PNG

We wanted to see cannibals. Where else to go than to Papua New Guinea, or popularly known as PNG? Sure, perhaps to West Papua which is located on the very same island, only that the ”bloody Dutch” attached it to Indonesia , as one local phrased it (actually according to Rough Guide, the Dutch wanted to unite West Papua with PNG and the Indonesians insisted that it should be part of their country) and there has been manslaughter to keep it that way (by the Indonesian, who organised a very much manipulated voting about the faith of West Papua - guess what the result was...). So perhaps it is not the best idea to visit such an instable area. Is PNG any better? There is often tribal violence when the roads are blocked and people are robbed, in some cities it is simply not advised to walk around without a gun in your sleeves (as a kiwi ex-pat claimed), while in some other areas the police presence has discontinued (Tari area in the Highlands where the Huli wigmen live) and is virtually lawless and Wikipedia warns from airplane crashes on tiny airstrips in foggy valleys, but where there are hardly an alternative transportation due to the lack of road connections. Of course it might also happen that when you go trekking in the lush rainforest that covers PNG you bump into some undiscovered tribe that still hangs on their human flash eating traditions and thus you end up as a rare white man souvenir chopped up as fence decoration.... or if you fancy some snorkeling, you should not be surprised if a 7 m long salt water crocodile also shows up, as PNG has one of the larges population of these. The future is not that bright if you dare a visit to PNG? Not necessarily.

Still we were curios of the closest neighbor of Australia, the land where hardly 6 million people, speaking 850 different languages coexist on a territory which has the size of Sweden. A land that has an indescribable richness of cultural tradition with over 1000 different cultural groups, large areas of never discovered virgin forest and uninhibited land, 38 out of the 43 species of bird of paradise, where illiteracy is estimated to be around 50% and where 85% of the population lives in traditional villages and practices subsistence farming in extreme poverty, with 30% having a daily budget less than 1 USD, while it is one of the richest countries in natural resources including oil, gas, gold, nickel. During their 35 years of independence from Australia there was probably not enough time yet for a transparent and corruption free political culture to evolve, resulting in a huge gap between the average poor population and the high class of politicians. Every local explained us sadly, that being elected into parliament is like winning on the lottery: you are an instant millionaire, and not because you get an advanced pay roll....

So we wanted to see that country. To be on the safe side, we booked everything through a travel agent, specializing in PNG trips. It has to be added that we did not have enough material about PNG to be able to organize anything on our own, e.g. we could not find a guide book about PNG in the bookstores in Auckland and Sydney. On the internet we could not find sufficient material either, regarding accommodation.

The tour we booked consisted of 4 nights around Mount Hagen in different lodges, 2 nights in the town of Goroka, all located in the Highlands (between 1600-2800m above sea level) and 3 nights in the coastal town of Madang. We flew out of Cairns to Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, located only 1h away by plane. There we were supposed to get a connecting flight in the afternoon to Mt Hagen, as there is no road connection between the capital and the highlands. We had to wait 5 hours for the plane. We spent that time in the domestic departure hall, because Moresby was quite dangerous we were told. After a few hours waiting it was announced that the flight will be delayed, then around 5 pm we were notified that the flight will be canceled. Luckily the Air Niugini is sophisticated enough to book their stranded passengers into fancy hotels, so we got to spend 1 night in a nearby hotel with pool and got all the meals included. It was here that we first encountered a no chewing betelnut sign. The only problem we had was the notification of the Kumul Lodge we were booked in around Mt Hagen, that we arrive only next morning. Even though the hotel receptionist said that a one-minute phone call should only be around a few kinas, next morning we received a bill of 13 kinas (almost 5 USD) for a 30 second domestic phone call... Quite outrageous!

Next morning we were advised to show up at the airport well before departure, as the flights are often overbooked. So we got to spend an other few hours in the domestic departure hall. The flight was quite smooth, over seemingly untouched rainforest covered mountains. It only got scary when we were approaching our destination and saw all the fog covered valleys, Wikipedia warned us about... But we landed ok, and soon had to struggle to get our luggage that was simply dumped outside of the arrival hall of the small airport. We were picked up at the airport and taken by a minivan to the Kumul Lodge, located 1 h drive away from town. The road was quite bad, almost like in East Africa.

