The Most Visited Place During the New Year's Holiday


As you all might know, Cristo Rei is the hot spot for natural atmosphere seekers in the holiday. People are flocking down to the beach in Dili city with their family, friends and so on.

Similarly, hundred of KMs away from the capital of Timor Leste, Com is the most visited place during New Year's holiday, particularly to those in the eastern part of Timor Leste.

Com was blessed with its natural wealth like white beaches, pure sea water for swimming, snorkeling and diving, and also man made infrastructure like tourism facilities (hotels, guest houses) as well as its land mark dubbed Com Port for loading and unloading some shipping activities. The free market has produced some kind of benefit to those in the area.

Lies in the southern coast, a village where the most tip of the national paved road from Dili to district of Lautem ends up, this village has been the most visited place for locals in the New Year's holiday and for foreigners mostly on the weekends.

Harnessing the beauty of the nature, people have created small businesses by opening room for rent or so-called guest house. More luxurious, an Australian investor has also interested by having more furnished hotel and more varied menus restaurant that compete with the local produced services and goods. Who attracts the most tourists is upon the services they provide. As I observe, locals are also able to provide the best services and dish you up the best and delicious foods that you can enjoy during your stay when you visit East Timor and pass on to Com – Village, Lautem.

The recent 2013 New Year euphoria, Com was the spot for locals where they enjoyed much of their time after getting an entertaining night in the New Year eve with their family members. As has been a culture for Timorese, New Year eve is the night which people have to awake at the whole night in order to leave all the past’s bad things with the old year and look ahead to do good things.  Although awaking whole night, people always in thousands came to Com by trucks, pick up cars, motor bikes, and busses to do picnic in the area. They celebrate the New Year with Joy and happiness due to the place is deserved to be enjoyed. 

Yet, this 2013 New Year holiday was observed by the locals in the area as less crowd year in the history since it has been starting up since Indonesian occupation time. It usually crowded in each year; however, since the visitors are less controlled in terms of behavioral, some have done riot individually, groups with groups that has caused fear among the visitors. Nevertheless, this is an accidental occurrence, which means that there will be no conflict in place. The locals believe that more and more visitors are expected in the years to come. 

I have made some documents here on this update. The photos were taken in the outer part of Com village, some miles from the heart town of Com village, and it seemed not really crowd as previous years. I do have a footage but due to the slow internet connection made me unable to upload it here. I will upload the video once the connection is faster, hopefully



Sound in the footage is full of unfamiliar noises. You hear people are speaking Fataluku language “ The Mother Tongue of Lospalos District (Timor Leste)”.