Sorong – Gateway To Raja Ampat

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Tara

Sorong is actually more than just a gateway city, there are good birding spots in the lowland forests outside the city. They will be covered in a separate blog post. It’s worth spending a couple extra days here to check them out. I’ve already covered how to get here in the Raja Ampat post, so let’s have a look at where to stay and what to do here. Google seems to have upgraded the zoom level of Sorong since the last time I looked. The A in the green bubble is the Royal Mamberamo Hotel, the red X I made is the JE Meridien Hotel and the red arrow shows the road out of town that leads to the lowland forest birding areas of Hutan Lindung and beyond to Makbon.

WHERE TO STAY

At the time I was looking and booking, I couldn’t find a good map of Sorong that shows where the hotels are and where the road to Makbon is so I just had to go off Trip Advisor reviews to choose a hotel. I chose Royal Mamberamo Hotel because it got mostly good reviews and I didn’t know exactly where any of the hotels were located except that I knew JE Meridien was across the street from the airport.

Royal Mamberamo Hotel, Sorong

Nice canoe carving in breakfast room at Royal Mamberamo Hotel

We took the cheapest room for 425,000 rupiah ($42) which had a very strong AC but no window. That was OK as we didn’t plan to spend much time in the room. It was very basic but had English programs on tv which was good as there is nothing to do in the evening. The breakfast buffet was pretty good and offered Western and Indonesian items. The location is out of the city centre with a few shops withing walking distance, even a hair salon which I visited when my husband wanted to nap. They can organize a car and driver at 70,000 ($7) rupiahs per hour who will take you where you want to go and stop wherever you want. I’d call this a decent hotel but bad location for birders.

I did get a look at some other hotels. The Cendrawasih Hotel is cheaper and across the street down a block from Royal Mamberamo. They had a taxidermied Greater BOP and some nice artwork on the walls.

Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

Taxidermied Greater BOPS at Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

Artwork Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

While we were driving to the birding spot, we passed the Hotel Mariat Sorong which was more centrally located near a shopping centre and looked OK. As I mentioned, the JE Meridien (yeah I know – Mariat, Meridien but sorry, you won’t get MR or SPG points here) is across the street from the airport. We ended up going in here to ask dierections at the small tourist office when our driver got lost. It looked good enough and was on the road going out of town so a more convenient location for birders. If we were to go back to Sorong, we would stay here. The Luxio Hotel was further down the road towards Hutan Lindung but there was nothing else in the area so it wouldn’t be my first choice because I usually choose by location but it did get some good reviews.

EATING AND SHOPPING

Most people eat in their hotels for the convenience but we did have the driver stop at the KFC on the way back to the hotel for some take-away. If you are going to Batanta by charter boat, there are a couple supermarkets, one near the KFC and one near the Mariat Hotel where you can stock up if your tour leader doesn’t do it for you. There are a couple of good craft shops. One is uphill from Royal Mamberamo (ask the receptionist to point it out) behind the BUMA building. The other is in the airport before you go past security which has similar items to the BUMA shop and also T-shirts and beautiful sarongs with BOPs on them. They have some nice New Guinea masks, statues, handbags and other crafts. Please DO NOT buy anything like the hats (photos below) with the dead Birds of Paradise on them. They killed these poor birds just to make these hats to sell to tourists and we don’t want to encourgage this. But don’t boycott the shop altogether as the other things are sourced from different craftsmen who shouldn’t suffer along with the guilty. It’s best to let the shop see that tourists will buy crafts that do not harm wildlife but won’t touch anything where birds are killed so hopefully they will stop stocking these items.

Gift shop behind BUMA uphill from Royal Mamberamo Hotel

***DO NOT BUY THESE*** Whole bird – Lesser BOP on hat

SIGHTSEEING AROUND SORONG

Not really much to see, several attractive mosques and some monuments. There’s a pretty good view from on top of the hill near BUMA.

