An immigrant as it is

I never been to Papua before, and I always dreaming someday could travel to Papua. So here it was...I was going to Sorong, one of the big city in Papua. Why am I this excited going to Papua? It's all because the culture and people. I always think Papua is an exotic island. The people looks the same like aborigin and african, their cultural behaviour and things are always amuse me somehow. But the main reason why I'm going to Sorong is because I wanted to go to Raja Ampat, and Sorong is the gate to enter to Raja Ampat.

My first step: The Airport
It was my first time stepping in Sorong, Papua...with heart beating so fast, I was overjoyed with this picture in my head about meeting Papua people wearing Koteka, a traditional costume that they only wear to cover their most important part of their body.
So I stepped down in Domine Eduard Osok airport, looked around...and I only saw two buildings just like hangar in this airport, no tall and modern architect building. I walked to one of the building and it was a not so big room with full of airport staff, there's no security gate, and no baggage counter where we usually picked our own baggage. In this airport you have to wait and listen carefully to the staff, they will call you baggage number one by one. And for the first time, I noticed that there's not many of papua people in there. It got me wondering am I in Papua or not??? And later I'll find out why...

The transportation
From the aiport to the hotel, you could rent a car, I mean a private car that can be rent as a taxi. In sorong a taxi is not like THE TAXI that we use to know, in Sorong it's a private car that already named Taxi by its owner. And from the airport to the hotel were I'm staying, near Lido beach, it cost about IDR 80,000.
Besides taxi, there's only one kind of public transportation, it's a yellow mini bus, it could took you around the city. And there's also ojek it's a motorcycle that you could rent with the diver that could drove you here and there. The public transportation cost is IDR 2,000 - 3,000 per person and the ojek cost is depends on the distance you want to go.

Waigo Hotel (read: why go)
For 3 nights, I stayed in Waigo hotel. A friend of mine already booked this hotel for us. She's working in Conservation Indonesian based in Sorong. So we are looking for a hotel that near to the harbor where we depart to Raja Ampat, and our friend suggest Waigo. It's located in front of Lido beach. A not-that-bad hotel with pink as the main color...hehehe it reminds me of Barbie's house:p
While we stayed there, Waigo was in renovating. It's kinda uncomfortable to us...noisy and dusty. And for me, 3 nights stayed there was way to long!

Activities
First day in Sorong, me and my friends were walking along the Lido beach, sight seeing...who knows we found something interesting. But apparently not! Sorong is not the one like I'm expecting. I'm not seeing any native people, there's too many immigrant from other islands. The only happening place in Sorong it the one that they called it 'Tembok' or The Wall. It's a row of restaurants along the wall that separate the land and the beach. At nights in Tembok, many of Sorong residence gathered, to have dinner, chit chat, or just  sitting and watch the ocean.

If you want to buy things, there's traditional markets and there's one big supermarket called Saga. It's the only supermarket in Sorong. And in Saga, you could find the one and only fast food in Sorong. And what about souvenir? Hmmm...it's quite hard to find souvenirs in Sorong because they don't have any particular things that relate to Sorong. All the souvenirs are made from Timika, another city in Papua. Sorong is just a city that full of immigrant, the papua culture more and more extinct. Too bad:(

I guest if I want to see the real Papua culture, Sorong is not the right place. I hope someday I could visit other Papua's city:)