Jakarta-Papua-Surabaya in a day

Jason and Jaclyn at Bromo

Our friends Jason and Jaclyn arrived in early May for three weeks. Jason is a professor of visual psychology and one of Chad's oldest friends; Jaclyn runs her own business helping people organize their lives and possessions.

The plan was to fly to East Java and make our way to Bromo and Ijen, two spectacular mountainous landscapes. Then we'd hop on the ferry to Bali, work our way along the northern shore for a while, and drop through the central mountains, where I would head back to Jakarta while the other three went on to Thailand.

First, though, we went to Papua -- or Papua came to us. Our third-floor neighbor Dave organized a house-wide party for that Friday night, complete with a traditional Papuan dance troupe. We hosted the dancing because our apartment has the least furniture.


The pictures are fuzzy, but you get the idea. It was pretty cool having 8 or 10 Papuan dancers in our living room in full body paint and headdresses. They got everybody else dancing, too.

Unfortunately, we had to catch a painfully early flight in the morning, so we snuck out of our own place at 11 or so and crashed at Howie and Haviva's -- they kindly offered us the guest bedroom. Dave cleaned up later and let the cat out of the back room, where she was probably wondering what all the stomping was about.

If you want to get a sense of what Papuan dance is like, check out this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QEeNi6a-Fw