Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Keith’s intimate travel diary 19 – Who are we to advise?

KEITH JACKSON

SATURDAY 25 MAY – ROME, ITALY. Ingrid and I ride from Naples to Rome on the Frecciarosa, which hurtles on steel rails, skirting hills and mountains, through fertile, undulating countryside at 300 kph. It is a journey of such sublimity you never want it to end.

As the pretty pastel villages flash by and the chardonnay in my glass creeps lower, my mind perversely meanders in the direction of Australia, where successive generations of politicians, bureaucrats and entrepreneur-imposters have failed to create decent ground transport whether on rail or road.

My long held and unpatriotic view is that, by and large, Australians are lousy managers and that, if we didn’t have a reasonably good education system and a lot of minerals in the ground, we’d be finding life a real struggle.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 18 – Sex in old Pompeii

KEITH JACKSON

WEDNESDAY 22 MAY – NAPLES, ITALY.  Weather-beaten old hack that I am, I know there’s nothing like a tabloid headline and an erotic pic to pull in the punters.

But believe me, this is all in the interests of broadening your education. So let's talk history.

Pompeii was a typical Roman city before it was knocked off its perch when Mount Vesuvius volcano exploded in 79 AD, pouring down waves of gas upon 20,000 hapless citizens and covering the place with pumice and ash.

But nearly two milennia later, Pompeii, on the eastern fringe of modern Naples, is not typical any more. In fact it’s remarkable - because the debris in which it was buried is being cleared, leaving pretty much intact a near perfect real-life example of this 2,000 year old Roman metropolis.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 17 – I’m missing my butler

KEITH JACKSON

SUNDAY 19 MAY – SORRENTO, ITALY. Look, there’s no easy way to break this news to you, but I’m really missing my butler.

Yes, a few mocking readers will take this the wrong way and think travel has gone to my head and that I've developed a hopeless fantasy that I was stolen as a baby from a royal crib.

But, that strong possibility aside, I have of late been indulging in a glorious butler experience and, having kept the truth from you since Dubai, it’s about time I confessed.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 16 – Glimpses from my mind

KEITH JACKSON

SATURDAY 18 MAY – MESSINA, ITALY.  Nautica was scheduled to anchor off the spectacular cliff-top town of Taormina (which Ingrid, pictured here at Santorini, and I had visited twice before) in Sicily.

But the swell is too great for tenders and, there being no harbour, the ship relocates north to the sickle-shaped port of Messina just across the strait from the boot of Italy.

Messina is an ancient city without ancient buildings because of periodic destruction by war, pestilence and natural disaster.

The most recent earthquake and tsunami of December 1908 killed 120,000 people and destroyed most of the precious antiquities collected in the city’s museums and galleries; some surviving works and useful remnants being dug up from beneath eight metres of rubble.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 15 – On communication

KEITH JACKSON

FRIDAY 17 MAY – AT SEA BETWEEN GREECE & ITALY. Like you, I’ve been a communicator for a long time. Yes, like you, dear reader.

But unlike most of you, I guess, I also communicate for money. That being my profession.

(Not that PNG Attitude, my loss leader extraordinaire, is in any way a part of this grand get-rich scheme more's the pity.)

Yes, we are all communicators from birth. Fresh from the womb we screamed that first unintelligible cry. A communication of being alive if ever there was one.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 14 – Island of peace

KEITH JACKSON

THURSDAY 16 MAY – SANTORINI, GREECE. It was in April 2007 that we were last in Santorini, all whites and blues and one of the lovelier of the beautiful and peaceful Greek islands.

On that occasion, Ingrid and I walked up the 680 steps from the boat harbour at the bottom of the volcanic caldera to the town of Fira [population about 2,000] on the ridge above.

The track is, in fact, a donkey trail. Which means where go donkeys, there trails donkey shit.

So it wasn’t one of the most scintillating walks I ever committed to. Though it was, you could say, scentillating.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 13 – Existential threat

KEITH JACKSON

TUESDAY 14 MAY – HAIFA, ISRAEL. Wael Bader is 25 and has nearly completed a master’s degree in business and economics which he dropped out of medical school to pursue.

“A much more flexible qualification,” he says, as he spins his small car through a Haifa roundabout.

Wael is from Israel’s Druze minority – a religion based on Greek philosophy which emerged from Egypt 1,100 years ago. (I’m surprised when he tells us there are 150,000 Druze in Australia.)

He’s guiding us on a tour of Haifa and the nearby age-old town of Akko, during the last millennium a much fought over hub of trade between east and west as well as an important staging post on the crusaders’ road to Jerusalem.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 12 – Thoughts of home

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY 13 MAY – NEARING HAIFA AT DAWN. It’s still dark at about half past five as I write these notes on Nautica’s top deck in a lounge above the bow sitting at a small round table.

The sun is just rising over a gunmetal sea and promises a fine day. Straight ahead, approaching quickly now, is Israel – a land I have previously not touched.

The port of Haifa, in which we will spend two days, I can see through this grey light as a number of high rise buildings and container derricks silhouetted just left of the imposing bulwark of Mount Carmel which guards the harbour.

Keith's intimate travel diary 11 – Accident at sea

KEITH JACKSON

FRIDAY 10 MAY – SAFAGA, RED SEA. Ugh, what can you say? If I’d fallen off a camel, been charged down by a donkey or even slipped on a cocktail olive, I’d have a reasonable tale to tell.

But taking a step down on a stationary ship in port to test the strength of my surgically-intervened left Achilles tendon and feeling a sudden pain and weakness across my right knee as it twists to bear the weight… well what can you say about that except, “stupid”.

I am consoled only by the knowledge, dear readers, that we’ve all been there or somewhere like there, and we all can be stupid. Sometimes very stupid.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 10 – Night drive in Egypt

KEITH JACKSON

THURSDAY 9 MAY – SAFAGA, EGYPT. The three-hour drive from the desolate port of Safaga to the green and ancient Nile city of Luxor is through unremitting, unrelenting desert and conducted by ramshackle minibus.

The narrow strip of bitumen road is only temporarily reclaimed from the moving sands, and road repair gangs are a constant presence; along with the numerous checkpoints along the way where police loll lazily in the cooler interior of their fortified buildings and are rarely seen.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 9 – Poverty & honesty

KEITH JACKSON

WEDNESDAY 8 MAY – AQABA, JORDAN. Readers Richard Jones and Martin Hadlow are well-travelled gentlemen and, to paraphrase Plato on Socrates, wherever I go, I seem to meet them coming back.

In our Recent Comments column both men advise me along the lines that to visit Aqaba without travelling overland to witness the antiquities of Petra is like taking a bath without soap and water.

My pressing problem, as diligent readers may have noticed, is that I have a recuperating Achilles tendon which restricts my walking to a kilometre or so at a time - although today I manage about two as I hobble slowly around the impoverished streets of Aqaba.

To walk five hours around Petra is more than the lacerated ankle could tolerate. So dry and dusty Aqaba it is that provides our locus of interest this day.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 8 – Four days at sea

KEITH JACKSON

SUNDAY 5 MAY – GULF OF ADEN. The last time I spent this long at sea was, maybe, 1949 when, with my parents, I migrated from England to Australia.

Or maybe 1967 on the Francis Drake,  travelling for eight weeks on a maiden trip around Asia, ending in the Gazelle where I joined Radio Rabaul as its assistant manager.

Then in 1977, I spent a week socked in by a cyclone at a remote atoll in the Maldive Islands, our twin-engine 40-ft launch, Silver Beam, reduced to one serviceable motor and very little fresh water. We lived off bananas, coconuts and breadfruit until picked up by a Korean mother ship.

(The Silver Beam’s second donk karked it soon after the boat left the atoll in shocking weather  and we spent three days with the Koreans searching for it, eventually taking it in tow. But the Koreans did have ample supplies of Johnny Walker Black.)

Keith’s intimate travel diary 7 – Incident in Salalah

KEITH JACKSON

FRIDAY 3 MAY – SALALAH.  Oman, of which the euphonic Salalah is the second city, is a country not blessed by an abundance of natural resources but which has a progressively-minded Sultan who, since tipping his father out of office, has performed social and economic wonders for his people.

Apart from defeating Australia in football recently, a melancholy fact the locals do not hesitate to mention, there exists little by way of a relationship between our part of the world and this remote desert land.

