hotter than fak-fak
i've been hotter, and closer to the equator, but this place is keeping me at a constant simmer. when my brains get steamed like this, i can't help but get sort of aggravated and put out by very dumb things - but they are dumb things that happen continuously (the hissing as if i were a dog, the 'hey! mister!'* and unresponsive gape-mouthed staring i get despite smiling and saying 'good afternoon', the slowing down and honking, etc). but fak-fak, this tiny, coastal, dutch-colonial town precariously perched on the steep, lush hills rising over a small bay, bustles away at that equatorial pace that relaxes me while making logistics a challenge.
a lot of towns in papua, and indonesia in general, take a siesta from around 1 to 5pm because to walk ten feet in this heat is inviting heatstroke to smite you down. no one can get anything done, so they have lunch and then a nice lie-down for a couple of hours. at 5pm, the little red and yellow mikrolet (public taxi minivans) are zooming along again, blasting shaggy or UB40 (papuans loves them some overproduced reggae music). while i'm all for community-wide naptime, this makes sticking to a schedule of any kind a little difficult. i'm pressed for time now, as i need to be back in bali to catch my flight out on saturday, and i might not get the flight i need out of fak-fak tomorrow. problem is, you can't really book anything until you're in the town you want to leave. so apparently my flight tomorrow to sorong, in westernmost papua, is full - but there will be a ticket for me when i come back to the booking office tomorrow. i don't get it, but then again, i am just a confused foreigner who can't understand why it's necessary to show up four hours early to check in for a flight from a podunk little airport where flights regularly leave LATE and not EARLY.
but this town is charming, and the two little towns my flights briefly stopped in on the way here were stunningly gorgeous from the air, as were the scenes in between: tiny, green, uninhabited islands whose edges were fringed with shallow coral reefs and crescents of yellow beach brightening them; reef shapes like abstract art, dropping abruptly into deep blue ocean; brown rivers and tributaries ribboning crazily through miles of jungle. i've been flying for the last few days on dehavilland twin otters, propeller planes that hold about fifteen passengers, and the pilots leave the cockpit door open so you can see them flicking switches and pulling levers and cranking the engines and then lifting the plane off the ground. also, you can see the pilot lighting up a cigarette five minutes before each landing, something i've never seen before and which didn't inspire a lot of confidence.
so these last couple of weeks have been all about islands and traditional folklore and no diving for me, nor even snorkelling nor beach time. (but that's OK, because now i've lost my sunglasses, too.) before that, i was able to do a short trek in the baliem valley, the highlands region where some of papua's 250 distinct ethnic groups (and their 250+ distinct languages) reside. my guide was terrific, recommended to me by two different locals in my former base camp of sentani; he had in-depth knowledge of people in the valley, the botany, medicinal uses of plants, the traditions and culture. we only did a two-day trek but it was good to get a taste. i only snapped one photo of an obliging old man wearing only a penis gourd and carrying a net bag; it seemed intrusive to take photos of the local people, even though they don't mind as long as you give them a little money or a kretek (tobacco-and-clove) cigarette. you walk out of wamena airport, in the main town in the highlands, and there are guys walking around carrying spears and clad only in penis gourds and feather head wreaths.
also in wamena was a wild-haired japanese guy running an internet cafe, who someone told me is bent on finding a supposedly-extinct tasmanian tiger/wolf/something in the jungle, because the japanese government will give him millions of dollars if he finds one. (unfortunately i only heard this after it was too late to meet him again to corroborate.) here in fak-fak, someone told me that a few years ago, the bones of GIANTS were found four hours from town, in two different locations, and that the local representative has invited the international archaeological community to come here to view them. (so far, no takers.)
OK, now it is time for me to meet someone so he can practice his english. then a roasted fish dinner along the waterfront with a kind woman from the local tourist office. hope i get to fly out tomorrow or i might melt down... but at least there will be no scary, aggro guy serenading me with off-key karaoke like last night while i was trying to shovel nasi goreng down as fast i could.
* if i'm lucky it's 'hey! missus!'
a lot of towns in papua, and indonesia in general, take a siesta from around 1 to 5pm because to walk ten feet in this heat is inviting heatstroke to smite you down. no one can get anything done, so they have lunch and then a nice lie-down for a couple of hours. at 5pm, the little red and yellow mikrolet (public taxi minivans) are zooming along again, blasting shaggy or UB40 (papuans loves them some overproduced reggae music). while i'm all for community-wide naptime, this makes sticking to a schedule of any kind a little difficult. i'm pressed for time now, as i need to be back in bali to catch my flight out on saturday, and i might not get the flight i need out of fak-fak tomorrow. problem is, you can't really book anything until you're in the town you want to leave. so apparently my flight tomorrow to sorong, in westernmost papua, is full - but there will be a ticket for me when i come back to the booking office tomorrow. i don't get it, but then again, i am just a confused foreigner who can't understand why it's necessary to show up four hours early to check in for a flight from a podunk little airport where flights regularly leave LATE and not EARLY.
but this town is charming, and the two little towns my flights briefly stopped in on the way here were stunningly gorgeous from the air, as were the scenes in between: tiny, green, uninhabited islands whose edges were fringed with shallow coral reefs and crescents of yellow beach brightening them; reef shapes like abstract art, dropping abruptly into deep blue ocean; brown rivers and tributaries ribboning crazily through miles of jungle. i've been flying for the last few days on dehavilland twin otters, propeller planes that hold about fifteen passengers, and the pilots leave the cockpit door open so you can see them flicking switches and pulling levers and cranking the engines and then lifting the plane off the ground. also, you can see the pilot lighting up a cigarette five minutes before each landing, something i've never seen before and which didn't inspire a lot of confidence.
so these last couple of weeks have been all about islands and traditional folklore and no diving for me, nor even snorkelling nor beach time. (but that's OK, because now i've lost my sunglasses, too.) before that, i was able to do a short trek in the baliem valley, the highlands region where some of papua's 250 distinct ethnic groups (and their 250+ distinct languages) reside. my guide was terrific, recommended to me by two different locals in my former base camp of sentani; he had in-depth knowledge of people in the valley, the botany, medicinal uses of plants, the traditions and culture. we only did a two-day trek but it was good to get a taste. i only snapped one photo of an obliging old man wearing only a penis gourd and carrying a net bag; it seemed intrusive to take photos of the local people, even though they don't mind as long as you give them a little money or a kretek (tobacco-and-clove) cigarette. you walk out of wamena airport, in the main town in the highlands, and there are guys walking around carrying spears and clad only in penis gourds and feather head wreaths.
also in wamena was a wild-haired japanese guy running an internet cafe, who someone told me is bent on finding a supposedly-extinct tasmanian tiger/wolf/something in the jungle, because the japanese government will give him millions of dollars if he finds one. (unfortunately i only heard this after it was too late to meet him again to corroborate.) here in fak-fak, someone told me that a few years ago, the bones of GIANTS were found four hours from town, in two different locations, and that the local representative has invited the international archaeological community to come here to view them. (so far, no takers.)
OK, now it is time for me to meet someone so he can practice his english. then a roasted fish dinner along the waterfront with a kind woman from the local tourist office. hope i get to fly out tomorrow or i might melt down... but at least there will be no scary, aggro guy serenading me with off-key karaoke like last night while i was trying to shovel nasi goreng down as fast i could.
* if i'm lucky it's 'hey! missus!'
posted by a wandering eye at 2:10 AM
1 Comments:
koteka!
love reading your updates. hope to see you next time you're in SoCal.
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