Jayapura
is the capital of the Indonesian-administered territory of Irian Jaya, otherwise
known as West Papua. The Indonesian Consulate in Vanimo issues visitors visas
for Jayapura. Passports lodged in the morning will be ready by afternoon.
A small fee is payable. Tourists who are wanting to travel further into Indonesian
territory than Jayapura will need to wait longer for their visas to be issued
as the consulate may have to refer your application to the embassy in Port
Moresby.
There are no regular air or sea links between PNG and Jayapura. Light aircraft can be chartered from Vanimo to do the trip (the flight takes around 30 minutes) but this is relatively expensive unless you are travelling in a group of 4 or more. Small boats and fibreglass dinghies travel regularly betwen Vanimo and Jayapura and by asking around the waterfront you may be lucky enough to catch a ride although it may not be at a time convenient to you. You will still be expected to pay for your seat and the amount will depend on who you're going with and how many other passengers they're carrying, as the aim is usually to spread the cost of fuel between the people taking the trip. However, be warned that small boats and dinghies are often used to smuggle contraband goods into Jayapura for sale and you may unwittingly get caught up in a difficult situation if your dinghy is intercepted by an Indonesian Navy or Customs patrol boat and found to be carrying contraband. The most commonly smuggled goods are vanilla beans and alluvial gold (smuggled to avoid PNG export controls and taxes), and marijuana. You should also be aware that the route to Jayapura is deep, open sea and dinghies often do not carry adequate safety equipment. As a passenger you will have no control over the amount of cargo or passengers being carried in the dinghy, or the state of sobriety of the driver. If the dinghy happens to be capsized by a wave you will at the very least lose all of your belongings. In general we do not recommend travelling to Jayapura by dinghy.
Most tourists travel by road. The most difficult part is getting from Vanimo to the border post at Wutung. There are PMVs but they are not frequent or regular. There are no taxis in Vanimo although Visser Enterprises does have cars for hire and it is possible to make an arrangement for them to take you to the border and come back to pick you up on your return. We don't have costs available for this but it will not be particularly cheap; probably around K200 per trip.
It's possible to hitch a lift with a private, company or government vehicle which is making the trip to Wutung. If you stand by the side of the road out of town with your bag and look like you're hoping for a lift somewhere, most vehicles will stop and ask you where you're going. If you start early enough, you're bound to get lucky eventually. Thursdays and Fridays are the best days to catch a lift as these are the days when Vanimo people most commonly travel to Jayapura for the weekend.
Before leaving Vanimo
you may need to change some money. The banks in Vanimo do not trade in Indonesian
Rupiah but there are several shops which will change kina to rupiah. The going
rate in Vanimo is about K1.00 to RP3000. If you wait till you get to Jayaura
most money changers will give RP3200 per kina. However there are also plenty
of automatic teller machines in downtown Jayapura where you can get cash advances
with your credit card. This works reliably.
The
drive from Vanimo to Wutung takes about 2 hours. The road is unmade but in
reasonable condition. The first hour or so passes through pretty seaside villages
and the rest of the drive is through rainforest.
The
border is situated on a cliff top. From the PNG border post (left) you can
see down to 
Wutung Village on the coast and many miles in the direction back to Vanimo.
On the Indonesian side you can only see jungle. On one side of the border
fence is a very large Indonesian lighthouse. On the PNG side is a small solar-powered
shipping light (circled in the photo at right). Locals refer to them as David
and Goliath.
At
the border checkpoint on the PNG side your passport will be stamped and you
will have to pay PNG departure tax (K40). You will then have to walk across
the no-man's-land to the Indonesian side. If your timing is good, there will
be one or two Jayapura taxis waiting. When they bring passengers from Jayapura
to the border they usually wait to pick up a fare back into Jayapura. If you
happen to arrive at the border at the same time as some other people travelling
to Jayapura, you may be able to share a taxi and share the cost. The going
rate for the trip from the border to Jayapura is RP200,000 (about K62). Most
taxis are mini-buses which can carry 5-6 people plus bags. Petrol in Jayapura
costs only K0.40 per litre and the basic wage for a shopkeeper is about RP200,000
per month so your taxi driver is doing OK.
