Indonesia days 25 to 30 - Raja Ampat, West Papua

Sunset from the rooftop bar with a GnT at the Aston hotel in Sorong. 

Another travel day, but we arrived safely in Sorong and went to the Aston Hotel, same chain as in Makassar. The WiFi connected automatically.

We came straight off the plane, as usual, as we don't have to wait for luggage, and found our driver. He was very keen so off we went, unaware that our guide had just arrived at the airport.

Arriving on the ferry in Waisai in the Raja Ampat reserve. It was chaos of course, 200 people all trying to exit, but Angelissa had a car waiting for us, the advantage of arranging everything before

We checked in, early, hurrah, at last and went and dropped our bags as Angelissa arrived to say hello. She seems nice, though slightly mad, but that's not necessarily a bad thing!

The Korpak resort entrance looks nice enough, there's a swimming pool through the back with little huts around it

We had a little lunch and actually used the swimming pool, though there was something strange about it being right outside the restaurant, and them apparently laying up some long tables for an event right behind us.

But we went past the swimming pool and along a walkway through mangrove trees...

A GnT at the rooftop bar watching the sun go down, very civilised. Hopefully my request not to be on this level when we return on Saturday, and they have live music will be noted. Today it was good though.

And out onto a walkway on the shallow sea to a lovely hut on stilts on the water

Day 26

We don't know what to do with ourselves, having asked a couple of days ago what time our ferry was, we were told 9.00 or 14.00. We asked for 09.00, but apparently it was sold out, so we have all morning to kill which was very relaxing.

Thats our home for three days. The boat leaves from the end of this walkway each day

13.00 the same driver appeared and put us in the car, apparently just as Angelissa was arriving, but again, he didn't wait.

And that's the restaurant over there a short walk away

We got to the ferry port and the car was descended upon by 'porters' lots of divers come here, with big bags. Unsurprisingly we said no! The driver, Tian, led us through the mass of people and took us to the VIP ferry cabin, all without tickets, they are with Angelissa, but it didn't seem to matter! She appeared shortly after, though after a quick chat she vanished off. Apparently it's too cold for her!

Sunset from our balcony

Only a couple of hours and we are in Waisai on West Papua in an area called Raja Ampat, highly recommended by J&M. The pictures of the accommodation, over the sea looked lovely, so we were very pleased to find we are actually in one of these little huts (with AC and fan), for three nights. Only downside, the WiFi is very intermittent, but it's enough to say we are alive I guess!

First day in Raja Ampat and we had an hour and a half fast boat across the Halmahera Sea to the island of Piaynemo

We watched the sunset and thought we'd go and have a beer. They don't sell beer, but the girl said she could go somewhere to fetch one. 15 minutes! You'd better get two then! Good as gold, she did. She also said they could get some from the town tomorrow, which would be cheaper! Wouldn't it just be easier to sell beer?

And up the first rough steps to the Star Lagoon viewpoint

Day 27

Breakfast at 07.30, Angel turned up a little later, but she'd already had breakfast at her hostel in the town. What a pain for her that she isn't staying here, but I guess that's not our problem. 

Theres the viewpoint, the star lagoon is on the left. A baby shark (don't sing the song!) swam into the lagoon...

Be ready for 09.00, and we go in the boat. A fast boat, just us, but it still took an hour and a half to get to the famous viewpoint. We know it's famous, it's on the 100,000 rupiah note. It was beautiful. We even went to the second viewpoint first and had it to ourselves, lovely, except the the Captain put some hideous loud music we could hear all the way up on for some reason!

Thats the best photo I got

We stopped at a little jetty on the way back to have our packed lunch from the hotel. I almost couldn't eat, because we are snorkeling here too, and I can see something breaking the surface. A manta ray she said. I was in as quickly as I could be, but she said we had to approach calmly and quietly, so we stopped to look at the school of big bumphead parrot fish as they came passed, and he did film them this time. I was heading to where the rough water had started, where the ray had been. This was about where the water got very shallow over the reef, but what I didn't realise was also where the current picked up. I beat a hasty retreat as it really was quite scary the amount of effort I had to put in to get back to Brian and Angel.

Angel our guide poses for a photo

I think this was probably better than the previous snorkels, but they do all blur together, it was beautiful though, until the thunder started get closer and we thought we'll better get out! Big clams and another eel were good though.

