Boat
Every two weeks, five Pelni liners sail into Sorong from Maluku, Sulawesi, Kalimantan or Java, continue to Jayapura via various intermediate ports along Papua’s north coast, then head back out again. There are also a few sailings connecting Agats and Merauke on Papua’s south coast with Sorong and ports in Maluku.
Various smaller, less comfortable passenger boats serve minor ports, offshore islands and routes on a few rivers such as the Mamberamo and Digul; some have more or less fixed schedules, others don’t. On routes without any public service, you can charter a boat, which might be a fast, powerful speedboat, or a longbot (large motorised canoe) or a ketinting (smaller motorised canoe; long-tail boat). Charter costs are highly negotiable and depend on the boat, its fuel consumption, the distance and the petrol price.
PAPUA TRAVEL WARNING
Outbreaks of civil unrest and violence do occur in Papua, but they shouldn’t deter you from visiting unless the current situation changes. Political demonstrations sometimes turn violent, and acts of violence between Papuans and non-Papuans, often involving the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Organisation; OPM) or the Indonesian army or the police, happen most months. Many of these incidents occur in remote parts of the highlands (where the OPM is strongest), or around the Freeport mine near Timika, although the Baliem Valley and the Jayapura area also see some violence.
Localised fighting between different tribal groups sometimes occurs; these are normally disputes over land, livestock or women.
Whatever the type of violence, foreigners are rarely the targets or victims; tourists are welcomed by the great majority of people in Papua. Stay abreast of current events and ask the police if you have concerns about particular places.
West Papua
The province of West Papua chiefly comprises two large peninsulas – the Vogelkop (also known as Bird’s Head, Kepala Burung and Semdoberai) and the more southerly Bomberai Peninsula – and several hundred offshore islands. The attractions here are primarily natural – above all, the world-class diving and gorgeous island scenery of the Raja Ampat Islands. Sorong and Manokwari are well-provided urban bases from which to launch your explorations.
Sorong
%0951 / Pop 190,000
Papua’s second-biggest city, Sorong sits at the northwestern tip of the Vogelkop. It’s a busy port and base for oil and logging operations in the region. Few travellers stay longer than it takes to get on a boat to the Raja Ampat Islands, but Sorong can be quite fun for a day or two, and there are some interesting destinations in the surrounding region.
4Sleeping
JE Meridien HotelHOTEL$$
(%0951-327999; www.hoteljemeridiensorong.blogspot.com; Jl Basuki Rahmat Km7.5; r 534,000-836,500Rp, ste from 1,009,000Rp, all incl breakfast; aW)
Handily located opposite the airport, the Meridien offers nicely aged, slightly old-fashioned rooms of generous proportions. Rooms come with TVs and tea and coffee makers, plus you can get a free ride to the airport or the Raja Ampat ferry. The buzzing lobby has a good coffee shop and the Raja Ampat Tourism Management Office (though at the time of research this was scheduled to move).
Hotel WaigoHOTEL$$
(%0951-333500; Jl Yos Sudarso; r 489,000-705,600Rp, ste from 1,029,000Rp, all incl breakfast; aW)
This hotel, facing the Tembok Berlin waterfront, offers fair value, large and bright (sometimes a bit too bright and pink!) rooms, which have a few nice touches like art and masks on the walls. The ocean-view ‘suites’ are massive. The in-house restaurant (mains 25,000Rp to 65,000Rp) is good value.
Swiss-Belhotel SorongBUSINESS HOTEL$$$
(%0951-321199; www.swiss-belhotel.com; Jl Jendral Sudirman; r incl breakfast from 743,800Rp; aWs)
Opened in 2014 and setting new standards for Sorong hotels, the Swiss-Belhotel is easily the swankiest option in town – though if it were in Jakarta it wouldn’t earn its four-star status. The staff are exceptionally helpful and there’s a good in-house restaurant (mains 65,000Rp to 100,000Rp).
5Eating
Sorong restaurants are generally better stocked with alcohol (beer, at least) than those elsewhere in Papua. For cheaper eats, dozens of seafood warungs (food stalls) set up in the evenings along waterfront Tembok Berlin (Jl Yos Sudarso).