Nautica berths in a huge port imposingly bedecked with cranes for the export of rocks, cement, fertiliser, a bit of oil and not much else.

The shuttle from the ship drops off Ingrid and me at the port gates, there to negotiate a price with a taxi driver for a couple of hours sightseeing around Salalah.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 6 – Preparing for piratry

KEITH JACKSON

THURSDAY 2 MAY – ARABIAN SEA. Late this morning the master of Nautica, Trieste-born Captain Igor Bencina - of medium height and a fit-looking 50-something dapper in his well-pressed dress uniform and glistening shoes - gathers together the 500 passengers in the lounge for a serious chat.

As I mentioned in a previous diary, in 2008 Nautica was attacked by Somali pirates in this part of the world. Shots were fired but, through superior speed and rapid manoeuvring, the vessel escaped.

Since then, when transiting these waters, passengers are warned and drilled (‘geddown, geddown, keep yer head down, keep yer arse down’) about what to do should this enthralling circumstance ever recur.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 5 – Rain on the desert sand

KEITH JACKSON

TUESDAY 30 APRIL – FUJAIRAH. The two Israeli guys had boarded in Mumbai: tough looking critters, never seen apart, who look like they could strangle a sheep in one hand.

Sometimes you see them circling the main deck during the day but their real job is in the darkness hours. They’re not cruising for the fun but for the gun. Their mission: to prevent Nautica being taken by pirates.

Since the 2008 incident referred to in yesterday’s diary, passenger vessels travelling these waters between Somalia and the Arab states have been particularly vigilant. A shipload of passengers – mostly American - offers a high value target for hijackers. Think ransom.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 4 – Cruising on MV Nautica

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY 29 APRIL: GOODBYE DUBAI. Our last voyage on board MV Nautica, which we embarked late this morning, was in May-June 2011 when we transited from Athens through the Dardanelles and Bosphorus and around the Black Sea ports to Istanbul.

This time it’s a longer journey which touches upon Muscat, Jordan, Egypt, Israel and the Greek isles, ending up in Italy about three weeks from now.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 3 – Dubai is indeed ‘do buy’

KEITH JACKSON

SATURDAY 27 APRIL – DUBAI.  “Ask me any question,” invites our guide, Barti Rajan. “Any question.” This time with emphasis.

“OK,” I say, “why do some Moslem women wear full burqas while some show their faces?”

“Oh, the covered faces are from Saudi Arabia, they come here to shop.”

Indeed people flock to Dubai to shop, inspired by the knowledge there are no taxes on gold and other traditional tradables like spices and fabrics.

(Although wine and beer attract an impost of 60% and you can’t go the punt at the fine Dubai racetrack because gambling is prohibited. But the locals assemble anyway to watch splendidly bred horses gallop imperiously around a well-watered grassy track.)

Keith’s intimate travel diary 2 – Dubai's desert splendour

KEITH JACKSON

FRIDAY 26 APRIL: DUBAI. Over a 10-year period until the Global Financial Crisis, the emirate of Dubai (population about two million) built its prosperity on one foundation in these shifting desert sands – property.

And look at that property – soaring buildings of breath-taking splendour, grandiose dimension and boasting a uniquely Arab architecture.

But those investors and speculators got burned very badly when the world’s finances took a hammering in 2008. Dubai had to be bailed out from catastrophic debt by the adjacent oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi and is now seeking to re-invent itself as a top global city – a would-be tourism and financial mecca.

Keith’s intimate travel diary 1 – Flight to the Gulf

KEITH JACKSON

ANZAC DAY: SYDNEY-DUBAI. Ingrid and I have been keenly anticipating this trip overseas for many months.

It’s been a tough gig this past year: the death of my father; business concerns (which eventually turned out OK with the establishment of Jackson PR); three engagements with surgeons which knocked me around a bit; as well as other life exigencies which, as they can, broke the wrong way.

Still a bloke shouldn’t complain too much. He’s alive and will be able to kick again as soon as the latest bit of surgery heals. And I’m travelling to new lands (clarification - the lands are old but new to me). Ah, travel - one of life’s redeeming pleasures.

Landfall in Japan: My first trip to Asia

WERNER COHILL

THE 77TH COUNCIL MEETING and 43rd General Assembly of the Asian Pacific Parliamentarians Union (APPU) was held from 25-27 March in Tokyo, Japan, Asia’s most developed and technologically driven country. 

APPU is an organisation of parliamentarians from countries in Asia and the Pacific Islands.  In Asia these are countries from the north-east, south-east and south-west.  There are 21 member countries, with associate groups and observers.

APPU was formed out of shared concern for political stability, economic and social prosperity, preservation and promotion of freedom and democracy, peace and security in the region.

Tourism faces tough test but gets a sporting chance

OXFORD BUSINESS GROUP

PAPUA NEW GUINEA’s tourism industry faces another tough year after being passed over for funding in PNG’s record K13 billion budget last November. However, the 2015 Pacific Games may give the sector a boost.

The Tourism Promotion Authority’s (TPA) request of K10 million in the budget for an international media campaign was an attempt to elevate the country’s profile across international markets.

The rebuttal was a blow to the sector and to the TPA, which has campaigned for greater government commitment.

While the government’s focus on developing core services, including education, health and infrastructure, is clearly of prime importance, PNG’s tourism sector has pointed to the industry’s potential.

Although the sector posted 12.8% growth in 2011, attracting over 165,000 tourists, it has yet to overcome severe transport constraints.

Tears of joy as Climate Challenger returns home

MANUAI MATAWAI | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

AFTER A THREE MONTH epic canoe voyage, Climate Challenger has finally returned home.

It was around 8am, making a steady 10 knots with our sails well set, that we returned to Pere, our home, after a sometimes hazardous voyage that had taken us from Manus deep into the Solomon Islands and back to PNG again, hurrying north just ahead of the cyclone season.

On Pere I could see a crowd of waiting friends, families and loved ones who had flocked to the shore.

Echoes of the steady rhythm of the garamut filtered to my ears as we sailed in through the reef.

Nearby four canoes decorated with sago palms waited to escort us to the beach front. They were the proud seafaring canoes performing a guard of honour.

We, the crew of Climate Challenger, were also dressed in our traditional attire and danced to the beat of the garamut as we sailed in.

I kept my video camera rolling, filming every action. It will be a big celebration, I thought to myself. The garamut rocked Pere as traditional dancers danced in to meet us as the guard of honour escorted us ashore.

The flower girls put wreaths around our neck and we proceeded to meet the village chiefs, councillors and church elders who had lined up to receive us.

In every corner I could hear people shouting and cheering.  

Everyone was so proud and happy to see us back safe and sound.

The crew members were rounded up by their immediate families - shaking hands, chatting, crying. I could see tears of joy everywhere.

It was a proud moment of my life. 

The challenges, the sleepless night and stressful hour were over but the voyage is not over. There is far to go in making our Pacific an environmentally secure place.

It was indeed a relief to be on Pere.

We are finally back home and reunited with our families.

Getting ready for Chinese money on the Okuk Highway

TERRY SHELLEY

The Okuk Highlands Highway is a disaster. It features horrific road conditions and very unfriendly bystanders.

There has been a population explosion over the past 2-3 decades and, to many rural youths (and seniors, for that matter), the highway is their only chance of income, i.e., looting vehicles, pot-hole creation gangs and deliberate sabotage by redirecting streams to cause landslides and blockages.

Since the announcement by the national government of its intention to have a Chinese loan finance a K6 billion remake, there has been a mad rush to erect stalls, trade stores, fences, gardens etc in an effort to get paid compensation.

And, if it is anything like the Simbu buy-back, the people will get paid if they agree to share some of the proceeds with the government officers making the pay-out.

It is time the PNG government showed some backbone and regained ownership of the Okuk Highway. The entire road from Lae wharf to the LNG project area should be declared a disaster zone with special police powers given to mobile squads to bring it back under control.

A national advertising campaign should be launched to inform anyone who builds within the 40 metre corridor (i.e., 20 metres either side of the centre line) is trespassing on government property and will be charged.

The owners of illegal gardens and buildings should be given 30 days’ notice to be remove them or they will be destroyed without compensation.

