Sorong is provincial captial of West Papua and a large city of more than 150,000 people. With oil and other resources nearby, the population has recently swollen with migrants from far away Java. While some of the Indigenous people have been provided houses and work, others are living on the streets in poverty.
We visited Sorong twice; heading north from MIsool towards the rest of Raja Ampat, and again on our return back to Australia. There is a problem with boats being boarded and robbed while anchored in the harbour here, so we stayed a few miles north at an old abandoned resort called “Tampa Garam”. This translate to no salt, and refers to the large fresh water swimming pool.
The following list of posts are those we made while in Sorong.
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Tampagaram Marina, Sorong
From Balbulol in the Misool group of islands, we made our way through Selat Sele to Sorong. Sorong is the major city in Papua Barat (West Papua) and is the gateway city to Raja Ampat. We needed to be in Sorong for a number of reasons; we had to reprovision our supplies (both fresh food…
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Sorong Harbour
The Tampagaram Beach marina provided safe haven while we completed tasks in Sorong, but it is a considerable distance north of the main business district of this large regional city. We travelled from Tampa Garam down to Sorong by various means; hiring a car and driver, hailing one of the multi use taxi minivans, or…
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Pasar Remu, Sorong
The big local market in Sorong is named Pasar Remu. Typical of Indonesian markets we have seen elsewhere, they consist of little alley ways lined with rooves of iron or plastic under which locals sell anything. The choice ranges from local fruit and vegetables to plastic footwear and mobile phone accessories. The local markets are…
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Transport in Sorong
While in Sorong for almost two weeks, we had opportunity to try out a number of different transport methods. The easiest, but most expensive, was to just hire a driver to take you where you want to go in their car. This is convenient, especially if you need something special. In my case, it was…
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Sorong Benzine
The harbour at Sorong in West Papua is a popular place for replenishing food and fuel on the local boats, whether these are the local fisherman or the phinisi that carry tourists around the islands of Raja Ampat. West Papua is a little troubled with civil unrest, as there appears to be much discrimination between…
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Scooter on the Sorong Streets
Back in Sorong to pick up the parts of our old dinghy outboard, we intended to stay only a couple of nights. The Tampa Garam pond is the preferred location to tie up, as it is safer than anchoring in the harbour, where there is a constant risk of thieves boarding, but it is well…
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Sorong Food
While in Sorong last week, we rented a scooter to provide better access to the facilities of the city, and one of the highlights this freedom provided was access to food. We ate out every meal but breakfast, while we were in Sorong. This ranged from a western style pizzeria to roadside stalls, where one…
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Kasauri Beach Sorong
The use of the scooter while we were at Tampa Garam gave us the freedom to explore other places that are a bit out of the way. One such place was Kasauri Beach, to the north of Tampa Garam. Kasauri is on the western tip of Western Papua. Coming out of the security gate at…
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Passage to Misool
After months in the Raja Ampat regencies to the north of Sorong, we must start moving south again. It’s only a bit over a month until we have to clear out of Indonesia with our six month visas due to expire. The obvious first destination is Misool, as we still remember the islands and reefs…