08.12.10-13.12.10:

The ship came into the sleepy port town of Sorong in West Papua pretty much on time, which made me happy.  At the port I was met by the indomitable Bosco, the local guy who I’d be CouchSurfing with for my brief stay here.  We got as far as his local church before the storm broke and the rain started coming down in buckets.  Staying on the back of his scooter with all my bags wasn’t smart, so we tucked ourselves under the eves of the chapel and waited for the downpour to stop.

West Papua (or just ‘Papua’ to give the place its proper name) is the western half of the island of New Guinea (also known – just to confuse matters – as Papua).  New Guinea is the second largest island in the world (brownie points for guessing the first) and is spilt straight down the middle between West Papua (which is part of Indonesia) and the independent nation of Papua New Guinea.

Incidentally, ‘Papua’ means ‘Fuzzy Haired’.  As ‘Barbados’ means ‘Bearded Ones’, I’m thinking Everton’s Marouane Fellaini should grow a beard so I can call him ‘Papua Barbados’.

Which is SUCH an awesome pornstar name.

Tangent, sorry… anyway, West Papua was not part of Indonesia when it first got independence, it was only a couple of decades later that the Dutch relinquished the colony it had held since 1660.  This didn’t stop Indonesia’s dubious claim to West Papua in 1969 which nobody in the international community had the balls to argue against – a trick that would be employed again a few years later in East Timor.

The fact that the biggest gold mine IN THE WORLD is situated in West Papua I’m sure had no baring whatsoever on Jakarta’s decision to annex the territory.  The mad thing is that ethnically, religiously, socially and spiritually, the people of the island of New Guinea have about as much in common with the people of Java as a pensioner in Sierra Leone has with a Japanese schoolgirl.

One of the main bones of contention is (AS ALWAYS!) religion.  West Papua is, no matter what Jakarta would have you believe, overwhelmingly Christian, animist or secular.  Pigs are worshipped here for Christ’s sake.  Consequently, the locals here are not to big on the whole pig ban thing that Islam so idiotically stole from the Jews.

I’m not one for second guessing the divine creator of the universe (since I fairly sure the crazy f—er doesn’t even exist) but why would he make a perfectly tasty animal and then declare it  unfit for human consumption?  Why not – you know – make it less tasty??

Sorry, tangent.  Stick to the point, Graham.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, West Papua.  Annexed by Indonesia.  West Papuans.  Generally unhappy about it.  That’s all you need to know for now.

So the rain poured down and Bosco and I chatted about my mission here in Sorong – to find a boat that would take me to the Palau islands. As far as far-flung destinations are concerned, the Palau islands are pretty much the outliers of the Pacific Nations on the far, far left of the map.

I had a few contacts given to me in Bali to pursue.  However, some of them were away, others were at sea and others just didn’t answer the phone.  My only hope was a lovely girl called Ina, who was a friend of a friend of Bali Neil.  I’d be meeting with her as soon as this bloody rain stopped.

However, the rain had no intention of stopping and it was the next day before Bosco and I met Ina.  She said the chances of me finding anybody prepared to take me, and more importantly, anyone willing to take me for a song, were slim – but she would see what she could do.

Hanging around Sorong for a few days made me appreciate the amount of STUFF that people had carted here from Java – this place isn’t cheap.  As always when there is a whopping big gold mine / oil reserve / diamond mine and little else, prices shoot through the roof.  I was very lucky that Bosco took me under his wing – the cheapest hotel here would have set me back at least $15 a night – way over my budget.

So I had a decision to make – should I stay or should I go?

Of course, there is a Plan B (there’s always a Plan B): My new Odyssey manager Damian (yay!) has found an owner of a magic yacht happy to take me to all the Pacific Island nations I need to go to (as long as we can source sponsorship money to pay for food, water, fuel etc,) but Palau, being way out west, isn’t on the table – yet.

So I’m waiting to hear back from Ina about a clever way of travelling the 220 miles north to the Palau island of Tobi (Coordinates: 3.0048785, 131.1715768) or to hear back from the yacht owner giving the thumbs up to adding Palau onto our itinerary.  Either way, I’m not going anywhere for the next few days.

There’s not much in the way of roads on the island of New Guinea, so if you want to get around, your best bet is to buy a ticket for one of the many ferry boats that skip along the coast.  The next ship heading to Jayapura, the nearest town to the border with Papua New Guinea, leaves on Saturday.

I waited until Saturday, and Bosco was kind enough to keep me.  We really made the most of it though, Bosco taking me to a very West Papuan carol concert.  The half-naked painted people dancing about was great, but as soon as the actors playing missionaries turned up re-enact the introduction of the locals to Mr. Jesus, Bosco and I made our excuses and left to go the pub.

The next day was Saturday.  I still hadn’t heard if it was possible to change the magic yacht’s itinerary and Ina, working tirelessly, had been touting my wares to the local yachties and fishermen, but sadly nobody was very much interested.  I could have jumped on the ferry out of there, but there was another one leaving on Monday so I decided to give Sorong the benefit of doubt and grace it with my precense for another couple of nights.

So you don’t think I’m being idle with my time I shot this video about travelling on the cheap:

Do you like it?  I know it’s a bit rough and ready (and some of the things I say are painfully obvious), but it’s a good idea for me to shoot stuff like this that doesn’t tread on anybody’s toes as far as the second series of the TV show is concerned.  Talking of the TV show, the first series of ‘Graham’s World’ is on here in Indonesia and on Sunday night Bosco and I set off on his scooter on a mad odyssey around Sorong looking for somewhere that had IndoSat so I could watch one of the episodes that I hadn’t seen yet.

However, our quest was in vain.  Everything here closes at 10pm at the best of times, and the few places that were still open and had a telly used cable and didn’t have Nat Geo Adventure.  Bah!  Oh well, back to basecamp.

While I had a hoot hanging out with Bosco, Sorong is about as attractive as an old man’s sock suspenders.  It’s a town made entirely from concrete and has all the aesthetic charm of a wet cardboard box.  Filled with offal.  Night life is non-existent and the beer is –jeepers!–  expensive.  So when the news came through from Damian that the magic yacht would indeed take me to Palau in the new year, I bought a ticket on the first boat outta there.  Badabing, Badaboom.

I thanked Ina profusely for all her hard work and treated Bosco to dinner.  The ferry to Jayapura was supposed to leave at 10pm, so Bosco and I headed over to the pub for a swift-half before saying goodbye, but the ship was delayed so we ended up down the road at the general store/liquor shop downing a mixture of beer, whiskey and local alcoholic grape juice.  By the time the boat was ready to leave it was 1am and we where both smashed out of our heads.

Bosco’s mate gave me a lift back down to the port, I didn’t fancy waiting in the waiting room so I sneaked through a hole in the fence onto the quayside.   Consequently I was first on the ferry when it arrived.  I raced to find an empty bunk (the ferry was coming from Sulawesi so it was already pretty full) jumped on the first one I found, my backpack as a pillow, clutching my camera bag and my laptop bag as though my life depended on it.  I passed out before whosever bed it was got back from the toilet.