Papua Paradise Eco Resort is blessed to be located in one of the world’s most stunning natural environments, above and below the water. To make the most of your stay in this incredible region, we are happy to offer you a number of exciting tours. Explore the neighboring islands, trek through pristine rainforest, go searching for rare and beautiful species of flora and fauna, and dive magnificent coral reefs. With over 1300 species of reef fish, countless other bizarre and beautiful crustaceans, cephalopods, marine reptiles and mammals, you’ve come to the right place to witness nature at its most breathtaking.
At Papua Paradise we try to minimize our environmental impact by observing responsible and sustainable tourism practices. Our guides are educated in conservation and the best practices in this particular environment so you can feel confident that your trips are not damaging or disturbing the animal or plant life in the region.
Exploring Tours
RED BIRD OF PARADISE TRIP
You don’t have to be a bird enthusiast to be enchanted by Papua’s endemic Birds of Paradise. Seeing these beautiful creatures in the wild is a must when you visit Papua Paradise Eco Resort. On the Red Bird of Paradise Tour you’ll leave before dawn (around 4:30am) and travel 30 minutes by boat to a neighboring island and then walk for around 45 minutes through pristine rainforest. Along the way your guide will tell you about the animal and plant life of the jungle. When you arrive at the location we most often see the elusive red bird of paradise, you’ll wait
quietly and watch from about 20-25 metres away. When your patience pays off and you see the flash of yellow around their head and dark red back and wings you'll never forget the sight of this magnificent bird. The tour takes approximately 4 hours and you’ll need a hat, sunscreen, sunglasses, and waterproof walking shoes. You will also be supplied with coffee and tea and snacks, as well as binoculars. This trip has some steep climbs, so requires a moderate level of fitness and good walking shoes.
WILSON’S BIRD OF PARADISE TOUR
Wilson’s Bird of Paradise is one of the rarest and therefore most exciting species to spot in Raja Ampat. Endemic to the neighboring island of Batanta (and some remote areas on Waigeo), the trail to their nesting site is only 45 minutes by boat from Papua Paradise Resort. Be ready to depart at 4.30am, and trek through pristine jungle and crisp shallow streams. After about 45-minutes, you’ll reach a steep hill known for the birds that frequent. Your guides will follow the song of the birds and
take you to a hide where you will quietly wait for the birds to show up. Each male patrols a certain area so you will probably see males only. Females are difficult to spot. After we’ve spent some time watching the birds we’ll trak back to the boat and have tea, coffee, and snacks. You will see local plantations and traditional wooden farmers’ cottages, and will get the chance to sample cacao fruit straight off the trees. This trip has some steep climbs, so requires a moderate level of fitness and good walking shoes.
BATANTA ISLAND WATERFALL TRIP
Batanta Island is a beautiful island around 30 minutes by boat from Papua Paradise Eco Resort. Leaving at 8am the tour starts with a short walk through the mangroves to a small but beautiful waterfall. You can stop here to take photographs and admire the view before starting the 40-minute trek to the larger falls. You’ll need some good waterproof walking shoes as the terrain passes through clear jungle streams and forest paths, as well as some steep rocky terrain. When you get to the falls,
you are free to swim in the fresh water, explore the cave behind or recline on the rocks around the falls. Photo opportunities are plentiful, and there are a wide variety of birds, butterflies and other wildlife to see. Snacks and drinks are served, and when the group is ready, it’s time to trek back to the boat. This tour arrives back at the resort around lunchtime and guests will need a hat, sunblock, sunglasses and a bathing suit. Towels, snacks and refreshments are included.
Arefi Village Tour
Learn a little about the local people and culture on a trip to the small fishing village of Arefi. Many of the staff at Papua Paradise come from this village, which is just about 15 minutes by boat from Papua Paradise Resort, and is home to around 600 people. The tour includes a walking tour through the village. This gives guests a chance to admire the enormous wooden church, the simple rustic cottages, and the rickety
wooden jetties that are crowded with splashing children and villagers fishing with bamboo poles. The tour lasts around 2 hours and includes tea and coffee, a snack, a tour guide and your boat transfers. Don’t forget your sunscreen, sunglasses, a hat and especially your camera to take some pictures of the beautiful people and scenery!