Sunshine BeachINDONESIAN, CHINESE$$
(Jl Yos Sudarso, beside Hotel Tanjung; mains 50,000-120,000Rp; h9am-10pm Mon-Sat, 4-10pm Sun)
This spacious, semi-open-air place with sparkling lights is built over the edge of the sea. It offers everything from fried rice or noodles to prawns, crab, fish, squid and beef, prepared in assorted ways. For something different dig into a plate of sea cucumber (380,000Rp). There’s an air-conditioned bar too.
Rumah Makan Ratu SayangSEAFOOD, CHINESE$$
(Jl Yos Sudarso; grilled fish from 60,000Rp; h9am-2.30pm & 5.30-10pm)
Pick up the scent of fish on the grill and head inside this two-level eatery for delicious ikan bakar (grilled fish). With rice, spinach, three sauces and a drink, this will set you back around 120,000Rp to 140,000Rp. It’s just north of the well-signed turning to Sunshine Beach restaurant.
8Information
ATMs outside Saga supermarket, at about the midpoint of Jl Yani, service Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard, Maestro, Cirrus and Plus cards. There’s also a Bank Mandiri ATM just north of Sunshine Beach and next to the huge pink church (you can’t miss this!).
Polresta SorongPOLICE
(%0951-321929; Jl Yani I)
Head to this police station, 1km west of the airport, for a surat jalan (travel permit).
Raja Ampat Tourism Management OfficeTOURIST INFORMATION
(%0811 485 2033; www.gorajaampat.com; JE Meridien Hotel, Jl Basuki Rahmat Km7.5; h9am-4pm Mon-Fri, to 1pm Sat)
This incredibly helpful office can tell you almost anything you need to know about the Raja Ampat Islands, and it’s the best place to buy the tag permitting you to visit the islands. It’s scheduled to move to a new office next to the airport towards the end of 2015.
8Getting There & Away
Air
All airlines have ticket counters at the airport. Garuda and Sriwijaya Air connect Jakarta and Sorong via Makassar.
FLIGHTS FROM SORONG
Destination Airline Frequency
Ambon Wings Air daily
Fak-Fak Xpress Air 3 weekly
Jakarta Xpress Air daily
Jayapura Garuda daily
Makassar Garuda, Sriwijaya Air daily
Manado Garuda, Wings Air, Xpress Air, Merpati daily
Manokwari Garuda, Sriwijaya Air, Xpress Air, Susi Air daily
Timika Garuda, Sriwijaya Air daily
Boat
Pelni (Jl Yani 13), near the western end of Jl Yani, has five ships sailing every two weeks east to Jayapura (via assorted intermediate ports, including Manokwari, Biak and Nabire) and west to ports in Maluku, Sulawesi and Java. Sample fares (economy class) are 263,000Rp to Biak; 299,000Rp to Jayapura; and 171,000Rp to Ambon. The Tatamailau heads down to Agats and Merauke (economy 395,000Rp) on Papua’s south coast, every two weeks.
8Getting Around
Official airport taxis charge 100,000Rp to hotels at the western end of town; on the street outside you can charter a public taksi for half that or less. Using the yellow public taksi (minibuses; 5000Rp), first get one going west outside the airport to Terminal Remu (600m), then change there to another for Jl Yos Sudarso. Short ojek (motorcycle) rides of 2km to 3km are 5000Rp; between the western end of town and the airport is 20,000Rp.
Raja Ampat Islands
Pop 43,000
The sparsely populated Raja Ampat Islands comprise around 1000 islands just off Sorong. With their sublime scenery of steep, jungle-covered islands, scorching white-sand beaches, hidden lagoons, spooky caves, weird mushroom-shaped islets and pellucid luminous turquoise waters, Raja Ampat has to be one of the most beautiful island chains in Southeast Asia.
