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February 4, 2005
Beauty, bureaucracy on coast of New Guinea
By MARK WAITE
MANOKWARI, INDONESIA - I've taken many airplane flights in my life, but this one was unique. A male passenger in the departure lounge carried a few spears, a bow and arrows as carry-on luggage. A woman was barefoot, carrying a burlap bag. My flight on a Merpati Nusantara airlines twin-prop from Manokwari on the north coast of New Guinea to the mountains was also the cheapest I'd ever seen, 60,000 Indonesian rupiahs, $6.65 U.S. Even the popular guidebooks used by backpackers didn't have much information on the Anggi lakes, my destination, like recommendations on where to stay or what to eat. I had put my name on a list and the day before the Monday departure, I was told to check in at the Merpati airlines office in Manokwari. They called out, "Mark John," my first and middle name, to hand me my ticket; I made the list. Departure time was 6:30 a.m. Monday but the plane didn't get off the ground until about 9 a.m. A look at the ground below from the plane confirmed why I enjoyed a trip to the Indonesian western half of New Guinea so much: a thick carpet of green, tropical, rain forest spread out below me, with towering mountains dominating the scenery. The flight didn't last long; it was less than an hour before we were flying over the shimmering waters of one of the two lakes, coming in for a landing on a grassy airstrip. It seemed like all the villagers from the surrounding area came in for the weekly arrival of the plane. One of the few foreigners I met in Manokwari, a Dutch man, was waiting for the plane with his guide, after hiking up to the lakes from the lowlands. I would do the opposite and hike down. The Anggi lakes are one of the areas foreigners are permitted to visit in western New Guinea, which was formerly called Irian Jaya and is now referred to as Papua province by the Indonesian government. In 1992 I visited the Baliem Valley, in the mountains near the Papua New Guinea border, which is much more popular among tourists, as many of the local Dani tribes people still dress in traditional costumes, with men wearing just a penis gourd and some topless women wearing grass skirts. If there was a plane full of European tourists flying up to the Baliem Valley 12 years ago surely the area would be even more touristy now, I thought. The Anggi lakes were really off the tourist map, however, and the natives dressed in shorts and shirts. They weren't nearly naked, grasping themselves to keep warm in the morning chill of 7,000 feet, as they watched the plane arrive. It took a couple of days of bureaucracy to get permission to travel to the Anggi lakes. The Indonesian government requires foreigners to have a travel permit, or surat jalan, to visit places outside of the major entry points, like Jayapura, Sorong, Manokwari and Biak. When I visited the police station in Manokwari, on the north coast, they told me I'd first need a recommendation from the national parks office. When I took a motorcycle to that office on the other end of town, it was almost noon, and the sole employee in the office told me to come back the next morning. The next morning I spent about two hours in the park's office getting the recommendation. I was then instructed to get a stamp at the post office for the document. Finally, I stopped at the police station with the recommendation and the stamp, but had to return at 2:30 p.m. to pick it up, it was about 11:30 a.m. on a Friday, the officials, practicing Moslems, were attending Friday prayers. The Dutch tourist's guide at the airstrip referred me to a man named Moses, who led me to the nearby village of Hungku, a two-mile walk. He had built a new house for visitors to stay, but it required sleeping on a wood floor, with only a couple of blankets for the nighttime cold. I had to report first to the police station and present my surat jalan. The police officer, the only Indonesian in the valley, complained I should've had photocopies made; instead he put his stamp on the travel permit and kept it up until I left the area. The nearby lake, called Danau Laki-Laki or Boy Lake, by the Indonesians, was called Giji Lake by the locals. There was another lake over the mountains, Danau Perempuan, Girl Lake, in Indonesian, or Gita Lake in the local language. Giji Lake was a couple of miles from my house in the peaceful village. Moses said I'd need a guide, which I really didn't think was necessary, but later I was a little grateful someone took my hand to guide me over a rickety bridge over the river made out of tree branches. The lake was clear and clean for swimming; a few of the locals used it more for their daily bath. Many of the hills around the lake had been cleared for farming by the traditional slash and burn method. The first meal, lunch, was a hint of what the cuisine would be in the mountains of New Guinea: potatoes and some green beans. For dinner, I was served more potatoes, some rice and a few green vegetables. Villagers carried loads of firewood back from the forest near sunset to keep them warm during the nightly chill. Some people played volleyball behind a nearby church against the backdrop of the sun setting on the green mountains. It was a cold night. I came unprepared for camping, and I naively expected there would be a regular guesthouse. The blankets weren't warm enough and the monotonous diet continued the next morning with an egg and, of course, more potatoes. The outhouse across the road emptied into a moving stream that led to the lake. A few locals were fascinated to watch me shave with an electric razor, as if they had never seen one before. Moses lined up some of his neighbors to pose in traditional costumes with spears for a rather funny, touristy photograph. Dinner was a little more appetizing, some small, freshwater fish to go with the meal. The next morning I knew it wouldn't be a whole week's relaxing stay in the village, shivering under the blankets at night and eating potatoes every day. I gave Moses 50,000 Indonesian rupiahs, $5.50 U.S., for the two nights accommodation, I gave his son 70,000 rupiahs, $7.75 U.S., for the food. Moses wanted money for the posed photo, I handed him 20,000 rupiahs. Then there was the guide escorting me to the lake both days, 50,000 rupiahs. Finally, I was asked to donate to a local man who liked to stop and visit me at the house, I gave him 10,000. One local man asked if I'd send shoes back from America, size 38 or 39 in European size. I could see why they'd need shoes. Two guides escorted me to Gita Lake over the hill, one of them was barefoot and the other wore just flimsy flip-flops. It turned out to be a five-hour hike. At one point after the steep uphill climb from Giji Lake, it was possible to see both lakes, Gita and Giji. We descended to a town called Trikora. The area around Gita Lake was heavily forested, with little farmland. My two guides and I stopped at one of the first houses in the village, where I stayed with a local family. I was pretty exhausted, but my guides sat and chatted with my hosts for a while, then got right up and walked back five hours to Hungku, their village. I paid them 50,000 rupiahs each for being my guides, $11 U.S. for the both of them for the day. One of the guides carried my backpack all day. I asked where the toilet was, but the oldest man in the house, named Paulos, the apparent head of the group, didn't understand. After demonstrating what I meant with a gesture, I was pointed to the river. I later lost my appetite for a swim in the lake, after figuring out what was emptying into the lake, untreated. I brought some rice and vegetables from Hungku village. When it came to dinnertime, everyone sat back and waited until I filled up my plate before serving themselves. My host family lived in a traditional house in the region made out of tree branches and thatch. A fire was left burning constantly at one end of the house to keep out the chill. Unfortunately it was also pretty smoky. Men slept on one side of the house, women and children slept on the other. Before going to sleep, the house patriarch, Paulos, began mumbling what sounded like some kind of chant or prayer in bed, a woman on the other side of the room began uttering her own chanting before going to bed. The chanting went on again when they woke up in the morning. The noisy, third world family scene at the house wouldn't have made it very relaxing, so I decided to hike back downhill to the coast. Paulos insisted I take two guides to Ransiki on the coast; he came along as one of the guides, carrying spears, bows and arrows. I was told guides like to travel in pairs, so they don't have to walk back to their village alone, afraid of things like black magic. This time, at least both of them wore flip-flops. The younger guide, named Ezra, wore a T-shirt that read, "Notorious B.I.G.," he said he bought it in Manokwari, but was unaware who the American rap star was. It was another uphill hike over a peak, before descending downhill. There was a deeply rutted dirt road leading downhill to the coast with places where vehicles fell down the hills over soft embankments. A four-wheel drive truck, carrying passengers, eventually passed us heading in the other direction to the Anggi lakes, but I'd rather walk on such a rough road. As we walked up another hill, Paulos would shout out, "puncak!" (pronounced poon-chack), the Indonesian word for hill. We ended up walking through miles of beautiful, virgin, tropical rain forest. It was a seven-hour hike to Mayube, a village where we could pick up transportation to Ransiki, nearby on the coast. I thought if it were me I could surely think of easier ways to earn $5.50 U.S. than walking for seven hours carrying a foreign tourist's pack. It became hotter as I descended. A big