Until a few weeks ago, this village hadn’t seen tourists in 10 years,” says our local guide, Viktor, as we tread across a stilted log platform, bright green sago palms flanking the surrounding swamp water. “The only way to get here is by boat. There are no roads. But we’re happy to see tourists coming again.”
I’m in Yuan Yufri, a secluded village in the Asmat region of West Papua – the western half of New Guinea, set next to and on the same island as Papua New Guinea but belonging to Indonesia (one of 17,508 islands that make up this huge, diverse country, according to official figures).