It is rather ironic the national government can boast about its intention to vapourise K1 billion for the 2015 South Pacific Games where the only real winners from this will be the usual clique of Moresby insiders.

The sad state of the Okuk Highway and the added costs of looting and other crime is being paid for daily by the millions of highlanders who depend on the road as their only source of goods and access to market for their produce.

Yes, the highway needs an urgent makeover, however some thought should be given to the locals along its length to be included in the spin-offs.

This could be done by giving them minor maintenance contracts (wok-mak) and also security contracts.

The volume of traffic along the highway has probably increased by more than 100%, however the highlands mummas are still washing their kaukau, pikininis and second-hand clothes in the gutters as the million kina rigs roar past.

The highway is a problem far too great for an NGO or any other "do good" organisation. We need a SWAT Squad.

Compensation at all costs - the new highwaymen

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

THE FOLLOWING LETTER WAS WRITTEN by Jeffery Kopeap of Pulim Village near Mendi in the Southern Highlands Province. 

His pet cat had been run over and killed by a truck belonging to Traisa Transport Limited, which has transported cargo to the highlands provinces for many years now.

Pulim Village
P.O. Box 749
Mendi SHP

30 December 2011

Subject: COMPLAINING OF KILLING PUSI CAT BY TRAISA COMPANY

I, Jeffery Kopeap, owner of the Pusi Cat strongly disagree that my Pusi cat was obviously killed in the eyes of people early in the morning, 7:42 am 30^th December 2011.

The cat was killed by long truck which is Trasia. The cat is male and it is too young, the life for human being and animals is not are different, that’s my property and it looked after my garden and house from protecting rat.

I carry out this matter across to the manager to compensate my Pusi cat, I am demanded this Pusi cat for K1200 because my Pusi cat should live about 15 years.

I want the action immediately within 3-4 days later.

I am waiting for your result as soon as possible. If nothing is done, there will be another story. The driver should minimize his speed and at the same time he see Pusi cat with his eyes and killed the cat.

Thanks for your understanding and consideration.

Signed
Jeffery Kopeap

Such demands and threats are a frequently received by trucking companies doing business between Lae and the highlands provinces.

The cutting open of containers and looting along the Okuk Highway is also a regular experience for trucking companies operating in this part of the country.

Will people up there begin demanding compensation from trucks running over rats, grasshoppers and even fire flies in a few months’ time?

There are also stories of mentally disabled people and drug addicts being lured onto the road at the sight of these big trucks so they are killed and the relatives or clans can make a fortune from compensation.

Men with small run-down vehicles will sometimes dice with death and deliberately drive close to these big trucks so that they dent or scratch parts of their vehicle and then demand compensation from the company.

Sections of the Okuk Highway are covered with craters, potholes and even landslides, which cause damage to the trucks and increases wears and tear on body and engine parts and inflates the cost of running the trucking businesses.

Landowners along the highway deliberately stop the maintenance of these deteriorating road conditions until they get paid compensation. 

The Mindima–Wandi section of the Okuk Highway is a typical example of this cycle of neglect and demand. 

Despite these problems, the major trucking companies consistently supply machinery, equipment parts, food and clothing to the mines and super markets up in the interior of the highlands provinces.

We salute them for the services rendered in these appalling conditions.

We hope there will not be any more letters like the one above demanding compensation for pussycats, grasshoppers or fireflies run over by trucks this year.

Good news for PNG maritime safety & efficiency

Asian Development Bank

THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB) has approved a $41.5 million loan to improve navigational aids in Papua  New Guinea, allowing ships to more safely
travel through PNG’s largely unchartered and often unsafe waters.

“The Maritime and Waterways Safety Project will upgrade the existing navigational aids network, reducing risks which cause serious injury, loss of life, and environmental damage,” said Xianbin Yao, director general of ADB’s Pacific Department.

“The project will also establish a safe and efficient maritime transport environment for national, regional, and international traffic.”

Remote populations are expected to be the main beneficiaries of the project, which will make maritime safety information more readily available and help develop maritime safety communities of practice.

Regional and international maritime transport services will benefit as monitoring and surveillance systems are renovated and search and rescue capacity improved.

More effective beacons or lighthouses are also expected to boost local and international shipping and trade.

“This project will have significant benefits for the 65% of PNG’s people who live in coastal regions” said Chris Rupen, general manager of the National Maritime Safety Authority.

“It will also provide direct support to communities in cash and services.”.

Foreigners in another world: Jane finds the two PNGs

JANE SLOANE | Jane in the World

ONE CASSOWARY, TWO SHEEP, 24 pigs, K1,600 worth of vegetables, K10,000 of gas and K10,000 in cash is the worth of a woman.

That’s the bride price my driver, Andrew, paid for his wife, Jennifer, when they met and married in Mount Hagen.

“As a couple, we received up to 50% of that payment back in some form,” Andrew explained. My parents-in-law gave us back three pigs, K800 of vegetables, especially bananas which we didn’t have, cooking utensils, bedding and K3,000 in cash.

“We needed this as we were very, very poor.  I had to worked for years in my garden to save for the bride price.”

This is the reality of a man marrying a woman in one of the rural areas of the Papua New Guinea. Old traditions remain strong.

Around 40% of PNG’s population lives on less than $1 per day, with PNG ranking 121 out of 135 countries on the United Nations Human Poverty Index, which measures a country’s standard of living.

On the UN Human Development Index, which measures literacy, life expectancy and standard of living, PNG ranks 148 out of 182 countries.

PNG has the poorest state of health in the Pacific region, especially in rural areas where health services are deteriorating and difficult to access at best, or at worst closed down.

“PNG has the second highest rate of maternal mortality in the world after Afghanistan,” Scholla Kakas, President of the National Council of Women, told me.

“The churches are the ones that have focused on local training for village attendants but there’s still so few who have been trained.

“It would help if we had a training facility for midwives but, even then, there are issues of transport and access, especially in the remote locations. Meanwhile, the women are dying.”

Global Fund for Women’s Grantee partners have been responding with their own creative initiatives to some of these issues. For instance, in 2007 a group of single mothers formed the Waugla Single Mother’s Association (WSMA) in Simbu Province.

The group’s mission is to address the issues of a marginalized, but rapidly growing, community of single mothers from aged 17-40 and it conducts training on food preservation and security as well as birth control practices.

Members of the group have also collectively pooled their resources to help each member construct their own homes.

Another group, The Women’s Rural Advance Program (WRAP) is a women’s group located in the Highlands. Established in 1988 by women of the Ramui tribe, the membership of the organization includes 18 women’s groups over 900 women from different communities.

WRAP trains rural women to become leaders and to foster the future leadership of women and girls across PNG and to increase women’s economic autonomy and advocacy around health and HIV/AIDS.

As I was headed back to my accommodation today, I watched a gorgeous girl peep out the window of a bus, held tight by her Mum, who waved at me.

Across from my hotel, street artists lined up their brilliantly painted scenes of everyday life in PNG for the 99 percenters here. One painting was of people in a local bus looking up at westerners in a kind of Biggles plane contraption in the sky.

“We are singing in our bus”, the woman artist explained to me. “We’re poor but we have our families and our songs and our feet on the ground.

“We feel life. You foreigners are in another world with your heads in the clouds looking down on us all the time.”

She smiled and looked at me. “Two hundred kina, you buy?”

Melanesian culture surprises New Zealand travel writer

CHRISTINE CORNEGE | The New Zealand Herald

I'M GLAD I'M MARRIED. However, if I wasn't, it is good to know that in Mount Hagen I would be considered an A-class wife. Thanks to my university education, I could fetch a dowry of K60,000 and 60 pigs.

A B-class wife is high school-educated and can be bought for K40,000 and 25 pigs, while a C-class wife is a villager worth K15,000 and 15 pigs.

With 39,000 people, Mount Hagen is the capital of Papua New Guinea's Western Highlands Province and the country's third largest city.

Only introduced to Western culture in 1934, it has adapted quickly with supermarkets, banks, car yards and even a Coca-Cola factory.

However, it lacks many of the niceties of a New Zealand town leaving a tense and frontier-like feel to the grubby streets of the sprawling mountain-ringed town.

Men can spend their whole lives saving to afford a wife, who, even after marriage, is still expected to earn her keep.

