It was not so much the sight of burnt-out buildings but the stench of refuse and the acrid smell of burning rubbish that assailed the senses of those who came to the devastated capital of East Timor with the international peacekeeping force yesterday.
In the little airport terminal, in the looted seafront villas, in Bishop Belo's skeleton of a house, the pro-Jakarta militias had trashed everything and then used the roofless buildings as toilets.
As Australian and Gurkha soldiers in battle gear secured the airport, with no resistance from watching Indonesian troops, I hitched a ride into town in a passing car. It was driven by Sister Marlene, a Salesian nun from the Philippines who had been in hiding for two weeks in the suburb of Bacora.
Along the roadway into town, refugees sat by piles of mattresses and clothing taken from the burnt-out and broken huts behind them. Some wore the red and white Indonesian colours, but of the armed Aitarak militia, which terrorised Dili for two weeks, there was no sign.
A few Indonesian army trucks passed by, the soldiers expressionless. In the town centre, there were few people and every important building was burned out, including the Makhorta Hotel where the UN announced on September 4th that East Timor had voted 78.5 per cent for independence.
The multinational force mandated to end East Timor's misery had, it seemed, come to liberate a ghost town, with no shops open, no running water and no electricity.
Sister Marlene said: "I came out today because I heard the peacekeepers were coming and also to do some looting, as we were trying to find vegetables around the burned-out houses."
At this, her companions packed into the car, two other nuns and four woman refugees, giggled loudly. They all applauded and cheered when they saw a UN vehicle overtaking.
The militia and army (TNI) surrounded their convent where 106 women and children had taken refuge but did not attack "because there were no men".
With Aitarak militia gone, I came across some people trickling back into town from the hills, hungry and exhausted but ecstatic to see foreigners back, and waiting anxiously for the appearance of soldiers from the multinational force. Some young supporters of the Falantil resistance movement were seen with arms in the suburbs.
A priest, Father Francisco, came yesterday to camp out in the rubbish-strewn grounds of Bishop Belo's house, where some members of his congregation were cleaning the tiled rooms of his roofless residence. Only a life-sized statue of the Blessed Virgin was left standing in the building, its face smashed.
Father Francisco reckoned 100 people had been killed in Dili. "I know this from talking to families," he said. One man was murdered when militia and TNI came to expel thousands of refugees in the bishop's garden on September 6th. "I tried to escape to Bacau," he said, "but I saw the militia shoot a man in a car in front of me, so I came back and hid."
Sister Margareta (82) stayed at the bishop's house throughout, untouchable because of her age. Small and stooped, she fingered a rosary as she said: "Thank you for coming. It is the grace of the Lord."
She added: "Here we don't like Indonesians and we are very happy to know they will leave East Timor."
I arrived at the nearby Turismo Hotel to find it, too, smashed up inside but structurally intact. Some rooms were stinking of excrement and a few were burned out. Several were still habitable despite the lack of electricity and water.
The old caretaker, Jon, was still there. He greeted me with tears when I found him in the back office where the computer was smashed and everything else looted. "I saw them on December 7th, 1975, and destroying everything," he said, referring to the Indonesian invasion of that year. "They came again on September 7th, 1999, and did this."
As we walked outside, however, he pointed to the Australian, New Zealand and British warships out in the bay. "Now, I think, maybe after 24 years, it is all over."
Just then, a contingent of Australian soldiers, kitted out for war, roared up in a truck to secure the hotel for those of us moving back in and trying to make rooms habitable with the help of church candles given to us by Father Francisco.
The caretaker's little granddaughter went rigid with fright when she saw the soldiers. "It's OK. They are our friends," he said.
Today the 2,500 soldiers of the UN peacekeeping force will secure the compound used by the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) which is also, in the words of one UN official, a health hazard.