Landing in Timor after travelling across Australia for 3 months was very interesting and I can’t imagine a more dramatic difference. Of all the countries I have travelled through, it is probably the most rudimentary and landing in the capital, Dili was a bit of a shock. Usually, the capital city of a country is significantly more developed and wealthy than the surrounding countryside, often to the point of not really representing the country. But Dili was more reminiscent of some of the rural towns I had previously seen in other trips through Southeast Asia.

Additionally, the whole place was in a kind of surreal, suspended state, as somehow, I had managed to arrive at the same time as the Pope, visiting Timor-Leste for the first time since its independence in 2002. There were delegations at the airport (which I incorrectly assumed were for me.) The streets were filled with banners, crowds of people had turned out to clean the streets, the shops were all closed. Half the population of the country turned up for the mass, and there was a huge camp built at the edge of town to accommodate people from all over the island. It was surreal and not at all what I was expecting. I didn’t realise Timor-Leste is the most catholic nation in the world after the Vatican City.

The side effect of this was, three public holidays had been declared, making getting our bikes out of the shipping yard a nightmare! The other guys had already spent a full day sitting at the docks trying to sort out the paperwork etc before I (and the Pope) arrived. And then the day after the public holidays ended, we spent another whole day there, with a representative from the shipping company, trying to get the bikes released. Finally, late in the afternoon, as we were all getting ready to give up, they decided to release the bike to us. I honestly think they were fed up with the idea of having a group of loud Australians in the office for another whole day tomorrow, so they just let us have the bikes, on the promise we’d come back to finish the paperwork the following day!

They rolled the bikes out of the container with us watching through the fencing and then weaved through containers, parked cars and through the gate to us. Until the moment I had my hands on the bike, I didn’t even fully believe we were getting them today. Of course, I had left my USB charger on the bike on, so I had a flat battery, so I was forced to wrangle everyone to push start me ignominiously in the carpark. And then, we were free! That ride back into town from the docks was one of the sweetest ever in my life. It was right on dusk, as the day cooled, in that beautiful twilight. Being reunited with Rusty after almost a month of freight felt like being granted absolute and unconditional freedom and reminded me why I am so in love with riding motorcycles.

The group of us stayed roughly together for an exploratory ride around Timor-Leste, kind of finding our feet and getting back into the motorcycle travel headspace. It was the perfect recalibration, we camped on the beach, went snorkelling, and got in touch with our riding skills again. Timor is absolutely wild once you are away from Dili. We spend an entire day riding through the jungle and mountains, only to come across a bridge that was out. With no warning, there were no signs, or anything, just riding across the bridge and it fell away 5 metres to the river where the section was missing.

In the end we dragged the motorcycles through a river crossing, through sand and mud and giant river rocks. It felt like a proper adventure! At another spot the bridge was gone completely, and there was a rickety bridge built from bamboo and sticks in its place. We walked it, but there was no way I was going to trust my motorbike and all my worldly possessions to a few lashed together logs, so we retraced our steps and found a way around it.

And everywhere we went, we were met with friendly, happy people. I have never travelled anywhere before where every single person was so happy to see us, would run into the streets to wave or shake our hands or just smile. It was really heartwarming. Every breakdown, or flat tyre (of which I got every single one somehow) or chain adjustment, everyone in the area turned up to smile and offer advice and help. The whole experience in Timor was amazing and beautiful, both the landscape and the people.

And here are a few more photos from around my Timor-Leste travels