Day Trips

Things to see/do

(a)         Buddhist Temple , on the mountain before Skyline. Nice view, nice building, interesting Buddhist reliefs with symbols from Papua art like from the Asmat, like the tree of life – the bodhi tree. There are services Sunday mornings at 10 o’clock.

(b)         Hindu Temple , Skyline, immediately after the sharp bend in the road, where you have a view over Teluk Yos Sudarso (Teluk Yotefa) go left. Meet the Balinese. Best time: new moon or full moon, the two major monthly feast days of the Hindus..

(c)         Bapedalda. Office of environmental protection, Skyline. Nice view over Yotefa Bay with the islands Engros and Tobati. Good place for pictures. From Abepura/Kota Raja turn left after the Hindu Temple . Opposite is the entrance of the Yotefa National Park .

(d)         Tabla Supa, the village tucked in between Pantai Amai and Pantai Tanah Merah. You can walk through the village, pass the graveyard and reach Pantai Tanah Merah in this way by foot. The church of Tabla Supa has some interesting paintings. The village can provide home stay. Ask for Peter. His wife speaks Dutch. See the huge tame tortoises under his house.

(e)         Dormena, on the North coast. Beautiful, clean village. You must have been here. Nice people. Very interesting church, the Bethlehem church (GKI) with a wall around decorated with about 25 reliefs, depicting the main stories of the Old and the New Testament. You go by car to Amai and Tanah Merah. You have to stop at a primary school and park there as the road is broken down. You walk then in about half an hour to Dormena. On the way, to the right you see an interesting “church of the rock.’ This church is built on a huge rock. The rock is the symbol for Jesus. The building has one storey at the front and two stories at the back. The people there are willing to take guests for the night. There is a nice beach nearby, they say. The church services are on Saturdays.

(f)          Ormu, village North of the Cyclops Mountains . It is said that it is the only place, apart from the interior, where the people are still making stone tools, now only used as bride price or bride wealth (emas kawin) in the Sentani area. You can take the perahu Johnson from Market Hamadi or from the harbour. You can also charter a prow Johnson from Depapre. There seems to be a walking path across the Cyclops to Ormu. The road starts at the “swembad” at the military complex of Ifar Gunung. It is a day’s walk. I have not yet tried it.

(g)         Demta. Village on the North coast. Go to the left after reaching the village. At the primary school there is a museum with two stories, with a collection paintings, woodcarvings and ancient stone statues, which come from the caves, in the past used to bury the dead. Charlie Saba, schoolteacher and artist will guide you around. He can also help you organizing trips by prow to beaches, Tarfia with the caves, Bukisi Island , and neighbouring villages. On the way to Demta, halfway Kali Biru and Demta to you left you see a river coning out of a rock. Very clear water.

(h)         Tarfia. Village with old graves in caves. Some of the contents of these caves are on display in the museum of Charlie Saba at the primary school in Demta. There is here also an ancient basin made from clay, used to keep sago, bananas etc. The basin is 4 to 5 meters high.

(i)          Ambora. Village west of Demta. Nice church, the Baithel church, with   painting of Jacob’s dream on the outside wall. In the church is a well with never ending water, a miracle well. People use the water to cure sick people.  

(j)          Bukisi Island , also called Desa Marowai, the name of the river behind the village.. Half an hour by motor perahu from Demta or from Depapre. Beautiful island. Good for swimming. There is also a river. Caves. Old graveyard. If you ask for home stay it can be organized, though there is only one bed, the bed in the unused clinic, which stands on the beach. Here is an excellent dance group on the island, which got the first price at dance competitions. The group/village composed a dance which is based on the history and life philosophy of the Papua people.

(k)         Lereh. This is as far as you can go with a normal car. You can go in one day and back to Lereh from Jayapura. Interesting trip through the forests, though a lot of trees are cut. You follow the road to Demta and turn left at a metal bridge, the Juliana Bridge Be careful for the huge trucks heavily loaded with trees. They drive fast and are of the opinion that they own the road, which in fact is also the case. This is the Enterprise Road , Jalan Perusahaan, made by the wood companies.

(l)          You can drive around Sentani Lake . Take the road to Demta. Go straight at a place where the road makes a sharp turn to the right. Continue that dirt road which leads past the Office (Kantor) cemat Gemtuek (district office). You can also start at the other end, where you take the road to Arso 3 and 4 through Yoka Pantai. Go right after you have left the lake on your right hand side

(m)        Yoka Pantai: a nice village. Take the road from Waena to Arso 3 and 4. Have a look at the harbour to your right. Continue to the church building. Go to the right. Then on your left you have the old mission hospital made of gaba-gaba. You continue to have a look at the traditional houses which stand on poles in the water. You may ask to have a look in one of these houses. Very pittoresque. You continue going to your left and you will see the large wooden house of the ondoafi Mesakh Mebri. You can ask to see the house from the inside.

Two houses away from the house of the ondoafi is the small house of a Dutch teacher of the Jongensvervolgschool of Yoka, Lutzen de Graaf. Have a look at the nice woodcarvings of the door of his house. If you follow the tar road to Arso you will see on your left a very large tree. This is the tree on the place where once the house of Reverend Izaak Samuel Kijne stood. He is the one who translated the psalms and hymns of the hymnbook Mazmur dan Nyanyian Rohani still in daily use in the GKI and other churches. He wrote a song book called Suling Mas, with the song that became the national anthem of the Papuans on 1 December 1961. He also wrote the famous children book Kota Emas, The Golden City, where two children, a Papuan boy and his friend, a Dutch girl,   after much difficulties meet Jesus. Rev. Kijne founded a theological school in Miei in the 1920s and in the early 1950s one in Serui. This school evolved into the Theological College that bears his name in Abepura.

