The vast majority of visitors to Irian will first arrive at Sentani airport, which also services Irian's capital town of Jayapura. Little more than a cluster of buildings around the airport, SENTANI is 30km away from Jayapura and a nicer, quieter place to stay, but travellers will still have to call at the capital to arrange a surat jalan , change money and get visas for Papua New Guinea.

Garuda and Merpati have offices at the airport , and though they'll probably insist that you go to Jayapura to buy your ticket, you can check on availability, reserve a seat and find out about cancellations here. The police station is at the main entrance to the airport, but at the time of writing you could not get a surat jalan here - worth checking though. If you plan to head straight to Jayapura from the airport, either hop in a taxi outside the terminal (35min; Rp25,000), or walk out to Jalan Sentani Chimera (600m to the north) and flag down a minibus (known as taksi) heading east. This will terminate at Abepura terminal (30min; Rp800), but if you tell the driver you are going to Jayapura he'll drop you off just before, from where you can catch a taksi on to Entrop (20min; Rp500). Again, you need to get off just before the terminal, and take another taksi into the town centre (15min; Rp350).

The taksi terminal lies 1500m to the west of the airport. The 24-hour Telkom office in Sentani is on the way north from the airport to the main road. The post office (Mon-Sat 8am-5pm) is on the main road to Jayapura, Jalan Sentani Chimera, and has poste restante. There is a Bank Exim just east of here on the same road, which will change dollars cash and some brands of travellers' cheques.