Women are employed in a variety of roles in the town working in banks, petrol stations and supermarkets and many also run street-side stalls selling cigarettes, betel nuts, fruit and vegetables.

Outside the town in the fertile Wahgi Valley, agriculture remains the primary income source and wives are expected to tend coffee, sweet potatoes and pigs on the traditional subsistence farms.

If life in the Papua New Guinea highlands was an eye-opener, the transition to the lowlands of the Sepik river basin was a journey back in time.

Even being greeted by a group of naked children when we landed at the Karawari grass airstrip didn't prepare me for the simple lives of the river tribes who are only now being touched by western culture.

At Kundiman, a village on the banks of the Karawari River, a tributary of the mighty Sepik, life has changed little over hundreds of years.

While some villagers are partially clad in modern clothing, others wear only loincloths or grass skirts, though some of the dress and elaborate face painting appears contrived for our visit.

However, traditional art and culture is unchanged and genuine.

Painted masks, large wall panels and ancestral figures represent a vivid story of a tribe and adorn the village's Haus Tambaran or spirit house - a male-only domain where the village's sacred rites are performed.

Once compulsory, many young men still choose to go through a painful scarification ritual as an initiation to manhood. Their skin is sliced and packed with mud to cause raised scars that are set in patterns resembling crocodile skin, a creature sacred to the villages.

Before becoming men they are also required to undergo a period of complete separation from women, leaving their mothers and sisters to live in the "spirit house" while completing their biological and psychological transformation.

The spirit house also becomes home to married men while their wives are menstruating - perhaps an idea that could be adopted by our culture.

A harsh, beautiful land gives Ray a real adventure

ARTHUR GORRIE | Gympie Times (Queensland)

KYBONG FARMER RAY GRESHAM may have walked away from dairying, but his trek across Papua New Guinea was a different kind of walking altogether.

Looking for a change of scenery, Ray says he felt like an adventure. And, as the promotional material promised, that is what he got. "Kokoda isn't all that tough," the pamphlet warned.

But the Black Cat/Bull Dog Track, north to south across Papua New Guinea - now there's a real walk, the tour organisers promised. "Truly wild country," the pamphlet reads, where "few trekkers venture".

It has in common with Kokoda a role in some of the most crucial moments of the World War II, including the Battle of Wau, where Allied forces fought the Japanese to a standstill.

But as he struggled across the huge mountain backbone of our nearest northern neighbour, Ray discovered adventure, scenery and culture shock on a scale reminiscent of Lord of the Rings.

Relics along the way included dumped mortars, heavy machine guns from both sides and the country's best preserved Second World War plane wreck - a shot up B17 Flying Fortress.

Kokoda is "still a fine walk," tour organiser James McCormac wrote in that pamphlet that caught Ray Gresham's eye. "But the Black Cat/Bull Dog track is "more challenging... a real adventure".

"More challenging" turned out to mean "dodgy river crossings, deep mud, leeches, torrential rain" and all participants "physically shattered" by the end.

Of all this, Ray had fair warning when he set out in October for 12 days of slipping, sliding, walking, hobbling and hanging on for dear life, as he retraced the steps of the soldiers who slowed the Japanese advance from the beautiful beachside village of Salamaua, on the northern coast near Lae, to the critically important mountain airstrip at Wau.

If the Japanese had got past there, they would have had a made road (now eroded and landslip damaged to the point of being a narrow foot track) to the south coast at Terapo.

More strategically important still was the airstrip, which would have provided a base for aerial bombardment of Port Moresby.

The airstrip is on a 10-degree slope, with mountains all round, one of PNG's infamous no-second-chance landing fields - made even more tricky by Japanese soldiers shooting from the end of the airstrip.

Planes bringing up to 50 soldiers would lose two or three as they attempted to get off.

Then the pilots would have to turn around and take off, carrying the wounded, right in the face of the enemy guns.

Up the Sepik: An Ambunti holiday with the Anskars

BARBARA SHORT

IN SEPTEMBER 1972, during my second year of teaching at Brandi High School near Wewak, Akapina Anskar, one of my Year 8 students, invited me to spend the school holidays with her family at the government station of Ambunti, on the Sepik River.

Some of the teachers had been to Sepik River villages and had stayed with Brandi pupils so I was keen to have a similar experience.

Angela Newman, a new member of staff, was also willing to come, so I guess I felt there was “safety in numbers”.

We thought we might not like the local food and decided to take along some Aussie food which we could share.

I felt it would be a great experience to “live with the natives” but was not sure of the rules of etiquette.

Anyway, I went shopping and bought some food that we could share with the Anskar family.

I still had a lot to learn about Sepik culture and didn’t want to appear rude or arrogant.

Akapina’s father was Anskar Kamal. It was the Sepik custom for the children to take their father’s first name as their second name, hence Akapina was known as Akapina Anskar and not Akapina Kamal, as in Australia.

We drove to Pagwi where we left my car and Akapina’s uncle, Anton, arrived with his long outboard motor powered dugout canoe to take us up river to Ambunti.

On the way we stopped at the very large village of Avatip, home to many Brandi students, such as Pauline and Joel Luma and Jacob Kasa, who had been head boy in 1971.

I had heard many stories about the Avatip’s past reputation for headhunting and I remember treating them with respect. Here we were able to watch a singsing.

It was a long journey from Pagwi to Ambunti and we arrived towards nightfall and were taken up a hill, a rare sight in the Sepik River valley, and found that the Anskars lived in an old trade store built of permanent materials,. a timber building with a corrugated iron roof, which overlooked the river.

I was amazed to find Akapina’s mother and father sitting together in the kitchen. Her mother was preparing the meal while her father was sitting with her, drinking a bottle of beer and eating some freshly cooked prawns from the river.

It reminded me of home and I realised we were not staying in a traditional village but rather with a westernised family. We were given beds to sleep on!

Close encounters with the sharks of the Coral Sea

JOHN GRANT | The Australian

THE SUN SEEMED TO ALMOST spank my body that morning. It was my first full day at Hula village, 150km southeast of Port Moresby on the coast.

The night before, in a bamboo and palm-leaf house on stilts, I had worked hard to convince my hosts that I should go fishing with the men.

"Sharks," they had declared. They gestured I couldn't go out there because of the sharks. Ha, I'd seen sharks - just black shapes in the water. She'll be right.

Working in a sheep and wheat town as I do in South Australia breeds dreams of exotic adventure. So I booked a two-week outrigger canoe tour of the Louisiade Archipelago.

My plucky buddy Mandy was due in Port Moresby in a week to join me, and an adventure tour organiser sent me to his Hula village friends.

Six of us boarded a four metre dinghy and motored into the Coral Sea that sparkling January morning. My sense of self-satisfaction and daring bubbled inside.

With the bright blue sky pressing from above and the transparent aquamarine water sliding below, the reason I should not be there seemed ridiculous.

One of my long legs dangled into the water. Suddenly the calm men became frantic. They pulled in trawl lines with an explosion of energy I could scarcely reconcile with their usual pace.

Big shining tuna started landing, thrashing on the floor of the tinny. When a neatly bisected fish landed, the serrations through its flesh suddenly made chilling sense.

A jolting thud from under the aluminium boat announced the first shark. The outraged fish were splashing blood over the side of the tinny.

Within minutes I could count 16 tiger sharks, jaws snapping and teeth flashing, jostling the boat. The fishers carried on business as usual until a horrible metallic noise tore the air.

They were amazed that part of the outboard motor's propeller had been taken off. The Coral Sea turned pink under us.

At dusk, while the locals cooked their tuna in palm leaves on open fires all around us, in accordance with my status as a guest and an Australian, we feasted on Sao biscuits with Vegemite and canned mackerel from the Philippines.

The night's hilarious entertainment consisted of seemingly endless impersonations of me. Take that, Bali.

Land of wigmen, giant butterflies & torrid wartime tales

NIGEL TISDALL | The Telegraph (London)

HOW CAN IT BE that the world’s second-largest island is so little known to travellers? Moored off the north coast of Australia, Papua New Guinea seems to offer everything you could want for an exotic holiday – feisty indigenous tribes, flamboyant bird life, superb diving, remote jungle lodges and golden beaches with ice-cold South Pacific beer…

The place was carved up in the colonial era between the Dutch, Germans and British; one half is now the Indonesian state of West Papua, while the east forms the bulk of Papua New Guinea, formerly an Australian-administered territory and today a loyal Commonwealth member.

