The LNL team is heading home with hours of audio and video and many photos of our travels. The Late Night Live programmes commence on Monday 22 October, with accompanying material available via the Radio National website.
As we pack up in Timor-Leste, there’s time for one final video ‘postcard’ on the blog - from Dili’s Santa Cruz Cemetery, scene of the 1991 massacre…
We spent much of the day in the company of President José Ramos-Horta. The interview we recorded covered a wide variety topics fuelled by our encounters with the Timorese people over the past two weeks, and concluded with talk of a very personal project for the President…
A momentary break in the relentless recording, filming and travelling - in Bacau, on the north coast.
On our second day in East Timor we visited the Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor) leader and former PM Mari Alkatiri at his Dili home.
You’ll hear the full interview on LNL in coming weeks. Here’s a taste…
Enroute to Viqueque we drove into ‘The Valley Of The Widows’ in Kraras, the scene of a massacre of some 300 villagers by Indonesian forces in 1983. Our camera is at the hilltop memorial:
Before hitting the road again Phillip and Ceu took a few moments to smell the bougainvillea and marvel at the mountain peaks which dominate the skyline of Same - the capital of the district of Manufahi - and symbolise many different things to the town’s people:
From an Australian “sacred site” in Timor-Leste - the infamous Flag House, in Balibo…
We climbed up the worst road I’ve ever experienced, high into the mountains, and there perched atop the most magnificent rock terraces – which would’ve required efforts similar to constructing the great pyramid – was a village of ‘mushrooms’.
For me the highlight of the day was to meet a hero of the resistance who was far, far younger than Xanana or Alkatiri. He’s 15 these days but when a boy of five, was personally responsible for concealing Xanana’s successor, a bloke regarded as the Che Guevara of the resistance.
Phillip meets Kercoli…
Maria do Ceu - our oracle and translator for the trip -hails from Atauro Island, the ever present monolith visible from Dili and much of the surrounding area. She’s a very proud ‘Islander’…