HORNBILL ISLAND SUNSET CRUISE
Hornbills are one of the most incredible bird species in Raja Ampat, and there is no better way to see them than a cruise to one of their favorite spots to congregate. Leaving the resort around 5pm, the open-top cruise will weave through the islets and mangrove shores of Batanta to Hornbill Island. It takes around 45 minutes to reach the island, but there are plenty of birds and beautiful scenery to see along the way. By the time you arrive at Hornbill Island it is almost sunset. As the sun sinks behind the horizon, the hornbills start to
appear, almost always in pairs, from all directions and descend on the small islet. The sound of their flapping wings makes a majestic sound that is magical heard in real life. Watch the hornbills come into roost for the night and listen to the evening sounds of the jungle canopy while you enjoy a complimentary beer or soft drink on board. Binoculars, evening snacks and an English-speaking guide are all included in this tour, but you will probably want to bring a camera as well. This is the perfect way to encounter nature at its finest.
MANGROVE RIVER BIRD CRUISE
The mangroves around northern Batanta Island are abundant with unique bird life, best seen by boat slowly snaking through the river inlets. This tour leaves around 6am and takes around 40 minutes from Papua Paradise Eco Resort through the waterways of Batanta’s mangroves, where you will cruise for around 2 hours. From the comfort of the boat you may see brahminy kites, white bellied sea eagles,
white reef egrets, rufous bellied kingfishers, beach kingfishers, dollarbirds, olive backed sunbirds, osprey, sulphured crested cockatoos, pied imperial pigeons, Pinon’s imperial pigeons, Papuan lorikeets and Blythe’s hornbills. Snacks, tea and coffee are served on the boat and you’ll be back in the resort in time for a full buffet breakfast. This is the perfect tour for birders or nature photographers.
Diving Tours
FAM ISLANDS DAY TRIP
The Fam Islands are a group of islands around 90 minutes from Papua Paradise. Marine biologists frequent this area and many have said they have never seen such healthy flourishing reefs anywhere else in the world. Your boat to the Fam Islands leaves at 7.30am and heads for the best dive or snorkeling sites according to that day’s tides and currents. After 2 dives you’ll have the chance to go up to the viewpoint, an easy climb with wooden steps.
Lunch is served before a third dive in the afternoon. You don’t have to worry about a thing, as lunch, snacks, refreshments, towels and all your dive gear will be prepared for you. Just don’t forget your sunscreen, sunglasses, and your camera. This is also a great trip for non-divers. There is plenty of gorgeous scenery, beautiful walks and deserted beaches. You can expect to be back in the resort about 5pm.
THE PASSAGE DAY TRIP
Perhaps one of the most iconic Raja Ampat sites, the day trip to Passage is a must for guests eager to experience the best of diving in the area. The boat leaves Papua Paradise at 7.30am and travels across the straight to the passage between Waigeo and Gam Islands. You can snorkel in the area and also enjoy diving in the famous Passage, where tropical rainforest just above the surface of the water overhangs the narrow rocky gulley in which divers can see a wide variety of macro marine life.
Your second and third dives or snorkels of the day are at the Mangroves of Yangeffo, an amazing place to enjoy the lights filtering through the roots of the magrove trees, and , Citrus Ridge where you can enjoy one of the best soft coral gardens in Raja Ampat. This is one of the most popular excursions on offer at Papua Paradise, and is truly an experience not to be missed. Please note The Passage has moderate to strong currents so divers must be experienced. This tour usually returns to Papua Paradise around 4.30pm.
3 Jetties or Manta Sandy Day Trips
Papua Paradise Eco Resort is very lucky to be located within a short trip from an incredible manta spot, which we like to keep a secret. This is why the Manta Sandy Day Trip is only offered outside manta season when the famous Manta Sandy is not crowded with other divers. On this trip you’ll dive at Manta Sandy and then twice around the two amazing jetties of
Arborek and Sawandarek.In manta season this trip can be taken as the 3 Jetties Day Trip and Yenbuba will be added to the other 2 jetties. This is an amazing trip for divers and snorkellers alike, with healthy coral and a great diversity of Marine Life to greet macro and wide angle photography lovers. You’ll also stop for breaks in 2 local villages.
Candidasa
For many visitors, Candidasa is the perfect blend, everything one would want in a seaside resort -reasonable accommodation, varied dining, interesting sea sports, warm-water bathing, balmy breezes and tranquil nights. It is a slow and friendly place, where you can pass the hours with locals on the streets and beaches, or find someone to take you fishing, snorkeling or diving.