Independence came in 1975, with a ceremony attended by a young Charles, Prince of Wales, who was billed in the local pidgin language as “nambawan pikinini bilong Misis Kwin”.

On Saturday the Prince, accompanied by the Duchess of Cornwall, began a return visit to PNG, bringing some much-deserved attention to a country still considered a byword for all things remote.

In reality, it is easy enough to fly into its isolated capital, Port Moresby, via Singapore.

Once an adventure playground known only to birdwatchers, and explorers such as Benedict Allen, who underwent the painful initiation ceremonies of its crocodile-worshipping cults, PNG is at last gaining a place on the holiday map.

In January its government opened a British tourist office, and a growing number of tour operators are offering packages to a “last frontier” and a place “untouched by time”.

Such descriptions seem justified as I fly north-west in a beaten-up twin-prop plane to the Highlands town of Tari, watching the turquoise waters of the Coral Sea give way to a switchback of ridges and valleys blanketed with dense green tropical forest.

Until the thirties, few outsiders had any inkling that PNG’s mountainous interior might be populated. Then an Australian gold prospector, Mick Leahy, scaled its forbidding heights and found a million people living in a Stone Age world of banana-leaf loincloths, feathered headdresses and deadly bows and arrows.

Equally remarkable is the fact that Leahy’s expedition took along a 16mm camera to record an adventure (now available on DVD) in which the white men were seen as returning spirits who never defecated (as their bottoms were covered) and who presumably kept their wives in their rucksacks.

The most hostile reception came around Tari, and this region still has a lawless mood. Alcohol is banned, many men carry a machete, and most vehicles have wire grilles over their windows. Armed hold-ups, inter-clan feuds and roadside flare-ups are a fact of life.

PNG pilots earn wings after 2 years in Coffs Harbour

BRAD GREENSHIELDS | Coffs Coast Advocate

FOR EIGHT PAPUA NEW GUINEAN airline pilot cadets, earning their golden wings at last week's graduation in Coffs Harbour was the culmination 18 months of intense theoretical and practical training.

But the tireless days, long nights and early morning starts while at professional pilot training were a small price to pay in comparison to what they have achieved.

Of the thousands who applied for the cadet training course, only the creme de la creme were chosen. Some even had to choose between their studies in university and pilot school.

Cadet Philip Polum left an Applied Physics course in the final year to pursue this career.

"It was always my dream to be a pilot and I have always worked towards that my whole life," Philip said.

Under the sponsorship of Papua New Guinea's airline, Air Niugini, the cadets were able to fulfil their dream.

Upon their return to PNG, they'll undergo further training to become first officers on Dash 8 aircraft.

Fellow cadet Alwas Popo said the opportunity to fly over the Coffs Coast has been a truly magnificent experience but the friendships forged has been a greater reward.

"We haven't only enjoyed your skies and the weather here, we've made heaps of friends and I don't think we'll ever forget the memories we've made here," Alwas said.

Trucking the highways in PNG – the hazards and the perils

DAVID MEREDITH | Big Rigs

JACOB LUKE'S LIFE STORY started as a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow, raised without a stitch of clothing in an obscure village in the Papua New Guinea highlands.

From nothing but a noble family heritage, he now operates a fleet of 75 Kenworth T650s, around 200 flat-top, drop deck and tanker trailers, three depots and employs several hundred people.

Ten more Kenworths are due to arrive in the next few weeks and, with an order for 15 or so in January, he'll be the proud owner of his 100 of the landmark US brand.

There are also a dozen Japanese cab-overs in his fleet, which are restricted to town work because of the appalling conditions on the highways.

I drove the highlands highway with a convoy of 10 semi-trailers from Lae up through Goroka to Mt Hagen. My amazement and wonder at this majestic country was quickly overwhelmed by the critical challenges faced by PNG transport companies.

Although it's the key transport artery for the delivery of essentials to the population, and sole supply line for the projects that are financing PNG's future growth, the highway is a national disgrace. In fact, that's understating the case.

None of the test tracks I've driven hold a candle to PNG roads, despite big chunks of PNG kinas being allocated for construction, repair and maintenance. Wherever that cash goes, you can't see it on the tarmac.

Jacob's repair shop regularly replaces landing legs on trailers that have been bent beyond repair when a truck drops off a 600mm trench that is completely unavoidable.

I stood beside sections of road and listened to trucks grind and groan a tortured path across holes and gullies that had trailer linkages, suspensions, and turntables at and beyond maximum travel.

The holes are so extreme that trucks can easily lurch violently at crawl speed, lose stability and fall over.

That's when the second curse of local transport takes over. As locals descend to pillage the rig, the driver goes bush, and the police are nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, the cargo is "redistributed" and pops up at roadside stalls for several kilometres either side of the accident.

There is also an active and vibrant secondary economy trading stolen fuel, which is ignored by authorities.

Every community along the route has rickety tables on the roadside with dirty containers of diesel, where a truck driver has pulled over, dropped 20 litres of diesel into the vendors drum and moved on, picking up a commission for the sale on the return leg.

Last year alone, stolen fuel cost Mapai Transport over $3million.

If PNG's new government got serious about fixing the appalling roads, these lifelines of the future could rapidly reduce damage and delay enough to nearly halve fuel costs, slash repair bills and, most importantly guarantee supply of essentials to industry and community alike.

Then they could enliven the local business community to address the rest of the problems.

As a fair-skinned, bespectacled redhead in isolated tribal villages I felt all eyes on me, but the warmth and genuine friendliness of the PNG people always made me feel welcome, even the guys casually swinging machetes from their left hands.

Jacob Luke, his countrymen, and this magnificent country deserve a better deal from their national government.

PNG tourism is a sleeping giant says tourism minister

Travel Blackboard

TOURISM IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA has been described as a ‘sleeping giant’ by the country’s Tourism Minister, Boka Kondra.

Mr Kondra asked the heads of department in his ministry to bring their plans and goals into line to create stability and vision for Papua New Guinea’s tourism industry to grow, the Pacific Islands News Association reported.

“There is misalignment among the sectors in the tourism industry,” Mr Kondra said, urging the department heads to “discuss a way to move forward” with a common goal to bring profitability to the country’s tourism industry.

Mr Kondra said the tourism industry was an economic sector and therefore an integral part of the government’s focus on growing the economy.

Admitting to never wanting to be the Tourism Minister, Mr Kondra said he had “come to learn  that tourism is a sleeping giant” and, as such, must contribute to the growth of the country, something that that could only be achieved if the entities worked in alignment.

“The prime minister has given a clear vision and now I want us to follow that in our tourism industry,” Mr Kondra concluded.

Tourist in Bougainville, happy memories of the 1970s

BARBARA SHORT

I WAS TEACHING AT KERAVAT NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL and on my way home to Sydney for my Christmas break in December 1977 I decided to do a hop, step and jump through the Pacific islands and it turned into a marvellous trip.

I was to leave on a late Air Nuigini flight to Bougainville but the plane was delayed so much we had to overnight in Rabaul. This meant a free overnight stay at the Rabaul Travelodge, the best inn in town! After a delicious meal I joined the plane crew in the lounge for drinks then it was early to bed as we had to make an early start.

It was a lovely clear morning when we set off over Blanche Bay and headed over the Solomon Sea towards Bougainville. When we were close to the island of Buka, to the north of Bougainville, the captain, whom I had met the previous evening, motioned for me to come into the cockpit.

Here I was invited to sit on the small seat between the pilot and the navigator. When he found out that I had never been on that trip before, as they approached the northern tip of Bougainville, they took the plane down to about 300m and we cruised at that height all the way down the east coast of Bougainville to Kieta.

Wow! What a sight! We seemed to be just skimming over the tops of the coconut palms growing in the many plantations along the coast.

This strip of Bougainville had huge plantations of thousands of acres, mostly owned by large companies and run by managers, due to the excellent well-distributed rainfall and the rich volcanic soils.

To our right was the majestic Emperor Range, over 1,500m, with Mt Balbi, 2,743m, an active volcano surrounded by old cones and extinct craters. Closer to Kieta we passed a smoking Mt Bagana, 2,000m, surely uncomfortably close to the Catholic Mission of Torokina.

