Most travellers spend a day at most in Jayapura before flying inland, but there is enough here to fill it well. The ethnographic museum at Waena holds a remarkable collection of Asmat and Papuan ritual art. The hilltops above Yos Sudarso Bay still carry rusting World War II hardware from the Allied campaign. Out at Sentani Lake, near the airport, you get the only easy taste of Papuan village life accessible without a permit and a charter flight — a wide freshwater lake dotted with stilt-house communities and ringed by green hills.
For a view, climb to Tugu MacArthur on Ifar Gunung above the lake — General MacArthur's lookout point from which he planned the New Guinea campaign — or take a bemo up to Bukit Jayapura City, the hill above the centre, for a panorama of the town curving around the bay.