I do hope the Australian news has not spent too much time applauding the very effective arrival of the first OZ contingent who arrived at dusk. Even if the OZ embassy is now surrounded by well-trained armed soldiers with night goggles etc., the rest of Dili appears not to have changed an awful lot.

I believe fighting is still going on and there is a lot of general lawlessness. I came across a guy who has fled his home because there were (in his words) people everywhere around his home, machete-ing each other. This was around 7:30pm. I hear the occasional gunfire in the distance and there has been the odd one much closer.

The euphoria before dark has evaporated fairly quickly.

The power is still on (in my part of town) and the phone lines and mobile phone network still work (and the internet).

I slept OK last night but tonight feels tenser than ever, particularly without the benefit of armed soldiers with night goggles outside.

Pathetic facade of humour now lifted. OZ Hercules arrived 4:30pm – everyone in town seemed to know. At 4:50pm, an OZ frigate came steaming in from the east past Christo Rei statue (a smaller version of the large Rio de Janeiro Jesus statue).

A local told me (how do they know these things so fast ?) so I rushed down to the seaside and watched as it approached. People slowly moved out to the waterfront, the cars appeared again, faces were happy. I must admit I choked a bit as not an hour earlier, I was applying some serious skidmarks to my underwear. The powers of stress and subsequent release.

The sense of euphoria was amazing. I walked down to the Motael church where hundreds had been camped out and noted that if you stand at the front steps and look out to sea, you see the Christ Rei statue in the distance and at one point, an Australian frigate (?) steaming in.

Full points for a superb Hollywood entrance for maximum effect. The ship steamed in and did a sweep down to the west and looped back for a sweep to the east before preparing to make the entrance into the narrow navigation channel to take pride of place as the only vessel parked at the dock.

I left before that as it was starting to get dark and also it was raining and I was drenched and still with a 1 km walk home. I’ll try to take the flash picture tomorrow morning.

Now back to pre-euphoria. Again the locals seemed to know this quite quickly but things really went to custard around lunchtime. Some of the loyal military and some of the police were involved in a battle with each other.

Possibly around the same time, something close to anarchy must have been going on in parts of town with civilians (neither military, police or rebels) all having a good old fashioned stoush but using knives and machetes.

More houses have been burned, more lives ruined. What a shambles.

I will leave it until tomorrow to see what the casualty count will be from today but it may not be pretty. No doubt the usual foreign press will be on to this by the morning with more details.

And why “euphoria part one” ? For many Timorese, the decision still has to be made where to stay tonight. One would imagine it will take the foreign military force 24 hours to get into real shape. It is raining real hard now. The conditions at some of the catholic refuges must be fairly dire by now with no food, water and sanitation services. And we are still talking well over 15,000 displaced people in Dili alone.

Euphoria part two could be a return to a house burnt to the ground, looted or smashed to bits. Or in the case of one friend of mine, her landlady’s parents were both killed overnight.

Euphoria part three might be a long haul while the country gets itself back into shape from an infrastructure, security and political point of view. Isn’t that why many expats were here in the first place ?

It just has to be gin and tonic time !!

Just try being here when you don’t really know what is going on and someone tells you there has been a major incident near the FDTL headquarters.

I am sure some gun reporter will be there but I hope not.

Yet, an acquaintance dropped by to say the conference he was attending, had been halted because of trouble, so he dropped in.

I have always hated door slammers but never more so than right now. I nearly hit the roof.

PS I am hiding genuine fear behind a pathetic facade of humour so bear with me.

I have taken my government’s advice and stayed in today. Both the OZ and NZ governments have instructed all non-essential public servants and families to leave and I know one departure flight was scheduled for 2pm.

I met up with some volunteers prior to their departure on that flight and the info they provided convinced me today was no day to be going anywhere without cast-iron underwear. Not 5 minutes after they left, I was told there was trouble between there and the airport.

I believe gunfire is now creeping into the city proper. I do not know if it is the so-called “rebels” or the street gangs are causing all the trouble.

I am revising my little departure bag but hope like hell I never have to use it. Maybe some of the reporters holed up in some of the central city hotels can fill in on this. It is the tensest I have been but the main problem is I don’t know what is going on.