After a little break, you get to see things afresh. And the very first thing I noticed apart from the nice neat fence separating UNHCR refugee tents and the airport area, was the general tidy-up that has obviously been going on in the streets.<\/p>\n
I have seen teams of workers with brand-new wheelbarrows and tools attending to rubbish and vegetation gone wild. It certainly does make a difference in the areas where it has been done.<\/p>\n
One not so impressive action has been the re-instatement of the annoying one-way street system. I have yet to meet anyone who supports this system and I suspect the OZ police have merely returned to what was there before. I think we need a real traffic engineer to do some proper traffic counts and computer analysis to prove why it is so annoying.<\/p>\n
The other noticeable feature was the number of Timorese who had smiles on their faces and said hello. A big increase on this one.<\/p>\n
There is definitely a slow assimilation of the foreign troops\/police into the local economy. I know the boys (and girls) are still “dry” but maybe they are now allowed to go shopping. I went to the DVD rental shop (the one with the infinite return policy) and was gob-smacked to be asked for 4 times the normal price. I bargained down to the correct price and left, as I only bargain like this for sport (of course). Naturally, I was offended when also offered a massage with the lot for US$5 while perusing the DVD racks. Did she think I was cheap or something ?<\/p>\n
Alas the Monkey Bar is a shadow of its former self as Ross has taken on more lucrative financial endeavours. Its sad that doing laundry for the military pays better than running a bar\/restaurant. I think his bar does just burgers now.<\/p>\n
My favourite juice bar (Sol e Mar) is open again. There aint no better place to partake of a late afternoon juice under the palm trees looking at the sunset.<\/p>\n
And finally, the yogurt is back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a little break, you get to see things afresh. And the very first thing I noticed apart from the nice neat fence separating UNHCR refugee tents and the airport area, was the general tidy-up that has obviously been going … Continue reading