis Mobar Church, which was built
in the late 19th centuryNeoclassical style.
There's quite an extensivecemetery, a bit further along,
and if you head inland, whichwill require either a four-wheel
drive or a motorbike,'cause theroad's pretty rough.
There's SSA de ra, which is abit of a mouthful.
(05:29):
Pos are typically, homes ofimportant Portuguese colonial
administrators, which have oftenbeen turned into hotels.
And that's the plan with thisSada is to turn to a hotel, but
it's currently in progress.
And once you leave Mobar,there's not a lot, to be honest
until we get to Aaba in Bob,although it is a scenic coastal
road and it is one of the betterroads in the country, as it is
(05:51):
the main route between Dili andwest Timor.
Just to the east of Mobar isLake Mobar.
And this, although it has quitea tragic history, as I mentioned
earlier as, Indonesian militiadumped bodies from the massacre
there in 1999.
Yeah, these days it is a verytranquil and peaceful place.
There's a lot of seasonality.
So during the wet season it cancover up to eight hectares.
(06:13):
But during the dry season, it issignificantly smaller.
It's quite unusual.
It's one of the larger lakes.
In Timor less, 80, more, less.
There has surprise in the fewlakes, but it's very close to
the coast.
So basically you've got thelake, then you've got the road,
and then you've got the coastand it's home to thousands of
birds, including Australianpelicans and the occasional
crocodile depending on when youvisit.
And the lake and the surroundingarea has been identified as an
(06:34):
important bird area.
Although I have to say I've wentthere three times.
I didn't see a lot of birds.
I did hear some birds, and it'scertainly quite a tranquil place
to explore just by the lake iswhat looks like quite a nice
little resort, which wasactually set up with support
from Korea in 2017.
And they did a lot of work interms of developing the site and
planted lots of trees and theybuilt these resort buildings.
(06:56):
But unfortunately, it seems tohave been abandoned.
Due to a lack of anybody to runthe place and when, when I
visited last time, it was fencedup and seemingly abandoned.
So this is somethingunfortunately you will see
around Timor Este as thingsstarted with great intent and
often with some overseas aid andfunding.
And then the sustainability is areal challenge to keep things
going in Timor, just given therelatively low number of
(07:19):
tourists, makes running asustainable business quite
challenging.
And then Timor Estee can bechallenging business environment
in of itself.
Now closer to Dili.
There is a community run projectat Kahu.
Which is to protect and hatchsea turtles.
So this is near Nia in, so maybehalf an hour outside of Dili and
(07:41):
your center can be visited andif you're lucky, you may get a
tour and chance to see theturtles.
But the best chance to see theturtles is they do a release of
the hatchlings, the babyturtles.
Releases usually happen from5:00 PM one Saturday a month,
and check out their Facebookpage to see the details of when
that will happen.
even closer back to Dili, likeliterally across the bay from
(08:01):
uh, where Dili ends is the TbarBay port.
You can probably see this fromthe air when you come in on the
plane, but certainly if you headwest from Dili, you cannot.
But it's noticed the very largeport structure.
So this was the largestinfrastructure project in Timor
Lester's history when it openedin September, 2022.
And it replaced dilly port asthe main port for the country.
And it was the country's firstpublic private partnership with
(08:24):
a French group gaining a 30 yearconcession to build and operate
the container port.
As part of the concession forbuilding the port, they did a
lot of regeneration work on thenearby mangroves in Tbar, which
was handed over to localcommunity in 2024.
Now there are extensiveboardwalks.
There must be at least 500meters of boardwalk.
There was a lot more boardwalk Iwas expecting when I walked into
the place and it is afascinating place to visit.
(08:46):
And you can see there's lots andlots of crabs and there's
interesting kind of wildlifeliving in the mangroves.
So that is a very interestingsite to see and it's relatively
easy to access.
You can get a Mik app to TassieTolu and then get a 50 cents
Tom, Tom from Tassie Tolu toTBAR, and then you can walk
around the mangroves.
I think it's$1 entry for adultsand it's open every day,
(09:06):
normally from nine till seven.
Now to get even more off thebeaten track in Lita, if you
head up into the hills, there isa small village called ba.
Which is about 30 or 40 minutesdrive inland from Aela.
There is a road to it from ARDTown, but when I did it, it was
under construction and it wasabsolutely terrifying to ride up
very sandy and slippery.
(09:27):
So if you're gonna do it, it'sbetter to take the sealed road
from Aela.
You just head inland.
There's only kind of one road,and that's home to a sizable
church and shrine.
And there's also a waterfallnearby.
Now the road is sealed, but itis narrow and winding, but there
are impressive views out acrossthe coast from that.
And it's obviously a bit coolerwhen you start getting up into
the hills.
Other than that, just has lotsof nice beaches.
(09:49):
So if you're just driving alongthe coastal road towards Bobro,
you will see Almira Beach, whichhas beach huts.
There's sandy bottom, which isgood for snorkeling and diving.
It's opposite the star concretefactory.
That's your landmark lookoutfor.
And it has an unexpectedly largenumber of public toilets, which
is a rarity in Timor they're notnecessarily very well
maintained, but there's I know,15 toilets there, which is more
(10:11):
than you probably have in theentirety of some other
municipalities.
And then there's the beach bythe prison, which I mentioned
earlier.
In Lakeside town itself, there'sobviously a beach and then UBA
has quite a nice beach oppositethe historic fault where you can
also go snorkeling and all thoseareas are generally free of
crocodiles.
I won't guarantee it, but you'repretty unlikely to see a
crocodile there.
(10:32):
So hopefully that's given you abit of a flavor of what you can
see and do in Liisa.
Thank you so much for listeningto exploring Timor Less Day.
If you've enjoyed today'sepisode, please consider leaving
a rating or review.
It really helps more peoplediscover the show.
If you have any questions orfeedback, I'd love to hear from
you.
Drop me an email at exploringTimor lessDay@gmail.com.
(10:55):
Until next time, or Bodo ADEs.
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