According to legend, the name Candidasa is either derived from word meaning 'Ten Temples' or from 'Cilidasa' meaning 'Ten Children.' A shrine in the eastern part of the village, on a hillside under a cliff, looking out over a spring-fed lotus lagoon emptying into the sea, was founded in the 11th century. At street level is a statue of the giantess Hariti, a fertility goddess, surrounded by her many children. Childless couples often come to the temple seeking help from this goddess. A long flight of steps leads to the upper level of the temple, which contains an old 'linga'. Its 10-tiered gateway is one of the few instances of an even-number employed in religious architecture.
Tenganan
Tenganan (only three kilometers from Lotus Bungalows) is an original pre-Hindu Balinese settlement, long a stronghold of native traditions. Like Trunyan on Lake Batur to the northwest, this small village is inhabited by the Bali Aga, aboriginal Balinese who settled the island long before the influx of immigrants from the decaying 16th-century Majapahit Empire. It might appear to be a stage-managed tourist site but is actually a living, breathing village - the home of farmers, artists, and craftspeople. The lowland people of Tenganan have preserved their culture and way of life through the conviction they're descended from gods. They practice a religion based on tenets dating from the kingdom of Bedulu, established before the Hindus arrived.
Tenganan origins can be traced back to the holy text Usana Bali, which states they must tend their consecrated land to honor the royal descendants of their creator, Batara Indra. Though Tenganan is today Hindu, it is also unmistakably Polynesian. Tenganan is a living museum in which people live and work, frozen in a 17th-century lifestyle, practicing their
Most of these rich rice lands (over 1,000 hectares) are leased to and worked by sharecroppers from other villages, who receive half the harvest. This leaves Tenganan free for such artistic pursuits as weaving, dancing, music and ritual fighting. Tenganan villagers are among the wealthiest on Bali. If you are lucky enough to be there on one of their major holy days, you can see each family's treasure trove of rare woven fabric and gold jewelry being worn by both the men and women of the village.
About 106 families with a total of 49 children live in Tenganan - a significant drop from the estimated 700 at the turn of the century. A council of married people decides the legal, economic, and ritual affairs of the village. The village customary law prohibits divorce or polygamy, and until recently only those who married within the village were allowed to remain within its walls, others were banished to a section east of the village called Banjar Pande.
By the 1980s, this custom resulted in Tenganan achieving less than zero population growth, a result of inbreeding. Mandates from the gods were recently reinterpreted, allowing villagers who marry outside the clan to stay, provided the spouse undergoes a mock cremation ritual from which he or she is brought back as a Tenganan descendant.
Iseh
Amid bamboo, coffee, and clove trees sits Iseh, a serene mountain village. Located on a beautiful quiet back road, it's a perfect place to view lush panoramas of cascading terraces of 'sawah', or rice fields, and hilltop temples.In 1963, when Gunung Agung last erupted, a writer called Anna Mathews lived in Iseh. From her house she was perfectly situated to watch the unfolding drama of the eruption of Bali's mother mountain., Later she vividly captured the terrifying experience in her powerful novel The Night of the Purnama.
Walter Spies, the famous painter, seeking release from his life of notoriety in Campuan, also lived in an Iseh in 1932. In this land of deep ravines, tier after tier of luminous rice fields, and incomparable views, Spies created some of his most haunting paintings: Sawahlandschaft mit G. Agung ('View across the Sawah to G. Agung,' 1937) and Iseh im Morgenlicht ('Iseh in Morning Light,' 1938).After Spies died in 1942, the Swiss painter Theo Meier later lived in the same house.
Tirta Gangga
One of the prettiest places in Bali, Tirtagangga ("Water of the Ganges") is a well-maintained water garden and pool complex built by the last raja (king) of Karangasem, Raja Anak Agung Anglurah Ketut, in 1947 on the site of a sacred spring emerging from under a banyan tree. The site of a small water temple, these formal, almost Italian-style water gardens were one of the old raja's weekend retreats.
With its shallow pools and channels, pleasant cool weather (500 meters above sea level), few mosquitoes, great beauty, quiet star-filled nights, and birds chirping over the constant sound of splashing water, Tirtagangga is perfect for relaxation. Sitting on the slopes of Gunung Agung, the open-air palace's fabled water basins, fountains, bizarre statues, and figures have been repeatedly damaged by earthquakes. Locals and the government are involved in a seemingly ceaseless restoration project. It's a sublime experience to swim laps in big flower-strewn pools filled from freshwater mountain streams.
