Sorong Airport notes

[billt4sf]

In no particular order:

* The only ATM is OUTSIDE the airport. So you need to either go where with all your bags waiting on the curb, or go after you check in and then re-enter the first security.

* Porters will take all your bags from the curb, through the first security, all the way to the check-in counter and load them on the scale for you. We paid them 60K IDR.

* There is no toilet inside the gate. So once you go through security at the gate, you'd have to go back out, then in again.

* Garuda took my pony tank with the valve on, they wanted to know that I had a regulator as well, I said YES and pointed at the other bag and they accepted that.

* We were able to check our bags all the way to Singapore.

* The restaurant upstairs called Hawai (sic) Bakery has decent pizza, but it takes 45 mins to arrive. The waitress speaks absolutely no English so you want to know that a medium size is more than one big guy can eat. There is only one TV blaring away with no one looking at it.

* If you are getting this post, it means that the internet there is pretty good.

* On the way from Bali, Garuda charged us 518K IDR for about 10 kg overweight bags, and on the way back nothing.

...45 mins to go....

- Bill

 

[Wingy]

Internet at sorong airport! What's next - Starbucks and an Ibis

 

[billt4sf]

Ooooops! Spoke too fast. Our baggage was "checked through" by Garuda from SOQ to SIN - we have the baggage tags with SIN destination on them. But while we were standing in line at Silk Air (a codeshare with Garuda) my wife looked over and saw a trolley with our bags on it! What the H are THEY doing there? Turns out we had to re-check in our bags and -- you guessed it - pay overweight fees. Silk Air does not take kindly to overweight, their weight limit was 30K. But the big thing was that our bags were being run around by staff because we were told by Garuda that they were checked all the way through and we did not have to pick them up in Makassar.

If this were New York, I would have been panicked! Indo seems a VERY safe country.

Oh yeah...our flight out of Makassar is delayed by two hours and counting...

- Bill

 

[dirtfarmer]

I'll bet the new terminal is pretty spiffy compared to the old one. In the old one you had to find which A/C unit was working and then sit in the cool spot to avoid heat stroke.
The terminal in LBJ is the same way in relation to having to go back thru security to take a leak. Some architect screwed the pooch on that one.

 

[Wingy]

Tual and Mingankabau with the toilets thing too - Ambon airport toilet situation is a nightmare. Must be an Indo thing....what's wrong with these Bule's? Don't they go to the toilet before they leave home?

 

[Luko]

what's wrong with these Bula's?

Bule. (...not like the friendly fijian welcome "Bula!")
If you're french speaking you certainly noticed the word "bule" is similar sounding to french word "Boulet" (iron ball). In slang we say someone's is a "boulet" for a totally dumb guy.
So it's hard not to be upset being french and called a "Bule"

 

[billt4sf]

Reminds me of certain politicians -- lots of inspiration, sometimes of false things -- ut not so good at the "thinking it through" thing.

To add more to our little saga, our flight was cancelled (after waiting four hours for it to leave). Once I was told we will be boarding "in two minutes". They are re-routing us through Jakarta ... more delay... miss our concert & dental appointment...at least we don't have dependencies on an international flight -- or worse, a liveaboard!

They put us up in the Dalton hotel. Not too bad, I suggest a non-smoking room (if you can get it) and something high up because there is street noise. Of course there is the usual competitive "yaaa-yaaaa-yuuuuh" at 4:30 AM but it seemed to not be close.

- Bill

 

[Darnold9999]

Something to ponder when deciding to make connections inside Indonesia. Just read someone's review that they would not again take an extra day in Sorong because internal flights were all on time for their current trip. Have had almost exactly this happen to me flying out of Sorong - ended up overnighting in Makassar instead of Denpasar and glad for the extra day built in to the international flight - and something similar flying in to Lembeh - 9 hours late arriving. Indonesian flights are risky.

Hope your flight today is reasonably on time.

 

[billt4sf]

Turns out someone died on the incoming flight and they had to fumigate the aircraft and restore the oxygen levels. So, uhhh...not so bad here....

- B

 

[SpeckledGrouper]

Ooooops! Spoke too fast. Our baggage was "checked through" by Garuda from SOQ to SIN - we have the baggage tags with SIN destination on them. But while we were standing in line at Silk Air (a codeshare with Garuda) my wife looked over and saw a trolley with our bags on it! What the H are THEY doing there? Turns out we had to re-check in our bags and -- you guessed it - pay overweight fees. Silk Air does not take kindly to overweight, their weight limit was 30K. But the big thing was that our bags were being run around by staff because we were told by Garuda that they were checked all the way through and we did not have to pick them up in Makassar.
- Bill

We are going back to Raja Ampat in December. So far, we are booked on the 11.40 am flight on Silk Air from UPG to SIN, but have no flight out of SOQ yet. I see an early flight on Sriwiyaya that would give us a 3 hour connection time in UPG but the schedule is not open for booking yet. Am I crazy for hoping that this is going to work out?