Pure, unadulterated beauty isn’t just what draws people here, though. Raja Ampa
t has good birdwatching, with a couple of species of birds of paradise present, and what many call the best diving in the world. Little known until the last few years, Raja Ampat’s diversity of marine life and its huge, largely pristine coral reef systems are a diver’s dream come true – and fantastic for snorkellers too. It’s like swimming in a tropical aquarium. In fact, the waters are so clear and fish so numerous that you hardly even need don a mask. We saw six sharks swimming around below us merely by peering out the window of an overwater hut! So great is the quantity and variety of marine life here that scientists have described Raja Ampat as a biological hot spot and believe that the reef systems here act to restock reefs throughout the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The four biggest islands are Waigeo (with the small but fast-growing regional capital, Waisai), Batanta, Salawati and Misool. The Dampier Strait between Waigeo and Batanta has many outstanding dive sites, so most accommodation options are on Waigeo, Batanta or three smaller islands between them: Kri, Gam and Mansuar.
2Activities
Diving
You can get up close with huge manta rays and giant clams, gape at schools of barracuda, fusiliers or parrotfish, peer at tiny pygmy seahorses or multicoloured nudibranchs, and, with luck, encounter wobbegong and epaulette (walking) sharks. The reefs have hundreds of brilliantly coloured soft and hard corals, and the marine topography varies from vertical walls and pinnacles to reef flats and underwater ridges. To generalise, Raja Ampat is better suited to advanced divers; it's not exactly a learn-to-dive hot spot. There are, however, some dive spots suitable for relative novices.
Most dives are drift dives. Beware: the currents that whip you along the edge of the reefs can be very strong. You can dive year-round, although the usually smooth seas can get rough from July to September (the Raja Ampat/Sorong area gets its heavier rain from May to October). The dive resorts generally offer packages of a week or more and focus on spots within about 10km of their resort. Some will take nonguests diving if they have places available, for around €50 per dive, plus €40 to rent a complete set of equipment. Valid insurance and dive cards will be required at reputable dive operators.
Many of the ever-growing number of homestays on Pulau Kri and Pulau Gam also offer diving services, but only highly experienced divers should consider this option – the guides can be short on professional training and experience and on safety protocols and safety equipment. We’ve heard numerous stories of people who’ve signed up to dive with a homestay and run into problems, including having to be rescued by boats from the top-end dive resorts. If you do dive with a homestay ask to see its certification. There’s a decompression chamber in Waisai, but the quality of the facilities here can be unreliable; the nearest quality chamber is far away in Manado, Sulawesi.
Wayag IslandsDIVING
These small, uninhabited and incredibly picturesque islands, 30km beyond Waigeo, feature heavily in Raja Ampat promotional material. It’s mainly liveaboards that dive here, but Wayag also attracts nondivers for its scenery, snorkelling and the challenge of scaling its highest peak, Pindito. An all-day speedboat round trip from Waisai for six to 10 people costs around 12,000,000Rp.
Teluk KabuiDIVING
The bay between Waigeo and Gam is packed with picturesque jungle-topped limestone islets. The Batu Lima dive spot in the bay’s entrance has a great variety of fish and beautiful soft corals.
The PassageDIVING
This 20m-wide channel between Waigeo and Gam is effectively a saltwater river. It’s heaven for advanced macrodivers with its nudibranchs, sponges and tunicates (‘sea squirts’). Sharks, archerfish, turtles, rays and schools of bumphead parrotfish are seen here too.
Fam IslandsDIVING
Calm waters, stunning coral and masses of fish, notably at the Melissa’s Garden spot.
Manta SandyDIVING
At this famous site between Mansuar and Arborek islands, numbers of huge manta rays, some with wingspans over 5m, wait above large coral heads to be cleaned by small wrasses. Best from about October to April.
Cape KriDIVING
The fish numbers and variety at the eastern point of Pulau Kri have to be seen to be believed. A world record of 374 fish species in one dive was counted here in 2012. Schools of barracuda, jacks, batfish and snapper coexist with small reef fish, rays, sharks, turtles and groupers. Beautiful coral too. There can be strong currents and so diving here requires a minimum of 50 logged dives.
Sardine ReefDIVING
Sardine, 4km northeast of Kri, slopes down to 33m, and has so many fish that it can get quite dark! The fish-and-coral combination is great for photographers. Currents can be strong.
Pulau MisoolDIVING
This remote southern island – especially the small islands off its southeastern corner – has stunning coral. The pristine reefs attract pygmy seahorses, epaulette sharks, manta rays and a vast range of other fish.