(n)         Doyo Lama: prehistoric rock paintings and microliths. Good place for picnics s there are several shelters on the way to the top of the hill. Best time to visit is in the afternoon. Beautiful sunset over the Lake . The people of Doyo Lame say that these megaliths were not decorated by them or by their ancestors. When their ancestors came from   what is now PNG they found already these rocks and the paintings and engravings. The people who made them had then already gone. The village on the lake is also of interest. Visit the two houses of the ondoafis. One is a large modern house on a hill, when you enter the village from the main road. The other is down at the waterfront. Go left. Then you find it on your right-hand side. Everybody knows the place. This one has interesting woodcarvings as poles.

(o)         Vanimo. It is possible to take a day trip to Vanimo or spend the weekend there. An experienced Vanimo traveller is Jaap van de Werf at Entrop, who goes there almost weekly. In Vanimo you can do shopping e.g. for whole-wheat flour. You can spend the night at a seaside hotel with good Australian food. Price about US$ 40 a night. You get your visa at the PNG consulate. You then drive to the border and leave the car there. You can arrange that somebody pick you up at the border. It is the Dutch person who owns a petrol station in Vanimo. Jaap van de Werf of Entrop has the details.

Caves

(a)      Demta (ask somebody at the Christian primary school, SD YPK, for a perahu and a guide)

(b)     Cyclops – at the Middle Falls – watch the bats and it is slippery)

Cinemas: there are none in Sentani, Abepura or Jayapura. People now rent VCDs. Plenty of places to rent VCDs. CV Podanatur (Wearness Computers) at APO , has I guess, the largest collection. Also VCDs and CD Roms for sale. It is a pity the cinema in Sentani was closed as it was build by the Americans in Wordl War II. The building is to the right on the way to the Pasar, before the junction.

Mountain climbing/hiking

(See also waterfalls)

(a)      Siklop ( Cyclops Mountains ). Height: 6,420 feet ( 2,000 meter ). Time needed: ca. 12 hours up and down. Difficult between 2,500 and 4,000 feet (750 and 1,200 meter ) depending on the weather. You need dry weather. Guide: ask WWF at their office at the foot of the mountain on Jalan Post Tujuh. Do not go alone. Find a reliable guide or guides. Without them it is dangerous.

(b)     Along stream behind the old campus of STT Walter Post. Follow the pipes of the conduit pipes. Take either side of the stream. You can cross to the West side at the new (still unused water reservoir). These are tracks made by woodcutters.  

(c)      Buper. In the bend, where people are washing their cars and the road goes up. Go left from Sentani. Good footpath till a nice place for a picnic. This only makes for a short walk, say 15 minutes.

(d)     Ifar Gunung. After the guard post, where you report, go at the roundabout to the left instead of to the right, where you go to the MacArthur monument. You follow the road and end up at a place where there is a Pentecostal Church in an old Quonset of the American Army. You take a walking track up the hills behind the church. To your right is the large fuel container from the American period, now used as a water reservoir. The road down takes you to a place where you can swim and have a picnic. The road up is the walking track to Ormu. It is a 5 to 7 hours hike.

Islands

(a)      Pulau Enggros and Tobati in the Teluk Yos Sudarso ( Yotefa Bay ). Take the boat from Tanah Hitam. Take the new road or the old road opposite Toko Mega Grosir. Go left. At the new road left again. After a large house to the right you see a path going up. You can park the car up there and wait for the boat to bring you to Enggros and Tobati. The people have a quite famous dance group. If you arrange it beforehand the villagers are prepared to serve you a meal, if you come with a group. There is also a possibility for homestay. The bluely painted GKI church is worth a visit. The church was build shortly after World War II with building material left over from war stores.

(b)     Pulau Asei in Lake Sentani . Take the perahu from Yahim, Sentani or from Merci, before Yougwa (from Sentani) (the old site of Restaurant Meerzicht). Bark cloth paintings, Famous woodcarver Herman Ohee lives here. To visit him go right where the motor perahu   lands, and follow the path along the coast. On the top of the only hill of Asei there used to be a church with a very nice tower. It has gone into pieces and the village is now rebuilding the church. The new church has some interesting black and white paintings.

(c)      Pulau Kayu Pulau (Pulau Salib) – get perahu from Argapura, just before marine dock. The village is the home village of Nicolaas Jouwe , the famous Papua leader who now lives in Holland . His house is still there, though in ruins. The people of this village used to own the whole of Jayapura and Argapura. The Dutch government bought it from in the mid 1950s for NLG 100,000, a very considerable sum at that time. The headman of the village was sent to Holland to learn how to use this money as starting capital for a cooperative society. On his return much of the money had already disappeared to the great disappointment of the headman. Now the island has some land at Argapura and at the harbour next to the navy complex. Several villagers had to move to Skouw, near the PNG border to find land for farming.

(d)     Ifar-Le: large church with reliefs, build with money from Bas Suebu, Governor of Papua Province during his previous period as a governor of the province , who originates from this island. If you walk alongside this church on the left hand side and continue following the shore you come at a place where an even larger church is going to be constructed. At the moment there has not been more progress beyond the three founding stones

(e)      Pulau Anus, off the coast between Demta and Sarmi. Japanese remains from World War II