The landing at Kieta, with me still sitting in the seat in the cockpit, was also wonderful as the region is very attractive with beautiful offshore islands.

After thanking my cockpit friends profusely, I headed off to a nearby motel, which had a lovely view over the nearby passage between the mainland and an offshore island.

I became friendly with the owner of the motel and he lent me his utility for the day. So I was soon off driving through Kieta and Arawa, and up to the Panguna mine area where I picked up a friend and former pupil, Cathy Kuira, as my guide.

Mixing past and present in Papua New Guinea

JAKE WARGA | National Public Radio

FEW PLACES ARE MORE EXOTIC in the imagination than Papua New Guinea. The romantic images it conjures up are the stuff of a National Geographic cover story, complete with deadly animals and, of course, cannibals.

But once I stepped off the plane, I entered a land that was wrestling with its past and its present.

The Sepik River basin, deep in the heart of the country, is a popular tourist destination. It's the perfect place for a jungle river tour, with dense greenery, massive birds and stops at tribal villages.

The village of Imas, along the banks of the Sepik, is actually two villages, explains Ambrose Otto, the village leader.

There's "Imas No 2," where most people live in the present. There's also "Imas No 1," also known as the "traditional village."

That traditional village, the one where the tourists go, is like living in the past. The residents perform dances like they did before outsiders came.

I now know where Papua New Guinea is, but I'm not sure when it is.

But while the concept of two villages may seem artificial, re-creating the past for tourists and their quest for the authentic is helping the Imas people preserve both their language, known as Karam, and their culture.

"The young generation coming up loses their dialect now," Otto says. "They only speak pidgin English. It's one of the areas where this village is now failing. So we are trying our best to restart the traditions before the old people pass away."

Luckily, one tradition is not coming back: cannibalism. All for the best, it seems, as I note the plumpness of many of the tourists. Lots of visitors want to hear about cannibals, but the practice stopped in the 1930s.

On the path back to the boat, village women have lined up souvenirs to sell. Even a living museum like the traditional Imas makes you exit through the gift shop.

We travel further upriver to another village, where we're greeted, as at every stop, by excited children. As part of our tour of the Karawari village, an elder demonstrates how to peel bark off a log, a woman cooks over an open fire and a canoe is being chopped into shape.

"The white people came here like first missionaries," explains Paul, a guide with Karawari Lodge, one of the camps where visitors are based. "They came in for first contact and start to tell them, 'Wear these clothes.' "

Today, I see no Western clothes. No tee-shirts, no shorts. Just grass skirts, bare breasts, skimpy loincloths and naked children.

Visiting New Britain: The faces behind the masks

DANIEL SCOTT | The Age (Melbourne)

THE KUSARE WARRIORS ARE A TERRIFYING SIGHT. Daubed in mud, with pigs' tusks clamped between their teeth and wielding wooden spears, they advance on the crowd.

At the front their chief stares impassively, issuing a challenge to the mostly Papua New Guinean spectators.

The chief wears a Jesus-like crown, made of animal teeth, around his red dreadlocks. His face is painted black with a white stripe running down his forehead and along the bridge of his nose.

Chanting rhythmically and holding shields aloft, the Kusare break into a trot, scattering onlookers. They stop, turn and split into opposing groups, then charge and countercharge, bellowing war cries, emulating an inter-tribal battle.

Their ferocity leaves no doubt that the Kusare, from Kandrian in West New Britain province, would emerge triumphant from any stoush.

It's a sticky July afternoon at the Kokopo sports field on the Gazelle Peninsula. The Kusare are the first group I see at the annual National Mask Festival, a gathering of tribes from throughout PNG.

Though it has been staged since 1995, the festival is yet to attract the international attention focused on the longer-running Mount Hagen and Goroka shows. I'm one of a smattering of foreign visitors.

Aimed at preserving and showcasing indigenous rituals, the National Mask Festival proceeds languorously for four days in the PNG humidity, sporadically bursting into life with performances by visiting tribes.

The showground is full of cultural curiosities. As I dawdle around the perimeter of grass-built refreshment huts, sponsored by Coca-Cola, I come across Daon Toupai, a witch doctor and storyteller from the inland village of Tamanairik.

With his shock of white hair, spidery eyebrows and betel-nut stained lips, the 76-year-old is an arresting sight. I'm happy to pay a "gate fee" of two kina to listen to him recount legends from East New Britain's Tolai people.

The storyteller is winding up when, at the far end of the showground, a cry goes up, flushing everybody from the shade of the refreshment huts. Three elderly women are disinterring a python from an earth oven. The two-metre snake is the centrepiece of a celebratory mumu.

Unearthing it from a bed of banana leaves, the women whoop and dance, holding the limp body aloft, kissing its head triumphantly and distributing pieces to the throng. My first taste of steamed python has the oily consistency and salty flavour of an ocean fish.

In the arena a group from the nearby Baining mountains is ready. With faces hidden by cone-shaped yellow-fibre headdresses and wearing skirts and capes of long grass, they form a tight-knit circle, twirling around each other like spinning tops.

PNG celebrates 37th anniversary of independence

Global Travel Industry News

AS THE SUN SET on the afternoon of 15 September 1975 the Australian flag came down for the last time from Hubert Murray Stadium, in Papua New Guinea’s capital of Port Moresby.

Almost 70 years of Australian governance was coming to an end. The next day, a different flag, black and red with a golden bird of paradise rose on Independence Hill, near a newly established Parliament House.

In contrast to other recently formed independent states in the world, the change in authority in Papua New Guinea was marked not by bloodshed but by celebration.

Sir John Guise, the first Governor General said at the flag lowering ceremony ‘It is important the people of Papua New Guinea and the rest of the world realise the spirit in which we are lowering the flag of our colonisers. We are lowering the flag, not tearing it down.’

As a proud member of the commonwealth, PNG remained within the realm of the Queen, and as part of the Royal Jubilee celebrations Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting Papua New Guinea in November this year.

The spectacular natural beauty and cultural diversity of the world’s second largest island happily welcomes the increasing influx of tourists.

Visitors come to admire the stunning scenery and enjoy some of the best bird-watching in the world. Papua New Guinea is home to the glorious birds of paradise and over 750 various species.

It is also renowned for superb trekking on the famous Kokoda and Black Cat trails and diving the coral reefs or seeking out WW2 wrecks.

An expansion in both international and domestic aviation capacity driven in part by economic activity is ensuring easier access.

The national carrier, Air Niugini has regular services from Singapore, Hong Kong, and other Asian and Australasian hubs, making this stunning country a fine destination for the traveller.

Fly past & hose down for first Air Niugini Boeing 737

AIR NIUGINI | Press Release

AIR NIUGINI WELCOMED its first Boeing 737-700 series aircraft this week with a traditional fly past and hose down at Jackson’s Airport, Port Moresby.

The aircraft, under PNG registration of P2-PXD has 120 seats, 16 business and 104 economy.

The Boeing 737 will be initially utilized on three routes: Port Moresby-Sydney, Port Moresby-Brisbane and Port Moresby-Cebu.

Cebu in the Philippines is a new route, being the tenth international destination in Air Niugini’s network.

The arrival of the Boeing 737 brings the total number of aircraft operated by Air Niugini to 22. The fleet includes a variety of aircraft types from Dash 8, Q400s, Fokker 100s, Boeing 767s, and now the first of two Boeing 737s.

The Boeing 737 carries fuselage livery depicting the Owen Stanley Ranges along which was fought the Kokoda campaign.

The special livery commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the Kokoda Campaign and honours the legacy of all who served.

The challenges of sea and air travel in PNG

SEIK PITOI

THE NEWS IN FEBRUARY about the sinking of the Rabaul Queen shocked the entire nation. Over two hundred lives were lost at sea. At this present time, a commission of enquiry has been held and the CEO of the shipping company, Peter Sharp, has said he is quitting industry.

In this short article, I would like to talk about my experience on the sister ship of the ill-fated Rabaul Queen - the Solomon Queen.

I am not from a maritime province; hence do not need to travel regularly by ship. I have heard stories about sea travel from many friends from island provinces, many of them quite daunting.

Last year, while completing my pre-ordination studies at my denominational seminary in Rabaul, an opportunity to experience sea travel arose.