Snorkelling
There are strong currents in some areas of the Raja Ampat Islands, but snorkellers can enjoy top dive locations including Cape Kri, Manta Sandy (although the manta rays are often a bit deep to see properly), the Fam Islands, Pulau Wai and Mioskon (10km northeast of Kri). You can also see wonderful coral and marine life just by stepping off the beach in many, many places. Most accommodation, including homestays, can rent or loan snorkelling gear.
Birdwatching
The many exotic birds on the islands include two fantastically coloured endemic birds of paradise, the red and the Wilson’s. The red male has a spectacular courtship dance in which he spreads his wings and shakes like a big butterfly. Village guides in Sawinggrai, Yenwaupnor and Yenbeser on Pulau Gam provide a relatively easy way to see this, charging 150,000Rp per person for early-morning walks to nearby display spots. Maybe the most enjoyable of these is the tour offered by Simon Dimara (%0852 4301 2894), which, as well as seeing birds of paradise, also includes a boat ride up a long, narrow green-water gorge and a visit to the spot where naturalist Alfred Wallace set up camp while exploring these islands. Sorong-based Papua Expeditions (www.papuaexpeditions.com) offers specialised Raja Ampat birding trips.
Kayaking
oKayak4ConservationKAYAKING
(www.kayak4conservation.com; kayak per day from €35, guesthouse per person with/without 3 meals 400,000/300,000Rp, guide per day 300,000Rp)S
Originally established by the forward-thinking folk at Sorido Bay Resort on Pulau Kri, Kayak4Conservation provides exciting multiday tours of Raja Ampat by kayak, with or without a guide, staying at homestays or camping. Your money goes directly to the local people providing the services.
PROTECTING THE MARINE EPICENTRE
Marine biologists consider eastern Indonesia to be the world’s epicentre of marine life, and Raja Ampat – dubbed a ‘species factory’ by conservationists – harbours the greatest diversity of all. This includes, at last count, 1459 fish species and more than 550 hard corals (more than 75% of the world total). Ocean currents carry coral larvae from here to the Indian and Pacific Oceans to replenish other reefs.
Seven marine protected areas, covering 9000 sq km, were established in 2007 to protect Raja Ampat’s reefs from threats such as cyanide and dynamite fishing, large-scale commercial fishing and the effects of mining. In 2010, the entire 50,000-sq-km Raja Ampat area was declared a shark sanctuary. This was a significant move against the practice of shark finning, which threatens numerous shark species with extinction, mainly to satisfy demand (primarily in China) for shark-fin soup. In 2014 the Indonesian government went one step further with the establishment of a nationwide ray and shark sanctuary, which mean it’s now illegal to hunt for rays or sharks anywhere in Indonesian waters. The problem, of course, is that Indonesia is a very watery country, hence difficult to patrol.
Tourism plays a big part in the conservation effort, providing sustainable income sources for local people and funds for conservation initiatives. Foreign visitors must pay 1,000,000Rp for a tourist tag (pin/badge) to visit the islands (Indonesians p
ay 500,000Rp): you can get one at the Raja Ampat Tourism Management Office in Sorong, or at Waisai’s Tourism Information Centre (%0852 4202 0251, 0852 5455 0411; Acropora Cottage, Jl Badar Dimara, Waisai; h10am-2pm Mon-Fri). Most dive camps include the tourist tag in their package rates. It’s hoped that in the near future tags will be available at the ferry port in Waisai. The money goes to conservation, community development and the Raja Ampat Tourism Department, in roughly equal shares.
4Sleeping
Accommodation options in Raja Ampat are growing fast (some people worry that it’s too fast and lacking regulation) and can be divided into three options: high-quality dedicated dive lodges, homestays and liveaboard dive boats. The typical packages with the dive resorts or liveboards include ‘unlimited’ diving (up to four boat dives per day within about 10km, plus house-reef dives), accommodation, meals and Sorong transfers on fixed days of the week. Transfers from Waisai are also possible. More distant dives, equipment rental and transfers on nonstandard days cost extra. Most dive resorts offer cheaper rates for nondivers.
Lonely Planet Indonesia Page 88