Exploring Beach Dock 2 Jayapura & Hamadi Market

Hey 👋

This time around, my adventure is taking me to Jayapura, the easternmost part of Indonesia which shares a land border with Papua New Guinea. There are so many beautiful sights to see and intriguing nooks and crannies of Papua that it even took several flights with different types of helicopter to actually reach those places. But since this is my very first time traveling to this part of exotic place, I was lightly introduced to Jayapura, the capital province of Papua, where most government projects happened.

But my trip won’t just stop at Jayapura. We will also fly to some other region.

In this region, people often travel by smaller airplanes and it’s such a common thing to experience. The people here also have a habit to travel by boat or ships. Some of them even owned a yacht parked around the pier.

I landed in Papua the other day at around 6 AM local time. I felt like I was entering another realm and way different from most places in Indonesia. Albeit a pretty chaotic experience, I had my first stop at a Chinese porridge restaurant serving porridge which is apparently pretty well-known among outsiders who visit the area. From the airport, we passed through some limestone hills and even a lake called Sentani. It was so exotic surrounded by lush rainforest and jungle. I didn’t get to visit it yet but one of these days, I would be.

After some rest we started working and it took us about 3 hours until everything was already done and we decided to have lunch. This is when we started exploring Dock 2 beach around the bay.

There are about 6 docks with different views overlooking the smaller islands in the middle of it. This is such a beautiful thing to see in the area.

As you drink some coconut water or even have lunch around the local warungs, you can enjoy the view of the boat or ferry moving around the docks in the area. People told me that it costs about $2 to travel around the area. We plan on trying it too at some point too & since we just arrived and actually have a working schedule, we decided to keep it for Saturday or Sunday.

Once we had seen enough and started getting sleepy. So, we decided to explore more to shake off our sleepiness. But if you visit Jayapura, you should never miss the view from one of these beach. There are several hotels with this kind of view as well that is truly a delight in your eyes. It's as if you're looking like a painted sky rather than an actual thing. It's that marvelous.

We went to Hamadi market where there are local women selling handwoven bags known as “NOKEN”

Noken is already registered as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. So, this is a very special bag that is a part of papuan’s identity. Around the city, you’d see locals wearing this too. Since my boss is all about supporting local business, she asked us to shop around and we got ourselves the cheaper version of noken.

The actual noken can be quite expensive. It is made with tree fibers and pretty challenging to weave. But the usual ones are made of yarn and can be quite durable options too.

Since it was only the first less than 24 hours exploring the place, I felt like I had seen quite a bit already of the place. There are many cultural things around the place that I have to thread very carefully but most importantly, there are many beautiful things to see which I'll have to check out in the midst of my busy schedule in this place.

Either way, stay tuned with my adventure in the easternmost part of Indonesia!