Crossin overland to Papua New Guinea from Irian Jaya (Papua)

Hi

I am travelling on a british passport and want to in about a month.

The lonely planet says that it is possible to cross from Jayapura in Indonesia to Vanimo in PNG, although border procedures can be a little unstable and erratic.

1. Does anyone know if the border crossing is open at the moment ?

2. Is there still an open PNG consulate in Jayapura which will issue visas?

Thanks

There is a PNG consulate in Jayapura, but both the visa procedure and the border itself tend to be a bit unpredictable.
See the PNG link in my signo line for more on the crossing.

Hi

I was thinking of doing the same thing around may. Have you looked at a PNG map? It seems that from Vanimo there aren't many roads to anywhere. What were your plans afte crossing into PNG? I'm hoping to travel over land with boat and road to Lae. How possible this is I have absolutely no idea. Does anyone???

Also are you island hopping Indonesia to Iriyan Jaya?? Do you know the best route?

Thanks

Ruth

<blockquote>Quote
<hr>I'm hoping to travel over land with boat and road to Lae. How possible this is I have absolutely no idea. Does anyone???<hr></blockquote>Sure we do.
And so would you, if you could care to read either a guidebook or at least the info already posted on this site...
Sorry for sounding grumpy, but it's a tad disheartening to see that some people don't even bother reading replies!

There are a zillion possible routes through Indonesia, the only thing certain is that you will have to end up in Jayapura.
Unless you fly, this will most likely mean passing through Java, Sulawesi and Maluku.
You could even take a direct ship all the way from Jakarta to Jayapura, which would of course be totally crazy.

Hi ruth
I'm not sure about Vanimo to Wewak.There is a boat but not sure how often.
From Wewak to Madang you have 3 choices
1.Fly
2.Boat - Lutheran shipping runs a twice weekly service
3.Road from Wewak to Sepik river.Canoe to Boroi (Madang province) and road to Madang.This would be by far the most interesting route.
From Madang to Lae you have 2 choices
1 Fly
2 PMV-pmvs go everyday and I think are around K50 (?)

It's second-hand information, but my boyfriend crossed from Jayapura to Vanimo with his dad and friend about a month ago with little problem. I've read about the confusing and changing issue of where to get stamped, border vs. png consulate in Jayapura, but I don't know what they experienced. Apparently the woman who issues visas at the consulate is super helpful and nice-I think her name is Rosina...

good luck and have fun. i'm doing it in June!

Hi,

I just picked up my 60-day PNG visa in Jayapura 2 days ago. Rosina was incredibly helpful - normally it takes 2 days to process but she did it in a few hours.

We haven't crossed from Indonesia to PNG yet (we're in Wamena at the moment, which oddly enough has the fastest Internet connection we've seen in our 8 weeks in Indonesia) but we're planning to exit Indonesia next week. The only point of confusion is whether we get our exit stamp at the Immigration Office in Jayapura or at the border itself - the Immigration Office says we need to do it in Jayapura so I guess that's what we should do.

/Phil