Burr Preston
Visited 2006
Irian Jaya
See everyone who visited Irian Jaya
About the trip
It appears this site does not allow an entry of Island of New Guinea, which is the second largest island in the world and the third largest remaining rain forest. I made an adventure cruise that circumnavigated the island, the eastern half being Papua New Guinea with its largest city Port Moresby and the western half whose largest city is Jayapura on the north coast and Agats on the south coast. Following WWII Papua New Guinea was a protectorate of Australia until independence in 1975. Irian Jaya is also known as Western Papua (a part of Indonesia) and was once called Dutch East Indies before WWII. My tour which was provided by Zegrahm (now Exodus) began in Brisbane, Australia for a brief stay before flying to Port Moresby to board our ship M/S Clipper Odyssey. PNG has many small islands in addition to its large land mass. We visited many communities, saw tribal dances, and markets of handcrafts primarily wood carvings. The climate is hot and very humid which I found unpleasant. English was widely spoken thanks to the earlier connection to Australia. On the north coast at the Sepik river we visited villages and we met the Huli wigmen and were introduced to their very unique culture and customs, which are like nothing else in the world. We sailed up around the north coast to Jayapura where a student protest (uprising) had main streets blocked and police out in force. Our leaders landed briefly to buy supplies and assess the situation and determined it was unsafe for us to leave the ship. Sailing onward for several days around the western end of New Guinea we arrived at the region of the Ewer people who historically were head hunters and constantly at war with neighboring tribes. It is believed some were cannibals. The deep interior has never been explored but native tribes are known to still exist there. Head hunters and cannibals today, who knows?? Zegrahm wanted to introduce us to this Ewer warrior culture as it historically existed. We left our ship in Zodiacs and traveled in a convoy up the river not knowing where we were going. Suddenly emerging from dense foliage on each side of the river the Ewer warriors appeared in their dugout canoes with spears in full battle makeup in a mock attack on us. Fabulous photographs! Afterwards we visited their village. I bought a wild boars tooth necklace and a curved shell ornament men wore in their pierced septum. When I showed a picture of this ornament to my doctor upon my return and said I had yet to install it, he sagely answered in one word, "Don't." I later learned Zeghram made a substantial monetary gift to the village chief to support its fresh water infrastructure. In the town of Agats was a fabulous museum of Ewer culture, wood carvings, shields, masks, and handicrafts, a real highlight of the trip. A segue to Christmas Island (an Australian Territory) and to Cape York the northernmost point of the Australian continent, reachable by land only on foot, where standing on the shore we were given a glass of champagne to celebrate concluded the four week tour. From Port Moresby I flew home via Sydney, Australia.
Questions?
Reach Burr Preston at burrpreston@hotmail.com