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The mention of the country of Timor-Leste may not be familiar to most people, or even unheard of. Timor-Leste is a small, relatively inconspicuous country with little presence on the world stage, with a population of only 1.32 million and a land area of about 15,000 square kilometres. It is classified as one of the least developed countries in the world, dependent on foreign aid for most of its living materials, the level of industry is almost zero, agriculture is still in the traditional way, and the main source of state income is oil and gas development close to the coast.
My company is engaged in foreign trade and mainly imports East Timorese coffee products because the quality of coffee produced in their country is excellent. Not long ago, due to work needs, the company sent me to Timor-Leste to deal with some business matters. This opportunity gave me the experience of traveling to Timor-Leste, a country I didn't know anything about before, so I researched a lot of information about Timor-Leste online.
When I arrived in Timor-Leste, it was around 11 noon local time and the client arranged for a manager to come and pick me up and arrange a lunch to entertain me. After the meal, I was a little inactive, because we agreed to go to the customer's company the next day to exchange business, so the account's manager, a man named "Ganda", suggested taking me out to experience the local customs.
This Ganda is about thirty or forty years old, has tanned skin, speaks Chinese, and is sincere. His proposal hit my heart, because when you travel abroad, you always have to combine the desire to work and travel. However, the place Ganda took me to was an eye-opener and shocked me! He told me that Chinese who used to visit Timor-Leste liked to visit the local markets and pick up some ingredients.
This so-called wet market is actually more like a large open-air market, where local residents put out all kinds of wild animals and ingredients to sell. As I approached the place, an unpleasant fishy smell came to my face, making people feel uncomfortable. When I fully entered the area, I was stunned by the sight in front of me, with all kinds of things in full view. I saw ingredients that I had never seen, heard of, and knew and did not know, and this trip really broadened my horizons. In China, I have never seen such a variety of wild ingredients.
This is the entrance to the market, selling some common vegetables and local freshwater and saltwater fish. But as I walked inside, I saw a feline-like creature lying there motionless. It is not large, about three to five pounds, and may be an animal such as a wild cat or a bobcat, giving off a strong game taste. When the stall owner saw me approaching, he did not speak, but concentrated on smoking a dry cigarette. I stayed there quite a long time because it was my first time seeing this animal and it was full of novelty.
As I continued walking, I saw a variety of wild food, including birds, rodents, snakes, insects, crocodiles, wild boars, hares, pheasants, ducks, monkeys, shrimp, river crabs, lizards, deer, big bats, wild cats, raccoons, turtles, turtles, turtles, and more. Some disgusting things are creepy just by looking at them, such as silkworm chrysalis and insects. Just watching them makes your scalp tingle, let alone imagine eating them.
However, local residents seem to be used to it, and neither sellers nor buyers are worried. Sellers freely place the larvae of insects by hand in containers for people to select, while buyers calmly pick and choose one by one. I will not show pictures of insects here because they may cause discomfort.
At a stall, I saw a preliminarily processed bamboo rat, very fat. At first glance, I thought it was some kind of large badger, but in fact I never imagined that the bamboo rat in East Timor could be so huge. Ganda told me that local residents especially like to eat bamboo rats, thinking that it is a delicious food, not only delicious but also rich in protein, which is the main egg obtained by ordinary local people
One of the foods of white matter. Therefore, there are many stalls selling bamboo rats, not only limited to this wet market, but also in all corners of Timor-Leste, it seems that bamboo rats are in abundance, and demand exceeds supply.
Next, I saw a stall owner who specializes in selling dry goods with a wide variety. These include a continental-level protected animal. They sell not only animal products, but also plant products. The stall owner is a middle-aged single woman whose age is difficult to judge because their skin color and appearance are very different from ours. These items may be just commodities for them, sold for subsistence.
Moving forward, I saw several young people selling freshly caught crocodiles and tortoises. Crocodiles are tied with ropes to prevent them from escaping. These young people saw me as a foreigner without revealing a word, and just looked at me blankly. I smiled and said goodbye, but they remained guarded.
Actually, I can't be sure if it's a large lizard or a small crocodile because they look similar. But crocodiles should be bigger, although none of them are particularly large as seen here. In this place, there is a wide variety of wildlife that looks incredible.
Walking to another stall, there is a freshly slaughtered local wild boar, not very large, roughly the size of an ordinary dog in our country. But its fur is sparse, soft and short, completely different from the fluffy, thick-skinned, fat-skinned wild boars I've seen before, but the local wild boars are much smaller and have heard Ganda say their meat is very tender.
When I walked up to a seller, I saw many different species of wildlife, most of which I knew but rare, and even some that I had never seen but were very familiar with, such as pangolins.
This seller has a lot of cages, about a dozen, which are not all taken in the photo. The cage was kept mostly reptiles, including some venomous snakes, one of which was king cobra, which was supposed to be underage. Its size is not large, about 1 meter 5, but its aura should not be underestimated. There are also some big cobras, which we call flatheads. There are other snakes that I don't know very well, probably endemic venomous snakes, that look very fat.
In the cage next to the pangolin was an animal that looked very similar to them, which I didn't recognize. Locals call it "maji mud", and Ganda does not know the Chinese name of this animal. I looked closely again and it was a bit like an armadillo, but not sure. But I heard that armadillos carry the virus, can they eat it? Perhaps this is just a creature of the same family and a different genus similar to the armadillo.
Then I saw a young man in a basket with two dead pheasants, small in size, about the size of a pigeon. I heard they are delicious. One of them is very brightly colored, very similar to our domestic bamboo chicken. Bamboo chicken does taste good.
From that young man, I seemed to enter a place that specialized in "mountain flavor". This shop sells a variety of mountain produce, including wild goat meat. In addition, there is something that I don't recognize and looks like some kind of feline. If you buy them, the owner will clean them up for you in no time.
There is also a seller opposite who sells wild boar with fangs. Compared to what I saw before, it is slightly larger, but the overall characteristics are similar, but this is only fangs, and it looks very tender in flesh.
Moving on, I saw someone slaughtering crocodiles. A white crocodile, what kind of species is this?
Then, some young people skillfully divide the crocodile into 8 pieces.
Maybe this area is full of crocodiles, and there are stalls selling slaughtered crocodile meat next to it.
I won't show everything that sells in East Timorese markets, because there are so many. But I would like to conclude by saying that most of the various mountain delicacies sold here are unacceptable to me, and I can't pay attention to them
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