The Indonesian border post is very showy. There is a few hundred metres of wide boulevard with welcome arch and a large border checkpoint building. However the road soon deteriorates into a single lane although it is sealed most of the way to Jayapura. At the Indonesian border station you will be able to stay in your taxi while your passports are taken inside for examination and your baggage may be searched by Indonesian border guards in various stages of undress and possibly carrying weapons. Nobody seems to speak English at the border station. If you don't look like you are smuggling vanilla beans they may just wave you through.
A short distance down
the road is a line of small buildings and your taxi driver will stop at one
of these buildings where you will be expected to pay RP10,000 per head which
seems to be some kind of charge that the border police levy 
without
issuing any receipt. It probably goes into the staff coffee fund or something
like that, of course. It's not worth querying or objecting to as it's only
about K3.00.
From the border post it's another three hours drive to Jayapura but the scenery is interesting, including rice paddies and Javanese migrant settlements.
Jayapura
is a big, bustling and fascinating city (well, compared to Vanimo). If you've
always wanted to go somewhere in Asia where there are no other tourists, this
is the place. Jayapura is a well-kept secret that the Indonesian tourist authorities
don't talk about, due to the political sensitivities surrounding the Indonesian
annexation of West Papua. You'll love Jayapura. Enjoy the city but don't go
trying to go places and do things that you didn't state when applying for
your visa, as the authorities here are quite suspicious of foreigners (especially
if you look like a Western journalist).
Everything is cheap in Jayapura. A taxi costs between RP20,000 to RP30,000 (K6-K9) per hour to hire. A local bus fare is only RP600 (K0.20t). A cheap hotel room is RP80,000 (K25) per night and a room in the best luxury hotel is only RP320,000 (K100). Shopping for manufactured goods and handicrafts is very cheap. Market vegetables and fruits are fresh and cheap. Food from roadside stalls is clean and cheap.
But DON'T DRINK THE WATER.
Friday
nights is carnival night in the city centre when the roads are blocked off
to vehicles (most traffic in Jayapura is motorbikes anyway) and people set
up
street stalls selling everything imaginable. Everyone comes in from the suburbs
and there's a lot of conviviality and only the occasional drunk.
One thing that you will notice in Jayapura is that, despite the strong independence movement, the indigenous Papuans and the immigrant Javanese get along very well together. The two races interact very positively, even affectionately. In some ways they complement and need each other. The Javanese are the rice-growers, the shopkeepers and the tradesmen while the Papuans are the farmers, the entrepreneurs, and to some extent the professionals. There is a university in Jayapura and the Papuan population of the city seem generally well educated and financially secure. They are certainly well-dressed, well-spoken (Bahasa of course), and walk the streets with their heads held high.
The
cheaper hotels in Jayapura are habitable but not always as clean as one might
wish: bedsheets may not be changed between guests, toilets and bathrooms may
be a bit icky. There are numerous budget hotels around the city, and they
usually offer a choice between rooms with airconditioning and private bathrooms
and those with fans and shared facilities. Shared facilities are often a bit
grubby (the toilets are usually "squatters"). I stayed at the Ermasitha
Hotel which has lovely boutique fittings in the lobby areas although the guest
rooms are a bit gaudy and drab, the sheets were threadbare and smelled of
somebody else's perfume, and I had to wade through two inches of water on
the bathroom floor. This hotel is in a quiet street a couple of minutes out
from the city centre by taxi but since taxis are cheap this doesn't matter.
The next step up from the Ermasitha would be the Hotel Matoa which is a full-service
hotel, though looking a little tired these days, conveniently located right
in the city centre. A number of luxury-standard hotels are also located in
the city centre.
Jayapura
is a completely different world from Papua New Guinea. While it is safe, cheap
and interesting, the city is not 
at
all tourist-oriented (what tourists?) and English is not widely spoken, which
makes getting around and making arrangements rather difficult for visitors
who don't speak Indonesian. Ecotourism Melenesia offers escorted side-trips
to Jayapura with an Indonesian-speaking Papua New Guinean. See our JAYAPURA
TOUR.
The following links have some further information about Jayapura city:
http://www.indonesia-tourisminfo.com/desti-irianjaya.htm
http://www.irja.org/travel/travel.htm
