Home>> features>> Ogilvy Ads to Promote Timor>> The Scenic Route from Com

The Scenic Route from Com

The scenic route from Com to the remote beaches of Tutuala is 4 hours by road.

There’s only one problem: no road.

East Timor’s north coast road has been compared to Big Sur, California’s legendary Highway 1.

Stretching 233km, the road by the Wetar Strait undulates and meanders from Dili to Tutuala. Except it doesn’t quite make it to Tutuala.

At the fishing village of Com the road unexpectedly disappears.

There’s only other one way to the windswept paradise of Tutuala and it’s via ‘pothole purgatory’:
a 34km detour of bumps, humps and corrugation.

But what East Timor takes away it returns with interest. On the roundabout to Tutuala, you’ll run into Lene Hara, O Hi and Ile Kere Kere, caves with artifacts and relics going back 30,000 years.

When there’s no road on the ground, getting there can be half the fun indeed.