Travel to West Papua and Papua New Guinea

Papua was divided into 2 area, namely West Papua (Irian Jaya, Indonesia) and Papua New Guinea. The land boundary between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea stretches for some 750 kilometers located straight at 141 degree East. Maybe border between Papua and Papua new Guineae is most straight country border in the world.



People in West Papua speak with Indonesian Language and people in Papua New Guniea speak English. So, if you want to travel to Papua, you should know where the country is. If you want to go West Papua, you should have VISA from Government of Republic of Indonesia. If you want to visit Papua island in the east area, you should have permit from Government of Papua New Guinea.

Sometimes if you accidentally landing in Indonesian area and then you want to continue journey to Papua New Guineae, you can get permit from Papua New Guinea embassy at Jayapura, so you can visit Papua New Guinea from Jayapura using car to border area in Wutung then enter Papua New Guinea with pass from the Embassy. The after entering Papua New Guinea area, you can rent a car that already standby in the border area and continue journey to Vanimo for about 4 hours. From Vanimo, you can fly to Port Moresby using Air Nugini.



The problem with straight border is, some villages in border area located in both country. So, it's very difficult to determine nationality of the people in the villages. In the border area there are tade between both country. Many people in Papua New Guineae using Telkomsel (Indonesian GSM/cellular provider) to communicate each other in border area. They also buy electronic and other goods from Indonesia in the market in Wutung. It's very easy because we don't need Passport to walk across the border in about 500 meters area. The market located inside the area. Just get permit from Army and border security by showing ID card the we can go to each other and shopping in the market.