Manokwari City Tour

Traveling around the city of Manokwari can be fun and fascinating if you know some interesting places that you'd like to visit. To give you an idea of how we conduct this tour,  we will give you some explanations about some vocal points of this city. Depending on the hotel or guesthouse where you stay, we will pick you up with a car and bring you around the city.

Sarinah Hill
The first place that we will go is a slope near the residential area of Bupati of Manokwari. It is also called Bukit Sarinah (meaning Sarinah Hill). From this place, we can see the wonderful scenery of Manokwari city that stretches along the coastal areas and hills around Dore bay.
Kampung Ambon and Kwawi Area
Also, we can see the main harbor of Manokwari with cargo and passenger vessels mooring at its jetty, Sanggeng Market and Rendani Hill.

We will go down the slope to pass through Kampung Ambon with a lot of old houses built by Dutch government in 1950s are still used by employees of local government.
We can stop for a while at Gereja Elim Kwawi to see the old church and the cemetery of C.W. Ottow (who was the first European missionary) who landed in New Guinea to preach Good News and built schools for the indigenous people.

Traditional Market
There are two traditional markets in town which you could visit. The first one is Sanggeng Market. It is the place where town dwellers come to buy vegetables, rice, fish and other agricultural produce. The fish market is located approximatly 100 meters from the main market. Visitors can also see the view of the city at the nearby Fishing Harbor located next to the fish market.
Another market in town is Wosi. Here, visitors can see what goods that are bought by local people.

Before continuing your trip to Bumi Marina, Amban and Abasi Beach, you could have lunch for a while at one of the many stores in the city.
Be sure to bring sunglasses if you start at around 2 or 3 p.m. The weather of this coastal city is quite hot particularly during dry season. We will be in the area for around five to seven minutes before continuing our trip to Amban. We will drive through such areas as Susweni, Bakaro beach, Abasi, and Pasir Putih beach and then back to Manokwari city again.
If there is still time for more exploration of the city, we will go to Borarsi where we will be able to see traditional wooden boats parking along the Anggrem harbor.

Visiting Papuan Artists 
We can visit some artists in the region, Mr. Nico Asaribab - a carving artist, Ms. Ester Kereway who likes to create handicrafts from seashells. You can buy some souvernirs here. There is another artist whose wooden carvigs are one of the finest quality in town. His name is Yosep Awom. He lives across from Hotel Ariestom. Try to bargain to get the best price.
Not far from Anggrem is the residences of Ms. Ester Kereway and Mr. Yosep Awom. They live on Merdeka street near Suri bakery a breadstore that is now more focusing on providing photocopy service to its customers. Ms. Kereways makes beautiful earings and other souvenirs made of seashells while Mr. Awom makes beautiful wooden carvings.

According to our personal experience, if we start our city tour at 4 p.m., we will be at these artists' house at around 7 p.m.
We can go up to the slope of Komplex Missi where we can see some Papuan artists living behind the buildings of SMP Katolik Manokwari at the foot of the Table Mountain. We will meet an experienced oil painting artist, Mr. Lucky Kaikatui and a multi talented artist Paul Warere.

Another women artist in the vicinity is Mrs. Marice Fonataba who makes woven clothes and other artworks from pandanus leaves and seashells. Her house is located behind the Catholic Church of Santo Agustinus in Komplex Missi of Manokwari.
When we have accomplished this trip, we can bring you to Cinnamon cafetaria in Orchid supermarket where you will have your dinner there. If you choose to have dinner at one of the many restaurants in town, we can bring you there too. After that, we could bring you back to your hotel.
Well, don't forget to bring your digital camera when you go around this city.

Your tour guide

Photographs about the city and the people as well as the natural scenery that you shoot along the way will be a nice memory for you when you have returned home.

Booking:
If you are interested in taking this city tour, please, contact Arianta by sending text or whatsapp message to her number: +6285373765191.
She works as a Medical Practitioner and can organize your city tour in Manokwari with her own cars.
The above itinerary can be customized according to your duration of stay in Manokwari and budget.

Caving in the Table Mountain with Grietje

Last Saturday, I accompanied Grietje and Ani to Table Mountain. Actually Shanti and Dorthea, volunteers from YAT, also came with Grietje and Ani. But Shanti gave up at the beginning of the hiking so, Dorthea had to go back to YAT before climbing the steep hill leading to the flat top of the mountain  that is covered with big trees of tropical rainforest. I, Nico, Grietje, Ani decided to continue hiking and caving in the Table Mountain. We started our trip in the morning from Xavier bookstore. Besides hiking, we did some caving. It was a challenging experience because at that time Manokwari was in the rainy season. We went to a cave in the north of the Table Mountain, the largest cave where small and large bats live side by side. The  ground of the cave was sticky due to the mud that had been formed for several days during a-one- week rain before we arrived. When I was taking pictures of the flying bats, one of the big bats flew towards me. I thought it was going to hit me but suddenly it turned back and only flying in circle.

