People of East Timor - Cristo Rei of Dili (3)
Hello dear Steemians and welcome to the third episode of my “People of East Timor” series! Today I will take you to Dili’s statue of Cristo Rei, the capital’s most important sight.
In case you missed the first and second part of my East Timor series, check them out here:
https://steemit.com/travel/@mrwanderlust/people-of-east-timor-dili-1
https://steemit.com/travel/@mrwanderlust/people-of-east-timor-atauro-island-2
While the statue of Christ is an interesting sight, to me, the way there along the coast and the view from the top were the main reasons to visit it.
We took a cap, asked the driver to bring us to the statue, and enjoyed passing by beautiful beaches and observing the locals’ life.
From the map you can tell, it was not a long ride. In Indonesia, it would have cost less than a dollar, in East Timor however, it was more like 10 dollars.
When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, we could see the statue from far.
We then had to climb a lot of stairs, being motivated and happy in the beginning and getting more exhausted over time…
The statue is 27 meters high and was given to the people of East Timor by the Indonesian government back in 1996 when “Timor Timur” was a province of Indonesia. While it is a tourist attraction (if you can speak of something like that in this country – we were the only foreigners visiting that morning), I think it is also viewed as a symbol of suppression by the local people.
The view from the top of the hill was indescribable, simply breathtaking. Beaches and the sea wherever you looked. We spent an hour climbing and wandering around the area. It was really hot and we didn’t have water, but it was definitely worth it.
When we tried to go back to Dili, it was impossible to find a cap that far out of the city and without any other tourists around us. In the end, we found a nice guy from Portugal who was working as a consultant to the Ministry of Justice of East Timor. He let us hop on his pick-up truck and we went back to Dili with him.
Most importantly, he gave us a lot of valuable advice on where to go and how to travel for our journey to Jaco Island that would begin the next morning.
This wraps it up for today, I hope you enjoyed the journey to Dili’s statue of Cristo Rei. Stay tuned and follow me for the next episode about Bacau!
Till then, keep wandering and wondering,
Love,
mr.wonderlust
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Great pictures, love reading your adventures
thank you! happy you like it!
What a nice read after a long day! Thanks for sharing mate! :) you really take some killer pictures! Well done!
you are very welcome, just read you entry as well, keep wandering brother
Tolle bilder..ein klares upvote von mir..und einen neuen Follower haste auch Gruß
vielen vielen Dank, sehr froh das zu hören, bin dir auch gefolgt!
Herzlichen Dank
Thank you - very nice
very welcome, thank you!
Good :)
This statue and beach below brings back memories - i will have to dig out my old photos- too bad it was all with a 3mp point and shoot camera set to the lowest resolution.lol
ah damn!
BTW, some of these posts of yours are too old for me to upvote and for you to earn- so I upvoted a bunch of your newer ones :)
These blogs are cool- nice to read and see stuff from people who have done original stuff and made the effort to post decent stuff.
happy to hear that, I'll keep checking your stuff as well. Next up on my blog list is Sumba, but I'll need some more time to get the posts together...
I will look forward to that- We must have been to all the same places lol