Getting to Raja Ampat

Put simply, it’s probably easier to get to the moon than to Raja Ampat. At least that involves only one flight as opposed to the two planes, two boats, four car trips and one night in transit it took us to get to our homestay in Raja Ampat (from Bali).

But if you’re still set on visiting Earth, the commenest way to reach Raja Ampat is to fly to Sorong in West Papua, and then catch a ferry over to Waisai. Waisai is the capital in Waigeo, which is the main island of the Raja Ampat Regency. To get to Sorong, most flights from Indonesia will have a stopover in Makassar, which is a city of 1.4 million people in the south of Sulawesi.

We found it quite difficult to find information online about means of transport and costs associated with getting to Raja Ampat, so I’ve described our route below in order to help you get there. In general, most will only accept cash in this part of the world – one of things you should know before coming to Raja Ampat.

1. Get to Indonesia

We happened to be starting from the island of Flores in Indonesia, and had to return to Bali to start our trip to Raja Ampat. We arrived in Bali at 8am and were considering getting a taxi to one of Bali’s few resorts that offer a day pass to their pools and restaurants. We decided to try our luck at Bali Airport’s Novotel which is around 150m from the domestic arrivals hall. We simply told them we wanted to use their pool and restaurant and they waved us right in and even stored our luggage for the day. It started raining so we ordered lunch and used the wifi for the rest of the afternoon.

2. Fly to Sorong

We flew from Bali to Sorong with Sriwijaya Air, via Makassar. This involved an overnight stopover in Makassar for a 3.15am flight to Sorong. Garuda has similar flight times. Our flight from Bali was delayed by 2.5 hours, which is not unexpected after reading reviews of Sriwijaya Air. For this reason we booked Garuda Airlines to return to Australia as we didn’t want to miss our international flight.

If you also have an overnight stopover in Makassar, there’s a few options available to you:

• Ibis Makassar Airport – offers cheap overnight stays as well as a 6 hour rate. We would reccomend booking a room, as when we popped our heads in there was no availability for the 6 hour stay
• Book a hotel ‘near the airport’ – our airport hotel was still 15 minutes by car despite being one of the closest hotels to the airport, due to ongoing traffic at 9.30pm
• Stay awake all night at the airport’s 24 hour Starbucks

If you are leaving the airport and require a taxi, turn right when you exit arrivals and walk down the ramp. There are metered and fixed price taxis. We chose the fixed price, which was 95,000 IDR to our ‘airport hotel’. Interestingly, the hotel booked us an Uber like service called Grab to return to the airport and this only cost 31,000 IDR.

3. Arrive in Sorong and get to the harbour

There is no official taxi service at Sorong Airport. It’s reasonable to pay 100,000 IDR to get to the harbour, which is not the town’s official harbour but instead a small dock where the ferry to Waisai leaves from. We had to pay an extra 7000 IDR for a ‘security checkpoint’ when the car was nearing the harbour. Our driver received a receipt of this security check, which he promptly screwed up into a ball and threw into the nether regions of his car. The significance of this is unclear.

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4. Buy the boat ticket

This takes about half an hour of standing in line and they only accept cash. The current price is 100,000 IDR per person. You’ll get a seat number which is written on your ticket and they actually enforce this on the boat.

An ‘express boat’ leaves the harbour twice daily at 9am and 2pm, with an extra service on Sundays at 12pm. It takes about 2 hours to reach Waisai, although our boat left over 30 minutes late and I suspect this is not uncommon. The ferry times and schedules are known to change unexpectedly, but the photo below shows the current timetable as of December 2018:

Once you’ve purchased your ticket you can walk outside the office, turn left and head towards the pier where they will let you board the boat. There is a boom gate and you just need to walk under it.

5. Survive the boat ride

This is where the option of staying awake overnight in the 24hr Starbucks at Makassar Airport (refer to step 2) comes into play. I was asleep the whole time but Clinton found the boat cramped and poorly ventilated, like a can of sardines. Luckily the seas were calm that day. The TV played non-stop Indonesian pop/rock video clips of the same band, on repeat, ad nauseam. Interestingly, you can buy ‘VIP’ tickets at around 250,000 IDR that allow access to an air-conditioned cabin complete with a karaoke setup. Hopefully the song choice is more varied than what is played in the main cabin.

6. Arrive in Waisai and find your homestay representative

Once you get off the boat there’s a bunch of people waving signs for different homestays. Eventually you’ll find yours.

7. Pay the conservation fee

Your homestay representative will take you toward an office a couple hundred metres away where you have to pay a 1,000,000 IDR conservation fee per person to support the Raja Ampat area. Thankfully, this can be payed with credit card. It is adjacent to the boat pickup area for homestays that can only be reached by sea. Have your passport ready for presentation.

8. Boat or car drop-off to your homestay

You need to pre-organise your transfer with your homestay. They will usually only accept cash for transfers. Boat trips seem to be exorbitantly priced in the Raja Ampat area, supposedly due to fuel costs. Bargaining doesn’t seem to change the price of these boats and you have very little other choice for getting around the islands.