East Timor: Dili

Arrived in Dili today and a taxi driver took me to the first best cheapest guesthouse. It was in the backyard of a indian "somthing-like-a" restaurant. But surprisingly the room was clean and didnt have any insects.

Dili is a ugly place and the centre is particulary one long main road which ends suddendly, cause fallen rocks covered the road and cut it in two pieces. Then there is a second road along the coast and the beach. The promenade is actually very nice to walk and has lots of small restaurants and places to get a coke.

The most civilized  place i detected in Dili was the shopping mall, which opened this year. There are not much shops yet inside, but at least a food court, 5 Telecom Shops (all from the same provider), two coffee-shops and a few supermarkets. Also there is a tourist information in the mall. I went there and worked together with the two ladies on my itinerary for my week here in East Timor. They were helpful and provided me with a bunch of phone numbers and maps etc.

I knew there are two motorbike rental stations in East Timor. But I spent most of the day searching for them. Finally I found them, but the choices of bikes they had was  marginal and my impression was like "do you maybe have another one?" :). The first rental station had one bike - full of scratches and with a missing clutch. The other one had 3 bikes - one streetbike, one 50cc and one 125cc. So i took the 125cc cause I knew from hearing saying about the road conditions in East Timor.  The streetbike is here definately in the wrong country. Tomorrow I will start my trip across East Timor.