Mount Agung
This sacred mountain is to the Balinese what Olympus was to the ancient Greeks-the Cosmic Mountain. The Balinese, who consider this volcano 'the Navel of the World', always sleep with their heads toward Agung. The mystical Balinese believe the mountain was raised by the gods as advantage point to view the unceasing pageant of life below.To them, it is a central, heavenly point of reference, the geographical and religious center of the world. With an elevation of 3,014 meters, the foot of the mountain stretches northeast right to the sea. To the southeast its slope is blocked by a line of small extinct volcanoes. To the northwest Agung is separated from Gunung Batur by a narrow valley.
The gods rest above the mountain summit, and when they come down to visit the island they reside in Bali's holiest temple complex, Besakih, six kilometers below the crater. When the gods are displeased, Agung showers the land with stone and ruin. Its feathery cloud covered heights are the source of life-giving rivers and volcanic ash, which irrigate and enrich the island's rice fields. The lower portions of the mountain are heavily forested, and farmed up to about 1,000 meters.
Besakih Temple
Bali's oldest, largest, most impressive and austere temple complex sits one-third the way up the slopes of Gunung Agung. Besakih actually consists of three temple compounds. It is the Mother Temple of Bali and the most important of the island's Sad Kahyangan religious shrines. It's Bali's supreme holy place, the essence of all Bali's 20,000 temples, a symbol of religious unity, and the only temple that serves all Balinese. It's spectacular! Besakih was built on a terraced site where prehistoric rites, ceremonies, and feasts once took place. Perhaps it was here where the spirit of the great, angry mountain, which loomed menacingly above the island, received pagan sacrifices. Certain timeworn megaliths in some of the bale are reminiscent of old Indo-Polynesian structures.
Hindu theologians claim the temple was founded by the 8th century missionary Danghyang Markandeya, a priest credited with introducing the tradition of daily offerings (bebali) and the concept of a single god. His son, Empu Sang Kulputih,
About 22 separate sanctuaries contain a bewildering array of over 60 temples and 200 distinct structures (a map is posted at the top of the road leading from the parking lot). Given the Balinese passion for covering surfaces with carving or paint, it's remarkable most of Besakih's sanctuaries are constructed simply of wood.
Amlapura
Some 10 km from Lotus Bungalows is Amlapura, the capital of Karangasem. Of particular interest in this town are the traditional palaces of the royal family and in particular, Puri Agung. A visit will give you a vivid impression of how local royals used to live. The last king of Karangasem also built a number of opulent pleasure palaces - at Ujung, Tirtagangga and Jungutan - for his frequent excursions to the countryside. The former kingdom was founded during the weakening of the Gelgel dynasty late in the 17th century, and became in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the most powerful state in Bali. Puri Agung Karangasem long served as the residence of these kings, who extended their domain across the eastern straits to the island of Lombok. The puri's austere, three-tiered gate, penetrating the thick walls of red brick, is a notable introduction to Karangasem architecture.
During the Dutch conflict at the turn of the century, the raja of Karangasem cooperated with the European army and was allowed to retain his title and autocratic powers.
It was his pleasure to make fantastic moats and pools. Five kilometers south, on the beach at Ujung, he helped design a water palace, consisting of pavilions"floating" in lily ponds, which was completed in 1921. In about 1947, he built Tirta Gangga (6 kilometers north on the road to Culik) as a rest place, where he laid out a series of pools decorated with unusual statuary. It suffered damage during the 1963 eruption, and also at the hands of political agitators during that period, as well as from another earthquake in 1979. The coast road continues through spectacular scenery to the main northern capital of Singaraja.
Padang Bai
A tiny, charmingly scruffy port of transit for the neighboring island of Lombok and beyond, Padang Bai nestles in a beautiful bay to the west of Candidasa. The area offers varied and exciting hiking and there are hidden coves a short distance down the coast. The hills behind the bay present gorgeous views of Nusa Penida across the Bali Strait.
Climb the paved road at the bay's northeast corner above the port to visit the headland on which perches Pura Silayukti, once a hermitage of the 11th-century Javanese priest Empu Kuturan, Erlangga's contemporary who purportedly introduced the caste system to Bali. Pura Telagamas is nearby and Pura Tanjungsari is about 100 meters farther along the headland. Watch the fishing boats chug out at night and return with their catch in the morning.
The Bat Cave & Temple (Goa Lawah)
17 km south west of Lotus Bungalows is the famous Goa Lawah bat cave temple. The combination of squeaking bats, crowds of kneeling devotees with colorful offerings, burning incense and priests' prayers and bells, make a visit to Goa Lawah during a ceremony a fascinating experience.
The Papua Paradise staff will do everything possible to ensure your stay is enjoyable and memorable.
We understand that the little touches matter.