Onto the main viewpoint which was served by some wide wooden stairs to give easy access for the many people who come here for this view. The platform only holds 30 people and we had to wait for all the people who wanted to pose, including people with drones! It is a lovely view

There seemed to be a surprise stop on the way back, after we went through the rainstorm, a sandbank just there, in the middle of the sea, only at low tide. Captain reversed up to it and we could get out and stand on it, nearly an island, in the middle of nowhere, what a very odd feeling.

The 100,000 Rupiah note (their largest denomination note and worth about £4.70) has this view on the reverse. I did however note that there was a lady in a pose next to the view. Well, we need to try and create that....

Back to the hotel, and straight into the shower, fully clothed, again to rinse the salt through, though we are out snorkeling again tomorrow, it's nicer not to put on salty clothes.

Best effort!

Dinner was a much busier affair, we were almost on our own yesterday. Today there are two new, big groups of Indonesians, I just hope they are quiet.

Angelisa was intent on getting us to pose so we had to do many of these!

Day 28

Feels like a bit of a short one, but we've spent a lot of it snorkeling and my fingers are wrinkly. Our first site was beautiful, except for the huge amounts of trash floating around us which was really depressing. There were also a lot of small jellyfish around that stung us, not in a bad way but just felt a bit like being picked lightly with needles. We quickly moved on and found ourselves looking down on divers. I'm still not sure it's worth the bother, except you get to go to deeper places to see manta rays and whale sharks, which would be amazing. That would be a different trip though, so we'll stick with snorkeling. It was really quite noticeable, the difference in temperature, visibility and current, in a really small area, most peculiar.

Back in the fast boat we went to Airboroi island and pulled up to a jetty for lunch and our first snorkel. The jetty came out so far as the sea was shallow up to this point but then shelved down very deep

I think we did four snorkels in the end, though Angel was reluctant to do the last one. If she'd said the one before lunch was the last, before we went in I might have let it go, but with no warning that was it, it just didn't seem right. They were all beautiful, but the rubbish was horrible, particularly as everyone has paid 1,000,000 rupiah to enter the national park. What do we get for our money?

Amazingly clear sea and fabulous coral

Lunch was on a tiny beach, with very soft sand, quite unlike the sand bank yesterday, which I'm still emptying out of the cuffs on my trousers. How it got in there I really don't know.

These huge lump-head parrot fish swam by. They were big, they must have been 700 or 800mm long

Brian is now swearing at the underwater camera which went flat, mid transfer to his phone so he doesn't now know which videos have transferred and which haven't. He spent a long time being irritable by this yesterday too! Hopefully he'll get some pictures of the turtles, and huge moray eel and whatever else he filmed for the blog. Writing about snorkeling is very difficult.

I'm going to try to upload a short video of this turtle as it briefly came up for air before diving quickly to the bottom where it disappeared in amongst the rocks

Out of the hotel by car at 08.00 to the blue river. We didn't really know what this was all about, except that I knew it involved paddling. After an interesting drive and arriving at what looked like a lake but was salt water we got in a little boat. Taken across the lake we got out at a wide, slow, shallow river and paddled upstream.

I hope the video will appear here!

We finally arrived at a slightly blue coloured deep water hole in another stream. There had obviously been a breakdown in communication, I'd asked how deep the water was and she'd said below the knee, which it was till we got to the blue river which was deep, no standing up in that. I was wearing my bikini bottoms under my shorts, but not my top and Brian had just unzipped his trousers. He didn't go in at all and I managed to take my bra off under my top and go in like that. It was wonderfully cool and very pretty, but as that was the activity for the morning we weren't quite prepared for it!

Angelisa took this as we were selecting our dinner from the buffet. The BBQ fish in the nearest dish were fabulous!

Back to the jetty, quick shower, try to dry stuff before the ferry, which is why we hadn't wanted to swim in the first place, back in the car, still slightly damp, me and my clothes and off to the ferry, very early. At least in VIP it was cool, though sadly unlike on the way out we couldn't connect to the WiFi.

We gave her a £10 note to add to her collection of foreign currency which she seemed quite taken with

An uneventful journey fortunately and back to the same hotel we left from. Rudy the manager had been true to his word and we were on 5, two floors below the live music, which still hadn't even started by the time we left the rooftop after sunset, beer and dinner.

Next day, out on another, smaller boat. They had a ladder (you can see behind me) to allow us to get back in after snorkeling. See how we are fully covered? It's to stop us getting sunburnt as we snorkel

Day 30 

Started early and stressed. The flight today is two flights, though whether we get off the plane we are not sure. We are going to back to Surabaya, originally via Ambon. This flight was cancelled before we left the UK and we were told that instead of travelling with SuperAirJet (who incidentally use Airbus A320's) we would be travelling with Lion Air (Boeing 737's) via Makassar. No new tickets or anything. Looking on the Lion Air app yesterday had just brought up error messages about incorrect details. Hmmm. The check-in website did seem to recognise our booking number and happily told us we couldn't check-in till 04.30 (11 hours before the flight)!

More clear waters and lots of fish. These are batfish, probably Orbicular batfish. They were quite happy for me to follow them at a gentle speed

I woke at 03.30, Brian finally at 05.30, but on the check-in app it said there were no seats to allocate, a problem had arisen and please try later. We did, and tried contacting our agent (but they are 2 hours behind us, and it's a Sunday) and tried messaging the airline and on and on.

Jackie found this moray eel and motioned me to come quickly. Managed to get some video which I'll try and post below. If there's just a gap in the text you'll know it didn't work!

07.30 while in breakfast, planning to walk over to the airport we finally managed to check in, and have boarding passes. Hurrah 

I hope the video will appear here!

Not sure, a pikefish?

08.30, writing this in bed hoping I may doze off after!

Now in some ways I'm not bothered about getting to Surabaya to do mount Bromo as this involves leaving the hotel at midnight which is going to be fairly hideous. BUT Surabaya is on Java, as is Jakarta and our flight home. The flight there is on a Boeing, not an Airbus, unlike our next flight, to Komodo. Will that happen? Who knows, but at least we should be able to get home!

He just swam right past the camera, so I had to take a photo! Google lens suggests it's a Salema Porgy fish (it may have hallucinogenic effects if eaten)

Angelisa wanted to take a photo of us but we didn't feel like being sensible!

She made another attempt!

Next day we were off again. We weren't really sure what the day entailed and Angelissa's relative lack of English didn't really prepare us. We had a 40 or 50 minute road trip on fairly poor roads to a village called Warsamdin on an estuary, got in this boat (after the captain had finished his shower) and set off up river, turning into a much smaller river, my map says the Kalibiru

Into the smaller river, which was very shallow. He continued until it was too shallow, parked up and out we got

To paddle upstream

Along a boardwalk in need of major work. I asked where we were going and was told 'to the river'. Haven't we just come from a river?

We arrived here at a river, with benches, a deck area and lots of people swimming. It was too deep to paddle and I had nothing to swim in. If only I'd know, or understood.

Jackie decided she was going in anyway, along with Angelissa. Apparently it was quite cool and a welcome relief from the heat of the day

It was an idyllic spot

With a convenient fallen tree to rest on

And a platform from which I could take photos

Angelissa, being relatively young, decided we needed to pose, as all the others were doing for their Instagram feeds, so here we are doing just what she asked

I did quite like this one she took though

Well, that's about it from Raja Ampat, we had a 2 hour journey (plus an hour and a half waiting on board) back on the ferry to Sorong. We were in an air conditioned VIP area on the ferry (not all that VIP though), Angelissa was in cattle class. She had our ferry tickets and when the man came round for the tickets after we'd set off I told him our guide Angelissa had them and she was somewhere on board. After discussion with others who presumably had enough English to understand what we were saying they wandered off. She reappeared as we neared Sorong dripping in sweat and wanting any excuse to stand by our seats so she could cool off in the aircon. It was unpleasant and smelly in her cheap seats she said, lucky we had the VIP area! We've had a night back in the Aston hotel in Sorong, eventually managed to check in for our LionAir flight to Surabaya (Lion Air are the Indonesian equivalent to Ryan Air - even sounding the same over the airport speakers) and are waiting to be picked up at 1:00pm for our 15:30 flight to Surabaya via Makassar. Hopefully that goes well, now we're checked in. The hotel generously allowed us to stay in our room until 13:00 so we're relaxing in Aircon before heading out into the heat! See you in Surabaya!