We spent nine nights in Indonesia, all of them in Jayapura. Originally we had thought of traveling to other parts of Papua or Indonesia. But as we got our bearings around the city and public transport and found enough things to do, we decided to spend the whole time in Jayapura.
1. Swiss Bel-hotel, Jayapura
One of the biggest challenges was actually communicating with people. With their being no tourism in Jayapura, no one understood or knew English for maybe a few (except for ‘hello mister’, ‘I don’t understand English’, or some other sayings I wont mention). I didn’t know any Bahasa (Indonesian) since Primary school. So this made communicating with people quite interesting and challenging. It was like playing charades a lot of the time. All the time people would just start laughing because we were speaking English and they didn’t know what to say, it was quite comical. So it took some time to get information or to communicate.
2. Chose a lane
For the first time I was a millionaire while in Papua, a million Rupiah is around 126 Aussie dollars. At first it was hard to get my head around the currency, as you would pay 9,000 to 20,000 rp for a can of coke in some places. But once I got my head around the currency and calcilate it easily, most things were really cheap.
3. Indonesian millionaire
The main way of transportation besides walking was by taxi, the Indonesian equivalent of a PMV, but only smaller. They were really cheap to get around and different taxi’s go to different places. After a while we worked out how to get around Jayapura which is a decent size city after living in Mt Hagen for a while now. When we needed to go to the border or travel to a beach over two hours away we would have to charter the taxi, which still was pretty cheap for how far and where we were going. The longest was to Sentani which is about an hour from Jayapura, it took five taxis’s to get there. And in the process being quite a squeeze, fitting up to sixteen people into these small vans. There were also bike taxi’s called Ojeks, which were a lot of fun. We had planned to hire bikes there or even buy some bikes if they were really cheap. But as we could not ride them across the border (except by sea), I didn’t even pursue it too much. So I was disappointed, but these bike taxi’s helped my craving.
4. Fourteen people in a taxi - I can’t feel my legs
The food I have to say was awesome. I love Asian food, well I love pretty much most food types. And there were so many restaurants after restaurant. Not like here in PNG, the equalivant would be kai bars everywhere. There was up class restaurants like the one in the hotel or one’s on the street to even food stalls. To eat out in Jayapura is quite cheap, that most people eat at them. There ranged from Indonesian food to some Chinese food, to even Pizza Hut and Dunk’n Donuts. But it was like a lucky dip each evening, as the menu was all in Indonesian. I didn’t know what I was really getting myself into, photo menus did help at times but in a limited way. After a while I worked out the word for chicken and fish. I enjoyed just being able to walk around at night (which you don’t do here) in a clean atmosphere. At night is when the city really comes alive and there is so much atmosphere there. My favourite restaurant was the blue cafe on the harbor water front, where you chose the fish you want cooked on coals and there was live entertainment.
5. Base G Beach
We got out every day to see different things. We went to the city markets, Sentani for shopping, base G beach (a former US WW2 base), exploring a beach where the allied forces landed to take back Jayapura from the Japanese, Amai beach over two hours away which was good for swimming, old Dutch government buildings, other WW2 sites, seeing many other parts of the city. We pretty much got to see everything a tourist could see in Jayapura which was good. We did a lot of exploring, a lot of the time with a lot of uncertainity where we were going to end up. It was hard with the language barrier, but also we could not find any city maps at all. So sometimes it did take a while to find what we were looking for (hours and km’s of walking). But we really got to see a lot and experience a lot during our time there.
6. Allied Forces Landing Monument at Hamadi Beach
I was really amazed by the people there, I was really expecting Papuans to be everywhere. But in the city at least half or a majority are Indonesians from other islands (there are over 17,000 islands in Indonesia!). They were at most friendly people and we didn’t have too many problems. But as there are hardly no tourists who go to Jayapura, especially white people we stood out quite a lot and drew a lot of attention at first, probably more than what I would here in PNG at times. Especially people wanting photos taken with them, particularly one gender. The thing that stood out to me was the general respect people had for each other despite there being so many different Indonesian backgrounds. But also there being very little if none affect of alcohol or drugs in the community. Alcohol there is really expensive and drugs are illegal and are punished with the death penalty. So it was very different to here in the Highlands.
7. Beach huts for hire at Amai Beach
The Hotel was by far the most luxurious place I have ever stayed. I knew that it was going to be good, but it was even better. And for how cheap it was, it just didn’t seem right. Each morning there was a big buffet breakfast included with a range from fancy omelette’s made for you to donuts. There was a really nice pool and fitness centre, a restaurant, room service, massage service ( I had my first back massage in there years), cable TV, business centre, nice rooms, pretty much everything. For me it was so refreshing coming back after a long hot day out and to come back to such a nice place.
8. The pool
So my time in Papua was my second overseas holiday I have had and the first sharing it with someone else. It was a huge blessing and I am really thankful for God’s provision and how it all came together, I really enjoyed it. We did a lot but at the same time it was relaxing, especially being out of PNG. I am amazed that we found so much to do, even though there is no tourism there and at first appears there’s not much to do there. But it was great to experience a new place and it’s culture. I do hope to return to Indonesia again some day.
9. Indonesian cuisine
(More photo’s to come soon, maybe a video)
August 2nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Man that holiday looks amazing! Great to see that you’ve had a bit of time off. The picture of you banging your head on the bus made me crack up. Hope your well!
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