In which Beth attempts to work in one of the remotest areas of the planet
Traveling to Papua is always good for anecdotes. The journey is never straightforward and you always feel that you might not make it this time. Then from the moment you arrive the tense process begins to try and get a ticket to get back out again. Its not that you want to leave immediately, only that it takes so long to secure a ticket and then hours of waiting. Even then being in possession of a ticket is no guarantee of actually taking off. If you pay enough of a bribe anyone can be bumped off the flight in order that you can take their place. It is also an exhausting place to travel to leaving one feeling like you are suffering from jet lag having traveled halfway across the world. This all begins with the odd scheduling of flights to Papua. You leave Jakarta at 10pm (normally my bed time) and land in Makassar 2 hours later to pick more passengers up. This stop interrupts any attempt at sleep that may have been working and then you sit uncomfortably for the next 2.5 hrs before landing at Biak at the convenient time of 5.30am. (Papua is 2 hours ahead of Jakarta so it is on fact the middle of the night). For some reason there are two planes scheduled to land at this bizarre time of the morning, with lots of bleary eyed passengers struggling to locate their luggage in the morning darkness. There are a few things that I always find strange about this part of the journey. Firstly, why do planes arrive at this time of the morning when there are no onward flights for hours and secondly, where are all the people going? Biak is a tiny island on the fringe of the most sparsely populated part of Indonesia, why do so many people get off the plane?
On my second trip to Papua I was savvy about what to do during my layover in Biak. I went to the check-in desk to check my onward flight to Nabire and was told that nothing would happen before 12pm with a provisional take off time of 1pm. So I walked to a nearby hotel and checked in for some much needed sleep. It should have been more relaxing other than the drilling and general building work that was going on, but still who was I to complain, the last time I had thought it best to wait in the airport. With each hour that went by I regretted this decision but it seemed futile to move as I was told each hour that the plane would be arriving at any moment. The waiting room was deeply uncomfortable but as luck would have it I had a Garuda blanket with me that I had taken from the plane on the advice of the old woman next to me. For some reason I believed her when she said how cold it would be in Biak. It certainly wasn’t cold but it went some way to cushioning the metal ridged chair that was digging in my back so I was grateful to her.
Back at the airport as instructed at 12pm sharp I waited a further 3 hours for the plane to takeoff. By now you start to feel that you have been traveling for days, and surely you must soon end up back where you started (the Piglet paradox, for you 100 acre wood fans). Since the almost constant news of transport disasters befalling Indonesia I have become a little less enthusiastic about flying. So as I sat in the overloaded 15-seater crate on the 1hour flight to Nabire I was planning my escape should the worst occur and was trying to work out which shore was closest, should I need to swim for it.
As usual I landed safely in Nabire and wondered what I was making such a fuss about.
Once in Nabire I can finally get on with some work although this is usually interrupted by the frantic efforts to secure a ticket back home. Constant updates are passed on suggesting various days that one might arrive back in Jakarta. I have learnt to not let these get to me as somehow things seem to sort themselves out.
The schedule for flights leaving Nabire is as idiosyncratic as the journey there. I got up at 4.30am to check in for the first flight out to Biak in order to meet the Jakarta flight that will leave Biak at 10am. After a hour of inactivity the airport staff told us that nothing would happen until at least 10 am so we may as well go back to bed. This was in some ways a relief as we could rest but it was clear that we would miss our connection and would have to get tickets on the following day’s flight to Jakarta. On arriving back at the hotel I had only checked out of I was a little distressed to discover that in my keenness to pack in the early hours I had somehow locked my bag and in the process changed the combination lock to an unknown code. My despair was short-lived; as luck would have it the combination lock on my fake Polo Ralph Lauren case was of sufficient poor quality to allow me to snap it open using the hotel door key. In Indonesia this is not a given - it could just has easily been the room key that snapped...
Eventually I returned to Jakarta, reflecting on the fact that in order to spend two whole days in the field in Papua, I had spent a total of five days traveling, most of it scrunched up on airport furniture in my Garuda blanket.
You've made me feel bad! When my recent Merpati flight from Bali to Flores boarded 1.5 hours late (without any explanation/announcements) I couldn't resist at the plane door smiling as I inquired of the cabin crew: "Mengapa jam karet?"
The bewildered look I received in return made me wonder if my watch was actually running 2 hours fast!
Posted by: Mark H (Darwin) | June 08, 2007 at 16:03