Basic -- Because you deserve more

Every day I walk by the Basic store. It's in a quanset hut, in kind of an industrial strip. It wasn't until they put they Christmas stuff out that I realized it is a store. One reason that it took me a while to catch on is their catch phrase “because you deserve more.”  I don't really get it, but chalk it up to language differences. There were some pretty amazing store names in Kenya (none of which come to mine as I write), but I don't remember anything quite so contradictory.

Today, I went in the opposite direction. It was finally time to climb up to Cristo Rei, a 27 meter high statue on the top of a hill on the western edge of Dili.

My previous knowledge was there are 500 steps to the top, and it's ⅔ the size of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue.  And there are stations of the cross alcoves on the way up.

In order to avoid sounding ill informed, I checked the Wikipedia entry. The statue was sanctioned by Indonesian President Suharto in the mid 90s, after being proposed by the Indonesian governor of East Timor. The job of fundraising was given to the head of Garuda Airlines, the official airline of Indonesia. He raised a quarter of the retired funds, and the the hat was passed around locals.


The copper statue was made in Indonesia and assembled on site. And it was placed about eight years after Pope John Paul’s visit to East Timor.

The walk up was very pleasant. Shallow steps, except at the beginning of each flight. Then the initial step was higher. Not typical Southeast Asia high, bit higher than normal North American high.


Although the  base was open, the staircase is lined with trees, casing a gentle shadow on the route, and two thirds of the way up, there's a plaza.

The final third is steeper, and the handrails are for people much shorter than me. Regardless, it's a very pleasant walk. 

When I arrived, I discovered Christ is standing on the globe, and it was not possible to get a shot of Vancouver Island.

The view from the top is spectacular.

To get there, I took a Microlet downtown, then flagged down a taxi. The driver wasn't thrilled with the amount I wanted to pay him ($3.50), but he agreed. Then he picked up a woman along the way he seemed to know. After five minutes of animated talk, she gave him some money and got out.


He thought I wanted to go to the beach. No no, keep going I gestured. Then he drove past the staircase, and had to turn around to get to the right spot.

On the way back, I flagged down a Microlet. I think the driver went out to the point for a break. I got out at Legendario, the la-de-da restaurant that I went to with Bob at the end of his stay, and enjoyed tropical juice under the fans.  It was lovely.

As I walked towards home, where I thought the Number 9 Microlet would be, I stumbled once on cracked cement. Oh well. Just need to pay more attention. Then it happened. A spectacular sprawling fall.  If there was an award for long distance falling, I would have won. I tried to recover, extending my distance by at least four feet. My water bottle lid is grazed, my glasses case no longer closes, my right hand and left knee are scraped.

Some kind people riding by stopped (two sets of people on motorcycles). I picked myself up, dusted myself off and smiled as pleasantly as I could. They waited til I caught up to them, since they were about 10 feet away, to make sure I was fine.  Bruised and shaken. But capable.

I took a taxi home because one came before the Microlet, but I only had $1.75 in change. It was $3.50 to Cristo Rei, and this was half the distance, so I thought it would be fine. The cab driver didn't agree. I had a $1 bill that I had been saving for emergencies, and figured this qualified. Cabbie still wasn't satisfied. So I gave him a Singapore $2 bill. Way more than he deserved, but I needed to wash my wounds.

And as I was doing that I nearly fainted. Of poor me. Take a tumble and react like a sissy. I had some water and sat down and let the dizziness pass. Then I watched the Spring episode of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. Life is fine and dandy.