group of villagers from Mayube posed for a photo. One boy climbed up a tree to throw us down some tasty grapefruit, the only liquids I'd had all day. A pickup truck left about two and a half hours later for Ransiki, packed with local passengers who stared at me. A woman sitting across from me calmly breastfed her baby. The next day it was a few hours by pickup truck back to Manokwari where I started. I dreamed about my comfortable, air-conditioned room at the Hotel Arfak. Manokwari wasn't a bad place to spend a couple days waiting for my travel permit, or waiting for a boat after the hike. To the west, the Penungan Arfak mountain range rose from the coast. I took an outrigger to Mansinam Island in the middle of the bay, which afforded a perfect view of the mountains silhouetted against the sea. Locals arrived too, cooking fish at a barbecue on the beach and cracking coconuts to empty the coconut milk in a large bucket. Mansinam Island is where two Germans, C.W. Ottow and J.G. Geissler, settled on Feb. 5, 1855, to become the first two missionaries to land in western New Guinea. A church and a huge cross marked the spot. I decided to head to the beach, unfortunately some litter from passing ships marred the picture-postcard scene of palm trees lining a tropical beach. A Papuan fisherman eventually pulled up, curious to see what I was doing on the beach. "Panas! (hot)," he said in Indonesian. "Yeah, panas," I replied. I attempted to relax, closing my eyes on the beach. Ten minutes later I looked up and he was still standing there. "Panas," he said, apparently unsure why a foreigner would lie on a beach in the hot sun. It was hot too, with little breeze on this north coast of New Guinea, requiring frequent dips into the crystal-clear water and coral reefs. I saw only a handful of foreign tourists in Manokwari, two of them were retired Danish doctors who came just to see the butterflies. One of them told me the mountain range outside Manokwari was world famous for its butterflies. Another foreigner, Marie, a young woman from Bologna, Italy, took a bird-watching hike with a guide. The few guides in the area seemed to promote bird watching as the local tourist attraction, especially for Wallace's Bird of Paradise. Marie wanted to travel to Pulau Rumperpon, an island a few hours by boat from Ransiki, but the authorities wouldn't let her proceed from Ransiki as that island wasn't listed on her surat jalan. Unfortunately government red tape makes travel difficult in western New Guinea. At another beach on the mainland of New Guinea, just outside Manokwari, named Pantai Pasir Putih (white sand beach), a Papuan man wanted to talk about the dreams of the local people for independence. Indonesia declared its independence from The Netherlands on Aug. 17, 1945, but western New Guinea wasn't annexed as part of Indonesia until 1962 when former President Soekarno sent in paratroopers to expel the Dutch. Negotiations between the Dutch and Indonesia led to an agreement Aug. 15, 1962 where Indonesia would administer the 162,000 square mile province, but the Dutch negotiator insisted on a vote on whether the natives wanted Indonesian rule. That plebsicite, held in 1969, went in favor of Indonesian rule, but it was derided as a farce by numerous observers, describing the 1,025 electors as handpicked representatives in favor of Indonesian rule. The Papuan man bending my ear said the people there were Melanesian, like people from the southwest Pacific, not Asian. He took note of the fact East Timor, formerly a Portuguese colony, was recently granted independence from Indonesia, becoming the world's newest country. At my first port of call on the west coast of New Guinea, in a pretty, hilly, seaside town called Fak Fak, a parade was held to mark Indonesian Independence Day Aug. 17. But a Papuan woman in the audience told me what she really wanted was Papuan independence. One Papuan man elected not to watch the parade despite the fact one of his sons was dressed in an immaculate, white uniform for the occasion; instead the father drove me all around the area for free. The family, devout Catholics who prayed before every meal, offered me a place to stay, some very warm hospitality. I still recall the plump Papuan mother, her lips stained red from chewing betel nut, looking at me and saying, "Makan? (food?) OK?" and giving me the thumbs up sign. I got a little sick eating the meal, which included a yellow, soupy mixture from the sago palm tree, rice, sardines and other food. I traveled around the big island of New Guinea by boat, going from the west coast to the north coast, where I saw miles of spectacular coastline of mountains and tropical forests lined by white sand beaches, with hardly a person in sight. There was so much to explore, I wanted to get off at a port, find some way to get to these remote places and spend more time on the island. But it would require another trip. |
