Sorong | Miles To The Wild

This was where I made a mistake – I didn’t book a guide in advance, thinking it would be easy to just call one when we got there as it was low season. Wrong! I already had some sources such as Benny from Biak who has guide contacts in Sorong and a website that was advertising day birding trips. The itinerary from Papua Expeditions looked great- several Birds of Paradise (BOPs) and Black Lories amongst other birds. First thing I did upon checking into the Royal Mamberamo was to load the website to get the phone number and call or text them. But wait – no phone number on the whole site! I sent an email but didn’t get a reply. Benny from Discover Papua texted me back that his guide wasn’t replying. My husband and I were on our own. I went back online to try to find phone numbers for other guides or at least trip reports showing where the best places were. I found a couple trip reports that said Black Lories were in the Hutan Lindung area at km 14, about 8km past the airport.

Hutan Lindung

And this report had a similar bird list.

We had the hotel book us a car and driver, explain to the driver where we wanted to go and tell us the price – 70,000 rupiah an hour. First we went out on the Makbon Road in search of lowland forest that looked “birdy”. We passed a few villages and finally found a likely spot. The villagers were curious about us but understood that we wanted “burung” which means birds. One of them even knew where to find a Twelve-wired BOP further away but we would have been too late. We walked down the road but didn’t hear or see anything interesting, just a few barn swallows.

Village on Makbon Road

Curious villagers

Barn Swallow

Mosque on Makbon Road

Interesting monument on Makbon Road

We went back to Hutan Lindung to try our luck. It was around 11am by now so too late for real birding but we tried! We did hear the screech of cockatoos flying in the distance but couldn’t see them. We gave up and had the driver bring us back to the hotel.

The next morning, we got up early and once again hired a car and driver, bringing our bags with us so we could be dropped at the airport afterwards. Last chance birding for West Papua! We would only have time for a couple hours in Hutan Lindung. This time we did much better. Cockatoos were heard but not seen again. We saw a pair of Black Lories doing a fly-by off in the distance. And I could swear I heard Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrots in a tree near the road but within the foliage. They sounded like the ones we saw in Nimbokrang and I could see movement but not a clear shot of a bird. As usual, I got great photos of leaves! Then again, I managed to get some butterfly shots so it wasn’t a total photographic loss!

Taxi we hired by the hour for trip to Hutan Lindung

Entrance to Hutan Lindung Taman Wisata

Lowland forest of Hutan Lindung

Trees where we heard the Yellow-capped Pygmy Parrots

Tiny bird on branch near the bottom

Silhouetted bird in tree, anyone know what it is?

Butterfly

Just missed the Black Lories who did a quick fly by

Sorong is actually more than just a gateway city, there are good birding spots in the lowland forests outside the city. They will be covered in a separate blog post. It’s worth spending a couple extra days here to check them out. I’ve already covered how to get here in the Raja Ampat post, so let’s have a look at where to stay and what to do here. Google seems to have upgraded the zoom level of Sorong since the last time I looked. The A in the green bubble is the Royal Mamberamo Hotel, the red X I made is the JE Meridien Hotel and the red arrow shows the road out of town that leads to the lowland forest birding areas of Hutan Lindung and beyond to Makbon.

WHERE TO STAY

At the time I was looking and booking, I couldn’t find a good map of Sorong that shows where the hotels are and where the road to Makbon is so I just had to go off Trip Advisor reviews to choose a hotel. I chose Royal Mamberamo Hotel because it got mostly good reviews and I didn’t know exactly where any of the hotels were located except that I knew JE Meridien was across the street from the airport.

Royal Mamberamo Hotel, Sorong

Nice canoe carving in breakfast room at Royal Mamberamo Hotel

We took the cheapest room for 425,000 rupiah ($42) which had a very strong AC but no window. That was OK as we didn’t plan to spend much time in the room. It was very basic but had English programs on tv which was good as there is nothing to do in the evening. The breakfast buffet was pretty good and offered Western and Indonesian items. The location is out of the city centre with a few shops withing walking distance, even a hair salon which I visited when my husband wanted to nap. They can organize a car and driver at 70,000 ($7) rupiahs per hour who will take you where you want to go and stop wherever you want. I’d call this a decent hotel but bad location for birders.

I did get a look at some other hotels. The Cendrawasih Hotel is cheaper and across the street down a block from Royal Mamberamo. They had a taxidermied Greater BOP and some nice artwork on the walls.

Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

Taxidermied Greater BOPS at Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

Artwork Cendrawasih Hotel and Restaurant

While we were driving to the birding spot, we passed the Hotel Mariat Sorong which was more centrally located near a shopping centre and looked OK. As I mentioned, the JE Meridien (yeah I know – Mariat, Meridien but sorry, you won’t get MR or SPG points here) is across the street from the airport. We ended up going in here to ask dierections at the small tourist office when our driver got lost. It looked good enough and was on the road going out of town so a more convenient location for birders. If we were to go back to Sorong, we would stay here. The Luxio Hotel was further down the road towards Hutan Lindung but there was nothing else in the area so it wouldn’t be my first choice because I usually choose by location but it did get some good reviews.

EATING AND SHOPPING

Most people eat in their hotels for the convenience but we did have the driver stop at the KFC on the way back to the hotel for some take-away. If you are going to Batanta by charter boat, there are a couple supermarkets, one near the KFC and one near the Mariat Hotel where you can stock up if your tour leader doesn’t do it for you. There are a couple of good craft shops. One is uphill from Royal Mamberamo (ask the receptionist to point it out) behind the BUMA building. The other is in the airport before you go past security which has similar items to the BUMA shop and also T-shirts and beautiful sarongs with BOPs on them. They have some nice New Guinea masks, statues, handbags and other crafts. Please DO NOT buy anything like the hats (photos below) with the dead Birds of Paradise on them. They killed these poor birds just to make these hats to sell to tourists and we don’t want to encourgage this. But don’t boycott the shop altogether as the other things are sourced from different craftsmen who shouldn’t suffer along with the guilty. It’s best to let the shop see that tourists will buy crafts that do not harm wildlife but won’t touch anything where birds are killed so hopefully they will stop stocking these items.