Light from the Gaze
Agats Town - part 8
Posted by Stephen (Canberra, Australia) on 29 May 2012 in Documentary & Street and Portfolio.
A sign of progress in Agats town. Two shy Asmat girls pass by a pair of electric motor bikes.
These battery powered bikes share the boardwalk with old style traffic such as hand carts and bicycles.
@Steve Rice: Not sure about this, Steve. There are no roads in the region to help bring in transmission lines. Perhaps small local generators are used. The Asmat region has a population of about 60,000. Elsewhere in West Papua I think hydro power is an option.
@Eric Cousineau: Thanks, Eric. Not sure how they get their electricity. Perhaps small local generators are used. In West Papua, hydro power is an option. But in this very remote region – no roads - it is hard to see how transmission lines could run into towns like Agats.
@franz: Yes, further away from the edge of the river, the height of these platforms seemed to vary from between about two and eight feet. Not sure how tides and river levels would vary - especially in the monsoon season.
@London Caller: Yes, they speak Bahasa Indonesia. The Asmat is part of West Papua - a province of Indonesia (not PNG).