The Lodge was really nice, we got a 2 persons bungalow (it turned out there would had been cheaper options too) with electric bed heater that did us a good service in the freezing cold at night. The lodge is located above 2800m, so it was really cold, even during the day, because it was cloudy. After lunch we had a short trip with Max, a guide of the lodge who owns some of the land surrounding the lodge. He is also the bird specialist of the lodge and has a very useful booklet with most of the birds one can see in that area. He took us to his small hut where he had his orchid garden. He has taken many orchids out of the surrounding forest and simply planted them on the trees around his house, thus making an orchid garden. He had over 100 species, most of them he knew by their Latin name. The orchids in bloom were mostly small, but still beautiful. Max also explained that he would like to drain the area around his house there and produce some vegetables in the future. He also said he got the idea of guiding tourists from a tourist and most locals do not see any business opportunities in tourism, hence the bad infrastructure. The lodge itself was built with the help of the villagers living close by and most of the staff comes from there too. The village, if we understood correctly got a school in return. It has to be noted that the communication with the locals is not always easy, often just answering yes to even opposing questions. So we did not really get reliable information about most of the things, e.g. on guy in the lodge claimed that the surrounding forest has never been logged, so it was virgin forest, but Max said it has been logged, hence the lack of large trees. We also had to notice that the locals are somewhat puzzled by numbers, quantities and distances. Some of them estimated the population of the closest village to 600, the other to 6000.

In the evening we got a bit confused regarding our next day schedule. Originally we were supposed to be dropped off in Mt Hagen early in the morning and then taken to our next destination: the Magic Mountain Lodge. However, it turned out that the Magic Mountain is only 20 min drive away in the direction of Mt Hagen, so it hardly makes sense to go all the way to to town, just to come back later. It added further to the confusion that the owner of the Magic Mountain came by at the Kumul Lodge for a meet and greet, but we were out on our jungle trip with Max. He only left a message that next day he would come by and pick us up from Kumul Lodge around noon. At this point we thought that this message came from the Kumul Lodge chauffeur and got worried that we miss our date with the Magic Mountain people. It took a couple of phone calls and quite some time to clarify the situation. We will be picked up by the Magic people around noon. Until then there was not much to do. The driver, who seemed to be in charge for certain things drove back to Mt Hagen to pick up new people and Max went with him too. So we just sat on a porch of the main building and watched birds. The cool thing about the Kumul Lodge was that it had a bird feeder that was frequented by 5-10 different bird species, including a few bird of paradise species e.g. the brown sicklebill, the Ribbon-tailed Astrapia (which has the longest tail feathers in relation to body size of any bird, over three times the length of its body). The latter were very impressive with their long tails and bright colors. We watched how they quarreled with each other for some personal space and the best bites. They did not seem to be bothered by the ongoing noisy construction work at the lodge and the presence of the people.

From the Magic Mountain Lodge the cook and guide Joshua came to pick us up. After lunch he walked us down to the village, that was located just below the Lodge. The houses were scattered in a large area and the gardens very neatly kept. Besides the plants of use, there were also many flowers or other decorative plants in every garden. The villagers grow all the necessary food for themselves, which includes sweet potato (the most important source of starch), English potato (the potato we know in Europe), cassava, cabbage, beans, broccoli and tobacco. The latter plays a very important role in their societies, as smoking is the second most important social habit after betelenut chewing. Almost everybody is smoking self made cigarettes, for which they use the local newspaper (interestingly in PNG a very important attribute of the newspapers is its “smokeability” and thus publishers select the material very carefully). In a Pidgin newspaper a headline used to say: read it before you smoke it. At the altitude of the village it is not possible to grow tea or coffee and we only saw very few fruit trees too. Their houses were very simple, consisting of usually one room and are made of plant material. It is basically a wooden scaffold and the walls are made of woven sheets of some sort of dried leaves. At one house we watched the procedure of the making of these sheets. The furnishing is very basic: in the middle there is the fire place (they cook inside and use the warmth of the fire during the cold nights nights – btw there is no chimney, so the smoke comes out through the door), the floor is covered with leaves and people sleep there around the fire. Usually there are no windows, thus the huts are quite dark. Nowadays however, most of the huts have electricity, so they have light at night. Some houses have separate sleeping compartments with simple mattresses.

