Jayapura

After two nights on a ship, curled around my bags, holding my trusty Swiss Army knife as protection from the spak (drunk) man that assaulted me in Wewak, I found myself in the sleepy town of Vanimo. While waiting the 24 hours it takes to receive my Indonesian visa, I snorkeled in the bay and body surfed waves near the seaside market.

Thanks to my American passport, the border crossing was relatively easy. The Indonesian officials required my Japanese friend, who I met on the ship in Wewak, to complete a few extra formalities.

I noticed the differences between PNG and West Papua immediately. The scenery transitioned quickly from seaside huts to motorbikes speeding across smoothly paved roads. Although its only a 2 hour drive between Vanimo and Jayapura, the culture is quite diverse; however, both are equally covered with trash. Guess that goes along with being border towns?

The city is buzzing with people and motorbikes. Its so freeing to be able to walk the streets at night and not have to worry about being raped or stabbed with a bush knife. People are everywhere, kids running in and out of the stalls. Imagine any Southeast Asian country. Street vendors selling everything from buai, sunglasses, pirated dvds and dcs, dried fish, shoes, mobile phones. Most of the food I've eaten has been from street vendors...fried bananas, fried taro, fried something that was greasy and crunchy??? For my Thanksgiving dinner I had some type of fish ball noodle soup...well, I hope it was fish and not one of the may cats I see roaming the littered streets. Its not like I can read the menu or understand the language.

Everyone speaks Bahasa, which makes things more challenging. In the taxi crossing the border I was able to get a few translations from Pidgin to Bahasa. Most communication is written in a small book I carry around. Yesterday when I tried to book a flight to Flores with the travel agency, the man drew a clock with the hands pointing to 9:00..I took that as "come back tomorrow at 9!" Finally today after 3 hours, a motorbike ride to buy a map, and the handful of words I had scratched into my book, I was able to get a flight to Bali.

Today Kit (the Japanese volunteer) and I roamed through an enormous market. Shirts, mops, fresh fish, oil, buckets, garlic, watermelon, shoes, chairs, soap, nuts, dried fish, and lots of other familiar and unrecognizable things. We tasted some fruit which skin looked like a snake. It wasn't delicious but was very interesting.

Luckily tonight there is a live music festival! I couldn't have arrived at a better time.

I leave for the airport at 430 in the morning and hope to find my way to Flores from Bali. And the adventure continues.....