Max in East Timor - Transport

In Same people do not have cars and people usually walk everywhere. Walking does not cost anything, is good exercise and it also helps you meet lots of people and make lots of friends. In Same everyone you meet says "Bon dia, diak ka lai?" which means "Hello, how are you?"

Sometimes when Max needed to travel further away to visit a school, he had to look around for transport. Here are different types of transport that Max found in Same.

First he tried the motorbikes. It's amazing how many people you can have on a motorbike. In Same the whole family rode on the motorbike together. There even was room for Max!

People who live out in the country, away from the village, sometimes need to ride into the village to come to the market for rice and food. They need their horse to help carry the food back home.

Here is the local police car. They wear very smart uniforms and have to hang on carefully so that they do not fall off the car. How many policemen do you think can ride on a police car?

If you need to go a very long distance, for example when Max had to travel from Dili to Same, you can take a bus. Here is Max on the bus before it got crowded.

Then the bus filled up with passengers. There are sacks of rice and a passenger on the roof.

Another bus had sacks of rice and bananas on the roof. Often the bus gets very crowded and people ride on the roof. There’s a long queue for the yellow bus, but it is already full inside and on top! These passengers will have to wait for the next bus.

The roads in the mountains are sometimes full of holes and very winding and sometimes very muddy. Sometimes the bus got stuck and all the passengers had to get off and push. Max didn’t help to push this time because he was taking the photograph!

When Max needed transport in-between villages he sometimes took a ride on a local mini bus called an “Angguna.” An "Angguna" is a small open truck usually with a canvas roof that provides shade from the sun and shelter from the rain. Max made lots of friends when he traveled on the "angguna" because they could get quite crowded at times.

One day Max and Erika were visiting a school far away from Same. When school finished it was a quite late and there were no more buses or anggunas so Max and Erika traveled home in a big truck.

Some days it was very noisy early in the morning. That was because the United nations were flying over the mountains in their helicopter to watch over Same to keep the town safe.