Blogs from Sorong, West Papua, Indonesia, Asia

The past few months have been ‘busy’. We did quite a lot of travelling, trying but often failing to travel slowly and most of it not in any way efficiently. Since our last blog post we have travelled from Alor to West-Timor (the Indonesian part of the island Timor) and then to Timor Leste (an independent country). From there with a lot of boats, busses and some planes via Nusa Penida, Bali, Singapore, Berlin and Brussels to The Netherlands. Here we have spent four weeks with our family and friends, trying to catch up with their lives and just spending quality time with the people we miss during our travelling. We then flew back to Indonesia, via KL and Jakarta to Ambon, from where we travelled across part of Maluku, visiting the Banda Islands and Kei ... read more

One of the things this area of Papua is known for is the elusive Bird Of Paradise. We needed to escape the heat and noise of the city so decided we'd take a walk in the surrounding countryside to see if we could spot one. We'd also read about a Pagoda giving good views of Sorong and the ocean beyond but no information as to how to get to it. After much asking around in our hotel and getting nowhere we got the information we needed from the odd job man! He could speak better English than the receptionist! He told us it was a two kilometres walk so must get a bus. He couldn't believe we were actually going to walk. It turned out his directions were spot on and we found the hill taking ... read more