The seminary has a program every couple of years to send students and lecturers to other island provinces for a week of studies and interaction with local United Church congregations on certain themes.

The theme for last year related to the care of the environment. I considered the topic quite important in the light of the LNG project and mining boom which, if not monitored well, can bring destruction to the environment and deprive our future generations from enjoying the benefits of their land and sea.

Teams were duly set up by faculty and I found myself in the group going to Kimbe in the neighboring West New Britain Province. I also learnt that we were to travel aboard the Solomon Queen.

There was a sense of excitement in me as I looked forward to my first boat trip, and a quiet relief that we’d be sailing just down the coast to the port at Bialla, rather than crossing the ocean to Buka, Kavieng or even to Lae!

On Tuesday morning 21 June 2011, I was part of a group of 15 students and lecturers dropped off at the Rabaul wharf. I strolled around to the side of the wharf and took a peek at the ship we would be travelling on. The Solomon Queen looked quite impressive, lying majestically at berth. I couldn’t wait to get on board.

Boarding time was 2pm, and we joined a large number of people in a shed-like building. This was where we would sit and wait until check in time, and then we’d move to the departure lounge.

As there were no chairs, we all had to sit on the concrete floor in sweltering heat. The boarding time of 2pm came and went. Then, at 4pm, the call was made to start checking in. Like cattle being herded for the abattoir, we made our way one by one painstakingly through the check point and into the departure lounge. By 5pm, we were boarding the ship.

P&O cruises provide a boost to PNG tourism

TRAVEL BLACKBOARD

PRIME MINISTER PETER O’NEILL has welcomed cruise company, Carnival Australia, to Papua New Guinea.

The entry of P & O Cruises is a major boost for PNG tourism and comes after years of hard work by the PNG Ports Corporation and the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority to develop the cruise tourism sector.

Carnival Australia, which operates a fleet of seven P&O and Princess vessels, recently announced that P&O Cruises will do a series of cruises to PNG beginning in October next year.

Friday’s joint announcement by Mr O’Neill and Ann Sherry, CEO of Carnival Australia, highlighted PNG’s strengths as a cruise destination.

“We are taking steps to ensure cruising becomes an important contributor to our nation,” Mr O’Neill said. “Infrastructure improvements are part of that strategy.”

In 2013-2014, Pacific Dawn [pictured] will sail to Milne Bay with calls at Alotau, Doini Island and the Trobriand Islands.

“We always believed in PNG’s potential as a cruise destination and this has been confirmed by the strong interest following the announcement of P&O Cruises’ initial three cruises to the Milne Bay area,” Ms Sherry said.

“The PNG government’s decision to accelerate funding for the port upgrade at Alotau is a positive investment to achieve the economic benefits of regular cruise ship visits.”

Ms Sherry said the Milne Bay area would be popular with Australian travellers for its exquisite scenery, its colourful culture and for its historic World War II links for many Australian families.

PNG looks to strengthen relationship with Cairns

THE CAIRNS POST

PORT MORESBY COULD USE CAIRNS as a model for how to embrace indigenous culture as authorities fight against growing modernisation in the Papua New Guinea capital.

A delegation of local government and business officials has spent 10-days in the Cairns region. It was led by Opposition leader Dame Carol Kidu and visited various centres and tourist attractions looking to build relationships.

Port Moresby has a sister city relationship with Townsville, but Dame Carol believes the link between the PNG capital and Cairns could be stronger.

"It gives us a lot of perspective here with what we can learn, and if we can forge a relationship we can have more than what we have with Townsville," Dame Carol said.

"Our culture has been eroded and the more we can keep this exchange program going, the more we can learn.

"We also visited tourist centres like Tjapukai and Mossman Gorge.

"We don’t have tourism at home because of the image of PNG, but if we got our act together it could be even better than here."

True North: Singsing and sago up the river

BY LINDA BERRY
AS TOLD TO JANE E FRASER

WE WERE UP IN THE FIORD AREA near Tufi and it was spectacularly beautiful.

Deep channel entrances and fringing fiords are framed by jagged mountains coming straight up from the sea.

We were taken by local villagers on traditional outrigger canoes to an area upriver from their village.

If you can imagine being paddled up a remote river where there is no sign of human habitation and then seeing a procession of women and children throwing petals into the water - it was very special and quite moving.

They did a sago demonstration for us: the sago comes from a palm and they pulp it down and wrap it in vine leaves, to store. It's a starch that forms a traditional component of their diet.

[The expedition vessel] True North only does a few trips into these areas each year and a number of local villages rotate their participation, so the experience was very authentic.

It really feels like you're getting a very intimate insight into their traditional customs and you have a lot of opportunity to learn about their cultural background.

Following the demonstration, we were dropped off at another village for a singsing with drums and dancing. The experience of being in the outrigger and seeing the colours of the traditional dress was just fantastic.

The feathered headdresses are handed down through the generations and if a feather falls out, someone will carefully pick it up and tuck it away to hand it back to the person who lost it. It was fascinating; the headdresses are works of art.

I felt there was tremendous pride on the part of the people we met - I didn't feel that we were intruding or resented in any way. I really like the New Guinea people and I think there's a special bond with Australia over the war experiences."

The water- and shore-based activities are all included on True North. It is great value.

The first time we were talked into doing one of their cruises, we thought, 'Gee, it had better be good' because it's at the top end for price, but the wow factor and the experiences we've had on their trips are priceless.

And the fact that there were less than 30 people on the excursion, including the crew who came with us, made it really easy to see what was going on and to move around and take photos."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/singsing-and-sago-up-the-river-20120419-1x9j4.html#ixzz1sjer4ISS

Chinese funds to support highlands highway upgrade

OXFORD BUSINESS GROUP

PLANS FOR A MAJOR HIGHWAY UPGRADE DEAL with China and progress in transport development schemes underline Papua New Guinea’s determination to tackle infrastructure deficits that have thus far inhibited the country’s economic growth.

In March, Francis Awesa, the minister of transport, told Australian media that the government is seeking a $4.73bn-$5.67bn loan from China to fix its major economic lifeline – the Highlands highway – with some funds also to be used for other road upgrades. Awesa added that he was “confident” a deal with Beijing would be negotiated.

The 800-km Highlands highway runs from Lae to the highlands region, which is home to the crucial Exxon-led $15.7bn PNG liquefied natural gas project, the Porgera gold mine and numerous coffee plantations.

“Economically, it is very important for the government to look after this highway, which a lifeline for these projects and the people,” Awesa told ABC radio on March 13. “Lae is also the biggest industrial city and deserves to have the best roads.”

Plans for the highway upgrade are part of wider government plans to improve infrastructure. Under the PNG Development Strategic Plan 2010-30, the government aims to raise the share of national roads in good condition to 100% and triple their length by 2030. This includes long missing links, corridors, and “nation-building roads” that will create a “national road network”.

The Department of Transport has prepared the National Transport Strategy 2011-30 and the Medium-Term Transport Plan 2011-15 (a five-year capital improvement program), which both place greater emphasis on maintenance and rehabilitation above system expansion.

Officials say the funds for planned upgrades – including repayments to China for the proposed highways loan – will come from a sovereign wealth fund established to manage revenues from the PNG LNG project, which are estimated to be $300bn over 30 years.

PNG’s road system comprises 8,762 national roads, 8,100 km of provincial links, and around 8,000 district, local and other roads, as well as 800 bridges. The national roads include 3,335 km of designated “roads of national importance”, often called “priority roads”.

PNG is slowly emerging as a travel destination

BY JIMMY IM
THE TRAVELLING TYPE (USA)

ANY HISTORY BUFF will most certainly know that Amelia Earhart has been making international headlines again — this time, with new clues to the disappearance of her plane. And any Amelia Earhart fan will remember the last leg of her flight leaving from Papua New Guinea.

This may be the once in a blue moon that PNG has garnered worldwide attention (in addition to the fact that James Cameron succeeded two weeks ago in undertaking the world’s deepest solo submarine dive in the Mariana Trench off New Britain).

But it won’t be the last time you hear of PNG and, soon enough, it will be making headlines of its own.

Papua New Guinea is the “land that time forgot” but travellers are starting to pay attention to this off-the-radar destination, thanks to the current trend of “ends of the earth” journeys, where intrepid travellers are looking beyond “hot spots” to explore rarely visited destinations.