I used my digital camera Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W30 to shoot the following photographs. I was not so sure whether the results would be good or not as the interior of the cave was very dark. I set the dial mode to P because based on my previous experience the photo quality was better than the automatic and ISO settings. After they had been optimized in Adobe Photoshop CS3 where I reduced the file size and added some explanation at the bottom of each photographs, I uploaded them to this post. I am satisfied with the result because the images are quite bright.

There are several caves in the Table Mountain of Manokwari. If you are interested in caving, you can contact me. Don't forget to bring boots, apply mosquito repellent lotion, and binoculars (for bird watching). You might also need a hat and a rain-jacket if you go to Manokwari during the rainy season. If you are already in Manokwari, you can call me 081332245180. by Charles Roring

Also read:

• Birds in North Sulawesi
• Birdwatching Tour in the Forest and Farmland of Minahasa
• Manado City Tour: Birdwatching and Sightseeing

• Birding in High Elevation Forest of Minahasa
• Walking Tour, Birdwatching and Butterflywatching in District Sonder of Minahasa Highland
• Birdwatching in Minahasa Highland
• Birding in North Sulawesi
• Birding in Sonder of Minahasa
• Birdwatching in Sulawesi
• Birdwatching and butterflywatching in Sonder
• https://wildlifeminahasa.blogspot.com

• Cave exploration inside tropical rainforest of Manokwari 
• Photographing bat in a cave 

Grietje and Her Parents Visited Manokwari Artists

Yesterday (8 March 2010), I escorted three Dutch tourists traveling around Komplex Missi and Kota area visiting the local Papuan artists in Manokwari. First, we went to Mr. Lucky Kaikatui whose home is located at the foot of the Table Mountain, another great attraction for foreign tourists who want to see and experience the magnificent beauty of the rainforest.

Dutch volunteer in Manokwari

While in Lucky's house, the tourists saw some beautiful oil paintings in large sizes. One of them was the painting of birds of paradise. Lucky explained how he loves to paint using oil painting as based media to depict the beauty of Papuan natural environment, its flora and fauna.

Papuan artist Paul Warere and Blöm family from the Netherlands

After sitting and talking with the artist for around 20 minutes, we continued our trip to Paul Warere, a close friend of mine who is a multi-talented artist. Paul can draw or paint using paper and tree bark as his media. He can also carve wood to make beautiful statues. When we were in Paul's home, he showed us some of his drawings which symbolized the communication language of the indigenous Papuan people when they had not known any written language. I told them that Paul was the one whose artworks have been photographed and printed as postcards that are now being sold by my Xavier bookstore and by YAT Losmen. We were not long in Paul's house because we had to visit other Papuan artists. We left Paul's home and continued our walk to Mrs. Fonataba's house. While we were walking through a football field, Papuan children were shouting at us, "Mister, Mister, Hello Mister." Everybody - no matter man or woman will be called "mister". Grietje and her parents just smiled and greeted these nice children.

Visiting Mr. Awom a carving artist in Manokwari

Arriving at Ms. Fonataba's house, I shouted, "Selamat Sore, Mama" meaning "Good Afternoon, Mother?" several times but no one answered my call. Ms. Fonataba's neighbor said that she had gone to Sorong to attend her son's graduation ceremony.

The sun was nearly set in the West when we visited a tomb of a Catholic priest next to a nun's house which is in local term, we usually call Biara. The priest was murdered during the World War II.

Then we continued walking to visit some Papuan artists in Kota area (downtown). We went to Mr. Awom's house, an experienced wood carving artist. There Gietje's father (Theo) bought a tifa (a traditional Papuan drum). It has not been covered with leather sheet and we asked Mr. Awom if he could cover it the next day.

Our walk that afternoon was very tiring. We arrived at Mr. Nico Asaribab's house at around 6 p.m. He was not there. His son had to call him. Ten minutes later, he arrived at his home and the Dutch tourists were able to talk with him. They bought a bag (made of tree bark) and a wooden carving.

It was a tiring journey but nice experience because we could see little Manokwari from the perspectives of Papuan artists. They (Grietje's father and mother) would leave Manokwari for the Netherlands on Thursday and I hope that they really enjoy their trip in Papua and tell nice stories about this island to their friends and colleagues. Grietje is a Dutch volunteer who works for SDSP/YAT Losmen in Manokwari of West Papua in an effort to empower the local indigenous Papuan so that they can enter the modernity with courage, and confidence without having to abandon their cultural identity. This was written by Charles Roring
Also read:

• Manokwari Travel Stories
• A Visit to Raimuti Island of Manokwari Papua