Outside BUMA uphill from Royal Mamberamo Hotel

Shanties on hill above Royal Mamberamo Hotel

Not sure what they are selling but I liked the bird pics

Sorong Mosque

Entrance to Sorong Airport

Waigeo And The World’s Cheapest Overwater Bungalows

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Tara

If you are coming to this blog from the miles and points community, no doubt you will have read some other blogs about the beautiful over-water bungalows in Bora Bora and the Maldives. They average about $500 a night, cost between $200-500 to get to the island the resort is on and meals are not included. One blogger did try to find some bargains but even those started at $280. Yes, you can get to some of them on miles and hotel points but with the recent devaluations even that can be expensive. I have a new addition to the 16 cheapest overwater bungalows in the world!

What if I told you there was a small but attractive eco-resort with overwater bungalows at high tide in one of the world’s top diving locations, not to mention many exotic birds? All this for the princely sum of $70 per couple including 3 meals a day!

Introducing the HamuEco Resort! As I said yesterday, it is easy and cheap to get from Sorong to Waigeo and if you contact the English speaking manager Hasna via Facebook, she will send a taxi to pick you up at the dock and bring you to the resort for around $20.

HamuEco Resort

Entering our OWB

The trees behind my husband Ina are where you see Palm Cockatoos

Beds have mosquito nets

What I loved most about this place was the fact that I could lie on the bed, look out the door to the right and see Palm Cockatoos flying over the trees and to the left was the deck facing the sunset!

I saw several Palm Cockatoos and one Eclectus.

Bathrooms are shared and located ashore down the pier so you will need a flashlight at night. They have a generator which they shut off at night but they are flexible if you need to charge your batteries.

Bathrooms are to the right of the building on shore

The main course will be catch-of-the-day but for people who don’t eat fish, they can do eggs and veggies, not sure what else as that was all I asked for.

Dinner

You can see fish when you sit on the deck!

Hammock on the deck

Watching fish from the deck

High tide

Low tide

Hasna can book you on scuba diving, snorkeling trips and also arrange an excellent bird guide named Benny. I will put the birding info in the next post so stay tuned!

Stormy sunset

View from the room

Raja Ampat – A Treasure For Birders As Well As Divers

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Tara

Out of all the places in West Papua I have been blogging about, Raja Ampat is the one most likely to be familiar to most tourists. It is one of the world’s greatest scuba diving destinations and there are many blogs and websites to help you organize a dive trip on either a live-aboard boat or based in a resort. Some of the resorts also offer bird watching so I will mention that where appropriate.

Location of Sorong and Raja Ampat

GETTING THERE

As of this writing, you can fly into the airport of Sorong (SOQ) with Sriwijaya (Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta, Manokwari, Surabaya, Makassar); Express Air (Jakarta-Soekarno-Hatta, Jayapura, Manokwari, Surabaya, Makassar, Yogyakarta); Merpati (Jayapura, Manokwari); and Wings Abadi/Lion Air (Ambon). None of these airlines currently offer online booking and payment with a non-Indonesian credit card except possibly Merpati. In my article about Sriwijaya, I describe how to use an Indonesian travel agent to book the tickets. The good news is that Garuda will be starting service to Manokwari and Sorong in July 2013 so in the future you will be able to book these flights online. Garuda is due to join SkyTeam later this year so you will be able to use miles to redeem tickets all the way from your home airport to Sorong!

Arriving in Sorong

RAJA AMPAT DIVING TAGS AND CONSERVATION FEES

If you visit any of the scuba diving sites, you will see this mentioned. I didn’t know about it before we left as I had been visiting mostly birding sites and only heard about it from another tourist on the ferry to Waigeo. They were planning on diving and also hiring a boat to go to some more remote islands. We weren’t planning on even snorkeling so didn’t look into this before we left. No one asked for “tags” on the ferry so I tend to think that if you will only be on the main island of Waigeo and not diving you don’t need the tags. There is a bit of a grey area if you are hiring a charter boat to go to Batanta and Salawati. Some of the diving websites that I looked at just now mention that the tags are inspected on the boats. If you think you need to buy the tags, when you arrive in Sorong, walk across the street to the JE Meridien Hotel and buy them there.