The locals took great pride in greeting us and were extremely welcoming. Almost all of them emphasized (according to Joshua's translation) how happy they are that we came to visit them and that we are spending our money in their country. They also liked their pictures to be taken and were very pleased when we showed them their photos. Many people joined us on our walk, so sometimes our group consisted of more than 10 people. Some of them then stayed with the neighbors, some of them followed us back to the lodge.

In the evening we had a very interesting show by the locals where they presented us their courting ceremony. Two couples dressed up in traditional clothes (meaning leaf skirts and the girls also wore a top made of textile) and with their faces painted started chatting, smoking and singing. During their songs the boy and the girl put their heads together and made synchronized bowing movements.

Next day we were to see more traditional dances, called singsing in a nearby village. There we got a second guide who explained us about the village, that it has a chief, who is responsible for peace and order, and who is respected by the villagers, kind of like a mayor. We looked at a traditional house where different historical artifacts were kept, including grinding stones, masks and weapons. In a different hut they kept a few small stone statues and in a third one the skulls of the former deceased chiefs. The locals also showed us how they cook traditionally in an earth oven. It is called mumu and involves heating up stones in fire and then burring these with the food (e.g. sweet potato, meat) and some green material, like banana leafs and other plants for the taste. While the mumu was cooking, we met the chief, who appeared in his traditional costume along with two of his five wives. He painted his face black with some white pattern, wore a skirt made of plants, and a necklace that contained as many small wooden sticks as many pigs he owned (105). He also had a spear the tip of which was made of human bone and a stone ax. He greeted us and thanked us for coming and started chatting with us with the help of our interpreter. At the end he played us his flute.

After the encounter with the chief, the ladies were ready to perform us their singsing. It took them a really long time to make their leaf skirts, put on their face paintings and their head decoration with many feathers. They wore other ornaments too, like couscous skin or big sea-shells as chest decoration, armbands and necklaces. Their songs were quite simple, accompanied by their drumming on long and thin drums covered with lizard skin originally, now many of them with plastic bags. It was quite entertaining to watch them along with quite a few other villagers who hung around the performing area, some of them singing along too. We were told that they have about 10 different songs, many love songs. The lyrics consisted of a few sentences that were repeated many times, so at the end one could sing along. The ladies got very much into singing and entertained us for about an hour. Then the mumu was done and we could try some baked sweet potatoes. After lunch we showed our new friends a few photos form our trip to Africa. About 50 people surrounded the tiny screen of our notebook and made approving sounds (clicking with their tongues) at the sight of the photos. They were most impressed by the animal pictures. After the presentation we said goodbye to the villagers and headed back to the lodge. On the way back we also looked at a sleepy couscous that was held in a cage as a pet.

In the afternoon we went for a stroll around the lodge, but were too scared to go deep into the jungle, as we heard human voices ahead.

Next morning we had to go to Goroka by public transport, another town in the Highlands, so we were dropped of in Mt Hagen at the market, where the long distance buses are waiting for passengers. Of course they only leave when they are full, but luckily here full means all the seats taken (most buses have 15 seats) and not as many people the bus can hold. This law might be reinforced by the police (there are very frequent check points) because unlike African or South American countries, where 30 people might travel in a 15 seater, here we have never seen a bus with more passengers than seats. The funny thing is that you never know when the bus gets actually full, because many people just get in, sit around for a while and then give their seat for a new person. They might be scam persons who just make the bus look more full, predicting a departure soon and thus attracting more passengers. The bus has no trunk or a roof rack, so the bags travel inside and if you have a big backpack that has to be put on a seat, you will be charged for this the full fare.

