Historically, New Guinea was divided in two by colonial powers, the western half occupied by the Dutch and the east under Australian
control. The Dutch half incorporated
into Indonesia in 1969 and the eastern Australian area gained independence in
1975 and is now Papua New Guinea. The Indonesian side of New Guinea is referred to as Papua, and the surrounding islands are referred to as West Papua.
Some 600,000 local inhabitants live distributed amongst less
than a hundred villages in Raja Ampat (within West Papua). The local people here live a subsistence economy based
on fish, taro, and tropical fruits.
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| Parrot on a leash |
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| The back side of the fish market and local pasar (market where I buy fruits and veggies at) |
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| Kids playing in the river |
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| Main port into town |
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| Local Starbucks, instead of coffee they get their caffeine-like fix from this local palm tree nut, called the Betel Nut. |
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| Betel Nut. The locals that chew this end up staining their teeth brown, whilst they chew it their mouth is blood red followed by red spit that they eject. The funnier part of this story is we went to Waisai just to buy fruits and veggies, I was getting panicky when all we saw were tables of these strange nuts for sale. Mystery solved! |
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| Handmade woodwork |
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| Kids cooling off in the river |
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Lawns looking good with potted flowers, note the upcycled tires and water bottles in the trees
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