Raja Ampat Lodges Site

Stay Raja Ampat Site

FERRY TO WAIGEO

The main reason I chose Waigeo as our birding destination is because you can get there on a public ferry rather than having to charter a boat. Most birding tour groups charter a boat and go to Batanta and Salawati. The birdlife is pretty much the same on Waigeo and Batanta, Salawati does have some different species.

It will cost around 50,000 rupiah to get to the ferry terminal but you will have to bargain for this price and probably go outside the airport to the main street and head to the left. Taxi drivers don’t speak English so have someone write “ferry to Waisai” on a piece of paper. Once there, you buy your tickets and any supplies you want to bring to the island-water, cold drinks, snacks. You don’t have to buy too much as Waigeo is the main population centre of Raja Ampat and there are shops and small restaurants on the island. There will also be people coming around on the ferry to sell snacks.

A ferry leaves Sorong daily to Waisai around 2pm but it’s best to be on board around 1pm. Seats are assigned and cost 120,000 rupiah ($12). The ferry back to Sorong from Waisai also leaves at 2pm and costs the same. It’s a pleasant 2.5-3 hour trip.

Ticket booth for ferry to Waigeo

Food stalls, buy snacks and drinks

Walk down the pier, ferry is on the left.

Vendors selling snacks to passengers

Arrival at Waisai

View of ferry at Waisai dock

Food stalls with “Ojek” taxis waiting in front

GETTING TO OTHER ISLANDS SUCH AS BATANTA AND SALAWATI

There are no public ferries to these islands so you will need to charter a boat complete with captain, first mate and bring enough food supplies to feed them, yourselves and a couple of guides once you get there. You will need to get to Dom Island and ask around for a charter boat. Papua Bird Club may be able to help with this. Expect to pay around $100-150 per day. You will need to hire the boat for the duration of your stay but it will be available to use for side trips to Salawati or snorkeling excursions.

Coming next: Waigeo, top birds and the world’s cheapest overwater bungalows!

Birding In Indonesia

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Tara

INDONESIA’S BIRDING HOTSPOTS

From Crowned-Pigeons and Birds-of-Paradise, to endemic Pheasants and Pittas, not to mention a wide variety of parrots such as Cockatoos, Lories, Fig Parrots, Eclectus and more – Indonesia has some of the world’s best birdwatching. Spanning two continents and home to over 1,600 species (including almost 400 endemics) there are plenty of reasons to come birding in Indonesia, then come again and again.

I have found the Burung Nusantara website a tremendous resource for planning my own trip to West Papua in the near future. They also have comprehensive guides on how to get to the birding hotspots, what species to look for and how to organize guides. Some places where birders flock to such as the Arfak Mountains and Raja Ampat don’t have email or cell phones so it can be very difficult to get ahold of guides or book things in advance. In the low season, it should be feasible to just show up and ask for a guide, preferably one of the recommended guides on this site as they have good experience and skills. In the busy season, you will probably need to find some way to book in advance, otherwise you may find that the best guides are already booked by major birding tour operators. Ekkie

Here’s a selection of recommended birding hotspots and where you can read more about them. In future posts, I will take each one in more detail as to how to get there and organize the birding in that area and how you can reach Indonesia from your country using your frequent flyer miles.

SERAM

Key bird species:

Forsten’s Scrubfowl; Rufous-necked Sparrowhawk; Meyer’s Goshawk; ‘Seram’ (Long-tailed) Mountain-Pigeon; Salmon-crested Cockatoo; Red Lory; Blue-eared Lory; Purple-naped Lory; Moluccan King-Parrot; Moluccan Scops-Owl; Moluccan Boobook; Lesser Masked-Owl; Lazuli Kingfisher; ‘Seram’ Swiftlet; Olive Honeyeater; Seram Honeyeater; Seram Myzomela; Wakolo Myzomela; Seram Friarbird; Moluccan Cuckoo-shrike; Pale-gray Cuckoo-shrike; Black-chinned Monarch; ‘Seram’ Golden Bulbul; Cinnamon-chested Flycatcher; Seram Thrush; Streaky-breasted Fantail; Drab Whistler; Seram White-eye; Rufescent White-eye; Gray-hooded White-eye; Seram Oriole; Moluccan Starling; Long-crested Myna.

