Greetings from Papua
I shit you not, for I am currently at a warnet somewhere in Jayapura. Left last night at around 9:50, with a slight heartbeat increase considering what happened earlier this week in Medan. The plane made stops at Manado and Biak, before finally landing smoothly at Sentani Airport (major props to Capt. Syahrul Nasution of Merpati Airlines), at around 6:30 in the morning, local time (two hours ahead of Jakarta). So that’d be over six hours in the air, which drives home the fact that Indonesia is a bloody big country.
What’s it like here? Well, the airport’s about an hour from the city, so the scenery was lots of big-ass mountains and vegetation. At least I think it is, because I spent just about the whole journey comatose. Arrived at the Tirta Mandala hotel, somewhere on the outskirts. As the cliche goes, "it ain’t the Ritz," but the breathtaking view more than makes up for it. The hotel’s just above the sea - forgive my sparse knowledge of the local geography, because I have no idea what sea that is. All I know is that there are several islands in the horizon, and beyond them lies the Pacific. I think. Looking out the hotel window reminds me of watching Lost.
Slept most of the day, trying to adjust for the two hours lost, and flipping the channels for something interesting. Seeing that the hotel mostly only receives local channels (and even then, not all), something interesting to watch is not on the cards. Speaking of lousy reception, Pro XL have not seen fit to install relay stations or whatever it is in Irian, and so my cellphone is, for all intents and purposes, dead. (Not that anyone calls or sends text messages anyway, you bastards.) Also spent a lot of time trying not to freak out, being so far away from home and not being able to call anyone who’d care.
Then at around seven, we took a trip for dinner. For some reason, they prefer it dark here - including the hotel and streets. A disturbing lack of lighting. And it’s raining, to boot, so driving around Jayapura…let’s just say if I had to move here, I’d only drive in the daytime. I’m sure the scenery is awesome, though I’ll have to wait for daylight to see just how awesome it is.
Anyway, I made a trip to the wartel to phone home and let them know I’m still alive, and then to this warnet to check my mail and see what’s going on in the world. I still have a day and a half to go here before flying back to Jakarta, so here’s hoping everything will go well. If not, well…let’s try not to think about that, hmmm?
Oh yeah, as for why I’m in Papua…see the next issue of Rolling Stone, mwahahaha…
September 12th, 2005 at 7:49 pm
Gee…I’m quite curious with those Papua things. Still wondering what you’ve done there. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to buy the magz since it’s been quite expensive for me who has ran out of money just at the mid of Sept =p
*Hi ‘cip! Just passing by to say hi =)