8-Day Timor-Leste Tour with Atauro Reefs and Sacred Jaco Island

Fly into Dili, usually via Bali or Darwin, and transfer to a seafront hotel on the capital's long, quiet bay. The afternoon serves as the country's own introduction to itself: the Chega! exhibition in the former Balide prison, where the Indonesian-era cells have been left as they were found; the Santa Cruz cemetery; and the Resistance Museum, which lays out the occupation and the 1999 referendum in the words of the people who fought it. The day ends at Cape Fatucama, climbing the steps to Cristo Rei for sunset over the whole capital, followed by a first plate of grilled fish on the waterfront.

The morning boat crosses the Ombai Strait to Atauro, an hour and a half of deep, dark water that regularly turns up dolphins and, in season, blue whales; the strait is one of the few places on Earth where they pass close to shore. You land at Beloi and settle into a beachfront eco-lodge with no road noise because there is essentially no road. The afternoon is spent in the water: the reef here holds the highest average fish diversity ever surveyed anywhere, and the drop-off is a short swim from the sand. Dinner is whatever the boats brought in.

A full day on the island. The morning runs by boat to two or three of the outer sites, drifting the wall where it falls away into the strait, then into the shallows over staghorn and table coral. In the afternoon, you walk inland to Adara or Vila, where the island's fishing and weaving communities live largely outside the cash economy, and where a small women's cooperative makes the woven tais the country is known for. Sunset from the ridge looks back across the strait to the mainland mountains you drive into tomorrow.

The morning boat returns to Dili, and by lunchtime the road is climbing. It is only sixty-odd kilometres to Maubisse, but it takes three hours, switchbacking up through terraced smallholdings into cloud forest; you will stop for the view back down the valley more than once. Maubisse sits at about 1,400 metres, cool enough for a jacket at night, and the old Portuguese pousada on the hilltop is where you sleep. The late afternoon is spent walking in the arabica gardens with a grower, in the shade trees the Portuguese planted.

A pre-dawn drive to Hatubuilico and the two-hour walk up Tatamailau, at 2,986 metres the highest point in the country and, on the right morning, one of the most extraordinary sunrises in Southeast Asia: the sea on both sides of the island at once, the whole of Timor laid out below, and a statue of the Virgin at the summit that pilgrims climb to barefoot. Down for a late breakfast, then the long, beautiful drive down the eastern flank of the range and back to the north coast road.

The coast road east runs between limestone terraces and empty beaches for two hours to Baucau, the country's second city and its most handsome. The old town is a tiled Portuguese hill settlement above a spring-fed swimming pool, with an arcaded market building at its centre and views straight down to the sea. The afternoon drops to Osolata and Watabo, where the sand is white, the water is clear, and the only company is likely to be a few children from the village. Night in Baucau.

The last stretch east leaves the tarmac behind: three hours through Lautém and Lospalos to Tutuala, on the cliff at the end of the country. First comes the walk to Ili Kere Kere, a rock shelter whose painted boats, figures, and hand stencils date back toward the end of the last ice age. Then take the track down to Valu Beach, where a fisherman takes you the 200 metres across to Jaco. The island is sacred and uninhabited; nobody sleeps there, and for the hours you have it, you will most likely be the only people on it. Back to the mainland by late afternoon.

The drive back to the capital is the country in reverse, and worth doing in daylight: the eastern savannah, the Lospalos house-roofs shaped like ships, the long limestone coast, and finally Dili's bay opening up ahead. Depending on your flight, there is time for the Tais Market and a last lunch on the waterfront before the transfer to the airport. Onward connections run through Bali or Darwin; we are glad to build either onto the end of the trip.