ARFAK

Key species:

Magnificent Bird-or-Paradise; Black Sicklebill; Long-tailed Paradigalla; Arfak Astrapia; Arfak Bowerbird; Lesser Bird-of-Paradise; Superb Bird-of-Paradise; New Guinea Eagle; Feline Owlet-Nightjar; Mountain Owlet-Nightjar; Spotted Jewel-Babbler; Chestnut-backed Jewel-Babbler Spotted Catbird; Flame Bowerbird; Magnificent Riflebird; Buff-tailed Sicklebill.

RAJA AMPAT

Key species:

Wilson’s Bird-of-Paradise; Red Bird-of-Pardise; King Bird-of-Paradise; Northern Cassowary; Western Crowned-pigeon; Pheasant Pigeon; Black Lory; Beach Kingfisher; Bruijn’s Brush-turkey.

NIMBOKRANG

Key species:

Northern Cassowary; Pale-billed Sicklebill; Blue-and-Black Kingfisher; Brown Lory; Twelve-wired Bird-of-Paradise; Shovel-billed Kingfisher; Victoria Crowned Pigeon; King Bird-of-Paradise; Blue Jewel Babbler; Brown-necked Crow; Hook-billed Kingfisher; Vulturine Parrot; Papuan Hawk-owl; Lesser Bird-of-Paradise; Brown-collared Brush-turkey; Greater Black Coucal; Papuan Nightjar; Grey Crow; Black-sided Robin; Lowland Peltops; White-eared Catbird; Wompoo Fruit-Dove; Coroneted Fruit-Dove.

BIAK AND NUMFOR

Key species:

Long-tailed Starling, Biak Black Flycatcher; Biak Paradise-kingfisher; Biak Lory; Geelvink Pygmy-parrot; Biak Scops-owl; Biak Monarch; Biak Coucal; Biak Scrubfowl; Biak Gerygone; Biak White-eye; Numfor Paradise-kingfisher.

LORE LINDU

Key bird species:

Small Sparrowhawk; Bare-faced Rail; Sulawesi Woodcock; Metallic Pigeon; Ornate Lorikeet; Yellow-and-green Lorikeet; Ochre-bellied Hawk-Owl; Cinnabar Hawk-Owl; Speckled Hawk-Owl; Diabolical Nightjar; Scaly Kingfisher; Purple-bearded Bee-eater; Cerulean Cuckoo-shrike; Pygmy Cuckoo-shrike; Chestnut-backed Bush-Warbler; Blue-fronted Flycatcher; Sulawesi Blue-Flycatcher; Geomalia; Sulawesi Thrush; Great Shortwing; Olive-flanked Whistler; Maroon-backed Whistler; Malia; White-backed Woodswallow; Sulawesi Myna; Fiery-browed Myna; Mountain Serin

BALI BARAT

Key bird species:

Beach Thick-knee; Orange-breasted Pigeon; Javan Cuckoo-shrike; Black-winged Starling; Banded Pitta; Bali Starling (Myna); Java Sparrow

Miles To The Wild

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Tag Archives: raja ampat

Sorong – Gateway To Raja Ampat

WHERE TO STAY

SIGHTSEEING AROUND SORONG

Waigeo And The World’s Cheapest Overwater Bungalows

Raja Ampat – A Treasure For Birders As Well As Divers

GETTING THERE

GETTING TO OTHER ISLANDS SUCH AS BATANTA AND SALAWATI

Birding In Indonesia

INDONESIA’S BIRDING HOTSPOTS

SERAM

Key bird species:

ARFAK

Key species:

RAJA AMPAT

Key species:

NIMBOKRANG

Key species:

BIAK AND NUMFOR

Key species:

LORE LINDU

Key bird species:

BALI BARAT

Key bird species: