Introduction to Papua by way of Biak

It was an ungodly departure of 0115 from Makassar. The 2h45 flight to Biak (off the northern coast of Papua) took off slightly late and landed again just slightly late too. The actual flying time was less and with the hot meal and a snooze we landed in no time (well about 0500 actually). On board, the Garuda crew exuded glamour which isn’t commonly seen in air travel these days. The piped-in music “Can Mali Can” which I thought was Malaysian rather than Indonesian but the other songs were quintessetially Indo.

Quite interestingly, the crew announced that the aircraft (quite new) was no longer equipped with oxygen in the lavatory; I googled this and found that it is the case in the USA as well as the risk of decompression is considered lower than someone using the chemical oxygen generators to create an explosion inflight.

Arriving at Biak, the airport terminal was small (not as small as Alor’s airport).  I found this surprising as Biak was once linked to Los Angeles. Perhaps that connection was because planes didn’t have long enough legs to fly nonstop.

The touts outside the terminal wanted to charge IDR100,000 for a short ride into town so I opted for an ojek (motorcycle taxi) for IDR10,000. It was just getting into daylight. He dropped me off under a tree where some men were hanging out. One of them was the staff at my hotel, the Padaido Hotel.

We walked down an alley which looked pretty ominous but it opened up into a bay where some boats were parked. My room had been pre-cooled for me with the aircon. I had a quick wash and tried to sleep but couldn’t because my body clock was on NZ time. I took half a sleeping pill and slept from about 0700 till 1200.

I walked to the main street for lunch then sat on my patio to make plans for diving and ring some hotels for later in the trip. When it was cooler in the late afternoon, I did some more exploring of this small town.

Papua is expensive by Indonesian standard. Hotels are about IDR350,000 (NZD35) and meals or street food about IDR40,000 (NZD4). Diving is even more expensive because there is no economy of scale; I am lucky that I can join a group on Friday but otherwise it would have been prohibitive.