Weekend in Jayapura

I had the opportunity to join the group of the longer term expats in Madang for a weekend in Jayapura. This is a town in West Papua, Indonesia, about two hours from the northeastern border of PNG. To get there it takes a 90 minutes flight from Madang into Vanimo, a tiny town still on the PNG side. Beautiful, but in the middle of nowhere.

Vanimo Airport: arrivals/departures screen

We were travelling in a group of six: Ron and Locklain, the Australians, Sui from Malaysia, Dhawal from India and Phil, a Kiwi. I held up the European flag! After landing in Vanimo, we hired a PMV to get us to the border. We had already sorted out the Visa upfront two weeks before. One of the guys had to go to Port Moresby for business travel and had taken all our passports and visa applications to the Indonesian embassy there. So we had no issue crossing the border and got another PMV on the Indonesian side to Jayapura, which still was a 90 minutes trip. But it was absolutely interesting how the environment changed: from one minute to the other we were in an Asian country. The West Papuan indigenous people are a minority and most of the population comes from other parts of Indonesia. West Papua is predominantly Christian and the political issues they have are controlled by severe Police and Military presence. Jayapura itself has the atmosphere of a Bangkok suburb, both from appearance and the chaos on the streets: many motorcycles, Mini-PMVs and mobile market stalls. A vast variety of fake articles is on offer and at every corner you find street kitchens. I think I already got too accustomed to quiet Madang, as I felt almost stressed by all of the noise, cars, traffic, products and people.

Jayapura lays on a nice bay with a harbor and something you can almost call a waterfront. The place is even so safe, that one can walk around at night without issues and have some drinks at the harbor. We had food from various street kitchens, offering fresh grilled seafood with delicious sauces, fried duck and –of course – nasi goreng. A perfect snack for in between are satays, small chicken skewers marinated in soy sauce, served with peanut sauce. The Climate is comparably hot and humid to Madang, so one can stay at the beach or in one of the beautiful lookouts in the shadow of the mountains. Too good with a refreshing drink!

To round up the Asian weekend we could not resist going to a Karaoke place just opposite our hotel. Cool location, clean and perfectly equipped rooms. I even found all famous Nena’s “99 Luftballons” on the song list… you can call me Karaoke-Expert now!!!

The flight back was breathtaking. In perfect weather we flew right along the PNG coastline. I saw the Ramu and the Sepik river deltas as well as the lovely bay around the Manam Volcanic Island we had just been 2 weeks before. Beautiful!

It was a great weekend with a completely different atmosphere and we had a good time with the group. Let’s see what trip is on next…