The journey takes a long time, even if the distances seem short on the map, because in the mountains the roads make huge detours and the roads are in bad condition. Sometimes half of the road is simply gone, due to a landslide or a river washed it away. The worst stretch of road by far was near Madang through the jungle. The pavement was gone, if there was once any at all, leaving only a big mud-bath as road. As it was very hilly and curvy sometimes our bus had to attempt going up a hill several times until we managed. Over some rivers there were no bridges, so we had to cross the river with the bus. The long journey is quite tiring, but the locals are keen on having a conversation with foreigners, so time can pass by quite pleasantly. If it was not all the smoking and buai chewing and spitting in the bus...

In Goroka we ran into the only scam. When the bus dropped us at the market we had to find our way to the Lutheran Guesthouse where we had our accommodation booked. Friendly looking locals said they would show us the way. We told them we can find the way and need no escorting, just the directions. But they trotted along until the guesthouse, where we thanked them and said good bye. However, a few hours later they showed up and wanted money for their service and not only a small tip, but 100 kinas (almost 30 USD). Kaarel offered them 2 kinas, but they did not want that, but rather wanted to escort us to the airport next morning. But we were not going to the airport next morning we said. That might have puzzled them, because they left soon afterwards. Still we were a bit scared that they might hang out around the guesthouse lurking, so in the evening we just stayed put. In the guesthouse we met that kiwi businessman who was telling us scary stories about the cities in PNG, how dangerous it is in Lae and Port Moresby. Nevertheless he said Goroka was safe.

Next morning we had a village visit, to see the performance of the mudmen in Asaro. This tribe is probably one of the most famous in PNG. They cover their bodies with gray mud and wear scary looking masks made of clay in order to scare off the enemies. This strategy worked before as their enemies run away thinking they were bad spirits. Indeed, as they moved around during their performance in slow motion, they did look like ghosts. The show was only a few minutes long, after which we could try on their masks and talk to the villagers.

In Goroka there is a museum as well, that has a strange collection of pretty much of everything, tribal artifacts, masks, instruments, body ornaments, photos of colonizers, war memorabilia from the world wars etc. However, one does not really get an overview of anything as the artifacts are labeled individually and not put into context and no general information is available e.g. of the tribal heritage. The most information seems to be about the Dani tribe in West Papua.

After 2 days we left Goroka for Madang, a beach resort. We too the public transportation again and had a long conversation with a local woman whose partner runs 2 big hotels in PNG, one in Goroka and an other one in Madang. Later in the evening in Madang we bumped into her in that hotel and she invited us for a couple of beers and drove us back to our accommodation in the dark. Eventhough the place was only 200 meters away they said it was not safe to walk around after sunset.

In Madang itself there is not much to do, but to relax. There are quite a few upmarket resorts with swimming pools where one can hang out. The town is quite muddy and ugly and only the local market was interesting. One can go diving and snorkeling, as there are beautiful coral reefs around the bay and also many wrecks. We went snorkeling with shaky knees because we were told a story when at one weekend 6 people were killed there by sharks.... and by the way there are also salt water crocodiles. Luckily we survived the snorkeling trip and apart from the stress we had a really nice time. Besides many other species, we saw a lot of different Nemo fish...

The Madang Resort also offers village tours, however these were not as interesting as at the highland, because we did not get to see any tribal culture. We only visited the flower garden of a person and had dinner (vegetable soup with sweet potato, taro, mushrooms and herbs) with a local teacher. The most fun part was a visit to a sulfurous creek with turquoise blue water. Interestingly there were quite a lot of fish living in these smelly waters, amongst others eels that are quite tame and one can feed them with sausage. We walked to the source of the creek that was in a cave where turtles were swimming around. They liked the sausage as well. We were told that Pierce Brosnan was shooting his Robinson Crusoe move in that spot some 10 years before and our guide happened to be his guide as well during the couple of weeks he was there. The guide said he is even acknowledged in the movie. His name was quite funny: Busybee. He said a crazy missionary named him... So our task when we get back home is to check his acknowledgement at the end of the film.