In fact, North America arrivals in PNG rose 25% in 2011 alone, mostly due to the country’s one-of-a-kind cultural events, villages with more than 700 indigenous tribes and 800 languages, expedition cruising and niche markets (from birding to sport fishing to surfing).

Still, locals and visitors alike will argue it’s the romantic aspect that will always lure. It’s one of the last places on Earth that is discovered for its beauty rather than major travel trends and pampering luxury hotels (of which few exist).

Last year, National Geographic named Papua New Guinea one of the 20 Best Trips of 2011, and Popular Photography magazine recently named it one of the 25 Best Places to Photograph on the Planet. What accolades will it rack up this year?

Papua New Guinea plans on launching a new campaign later this year (What Tribe Are You?), so hopefully they’ll bring back the two tribesmen who marched through Times Square last fall.

Moresby's giant potholes disrupt everyday living

BY LIAM FOX
ABC CORRESPONDENTS REPORT

PORT MORESBY'S PLANNERS HAVE LARGELY FAILED to account for population growth and an increase in traffic.

That problem was highlighted last week when a part of the city's major road collapsed and had to be closed. The result has been a week of traffic hell for the motorists and it's likely to continue for some time.

Every day like clockwork, storms have rolled in the afternoon. Torrential rain has poured for several hours. That's caused havoc both to and on the roads.

The drains don't work and when it rains, localised flooding quickly develops. Potholes have opened up everywhere, and I'm now standing in front of the mother of them all.

This pothole stretches across four lanes of highway. It's about 10 metres wide and about 10 metres deep. The road it's cut is the Poreporena Freeway, the road that bisects Port Moresby.

As part of the highway gave way during a particularly heavy storm, the culverts underneath simply couldn't cope with the amount of water passing through them. It's Port Moresby's main road and its closure has caused havoc.

MALE DRIVER 1: It's a real problem here now because in terms of doing work we are, you know, late in attending meetings and actually to, you know, turn up for work. We are having a real problem here, you know, the roads.

MALE DRIVER 2: It's really terrible for students and working class people.

I'm standing down at the Hohola roundabout. It's one of the main off ramps for the Poreporena Freeway and it's where a lot of the traffic is being diverted. And traffic here is banked up for at least 500 metres. At times it gets worse; at times it gets a little bit better. But it's a long wait to actually get down to the roundabout and move on with the rest of your journey. And the motorists are not happy.

AMBULANCE DRIVER: Traffic is really bad.

LIAM FOX: You're on ambulance driver, has it made your life more difficult?

AMBULANCE DRIVER: Yes. So difficult, so difficult.

LIAM FOX: Has is stopped you from getting to patients and things?

AMBULANCE DRIVER: Yes it does, we hardly get to the patients very quickly.

We've got one of Port Moresby's infamous taxi drivers here. Hey, I'm from ABC News, what do you reckon about all the traffic problems at the moment?

TAXI DRIVER: Ah it's getting worse every time. We have a lot of potholes here and we're trying to manoeuvre all these during the wet season it's very difficult.

LIAM FOX: How's it made your job?

TAXI DRIVER: It's making our job very difficult, especially during the afternoons. There's a lot of traffic jams and we couldn't make many trips. So we are just carrying one person at a time and it's not enough.

While there's been an increase in the number cars on Port Moresby's roads in recent years most people still get around on public motor vehicles or PMV's.

PMV's are medium-sized busses that carry around 40 people. The people that use them say their lives have got tougher as well.

FEMALE BUS TRAVELLER: Yeah I catch PMV most of the time, that's the cheapest transport in town. And we can't afford to get on a cab every time, cab is like quite expensive. So PMV, we get PMV. But then the other problem is that we will wait for some hours and then we'll travel and sometimes it's not too safe.

MALE BUS TRAVELLER: We have to widen the road. Make it bigger, like three lane, four lane. The volume of cars, vehicles, moving around Moresby today it's increasing.

Back at the mother of all potholes work is underway to try and erect a temporary bridge over the gap. Even if that's successful, traffic won't be able to return to normal for some time. There's a lot of pain for motorists to come.

The travelling triumph that was Dan Winkel Tours

BY TERRY EDWINSMITH

ONE OF MY MOST CHERISHED MEMORIES of my time in PNG was my loose association with an institution known as Dan Winkel Tours.

This little business was not to be found in the Yellow Pages of Port Moresby’s phone book, but by word of mouth.

Indeed it was most often heard from the man himself who would phone prospective clients and outline the project of the week to all interested parties.

The clientele was somewhat select as it was aimed at members of the Australian Armed Services who wished to see the wonders of the Territory known today as Papua New Guinea.

Whether it was the country’s geography or its people, Dan had “just the trip for you!” It may have been a weekend in Mt Hagen for the Show, a singsing at Goroka, a day in Popondetta or Rabaul, a weekend away to the Trobriand Islands ( an exotic location) or Tapini Hill Station, to name but a few of the most interesting trips on offer.

Dan would scan the calendar for up and coming events, spy an adventure within the pages of the South Pacific Post or hear some details of a faraway place from work colleagues that required personal inspection.

He then set about the task of enlisting acquaintances who showed an interest in the proposed project and who would part with a small sum of money to finance the hire of an available DC3 aircraft from Jackson Strip, now known as Port Moresby Airport.

On securing the prized craft, the pressure was on to fill the available seats and hopefully make a small profit. Seating was allocated on a “first come, first served” basis but, being a transport aircraft, the seats were ‘side-saddle’ with passengers looking inwards to the middle.

Seat belts were fitted and cargo netting was available for the cautious to hold onto during take-off or landing. Passengers filled with adrenalin were too full of excitement to worry about potential dangers of this exercise.

Anyway, take-offs and landings were nothing compared to the thought of the plane not making it over the Owen Stanley Ranges. The exquisite scenery viewed through the low flying clouds around you tended to calm passengers down as the plane rattled noisily to its destination.

The greatest number of potential passengers was to be found at the three army battalions in Port Moresby: Murray Barracks where Dan worked as a warrant officer in the Education Section of the RAAEC, Taurama Barracks which was close by and could be relied upon for support and finally Goldie River, more distant and less profitable in such undertakings.

Mausman and raskols on the Highlands Highway

BY JOHN STANDINGFORD
GUARDIAN WEEKLY

I THOUGHT IT WAS AN ACCIDENT SCENE when I saw four or five vehicles blocking the road ahead. Then I saw a young man approaching us waving a 2-kina note.

He saw me in the passenger seat and immediately substituted a 5-kina note. Ruben rolled down the window and exchanged words in rapid pidgin. Money changed hands and we drove on.

People had told me about road blocks on the Highlands Highway. In this case there was a good pretext. The young men were filling a particularly deep channel that had been gauged across the road by heavy rains, so road users were being asked to pay an informal toll.

Ruben explained that he was willing to pay something if a public service was really being performed, but too often it was just an attempt to get some easy money. The village elders generally frown on it, but in a spirit of compromise they let the youngsters do it for a couple of hours in the morning.

Wikipedia sums up the Highlands Highway as follows: "For most of its length the Highlands Highway is no more than a single carriageway two-lane road which is often hindered by potholes and land slips. It is also notorious for being the place of numerous armed hold-ups and robberies committed by local bandits called rascals."

We saw no rascals, but everyone has stories of trucks being held up and looted.

Four of us were driving south from Mount Hagen to visit a rural development project, with the rehabilitation of a gravel road as its centrepiece. I was to have a chance to explain my assignment and seek help with periodic surveys to assess the project's effectiveness.

We were taken to a schoolroom to meet about 30 elders and representatives of various interest groups: women, youth, churches. The meeting was conducted by the mausman (spokesman). He was a retired teacher with a voice much bigger than his frame and an even bigger smile.

Everyone was invited to address the meeting, and the women's representative was the last to speak. When she finished, the half-dozen members of her group came forward to present each visitor with a traditional knitted cap.

As we were leaving, the mausman approached me and spoke in English for the first time. "John," he said, "when you are writing your report you must wear your cap so you will remember our village."

Import ban on ships, vehicles more than 5 years old

BY EOIN BLACKWELL
AAP / THE AUSTRALIAN

PAPUA NEW GUINEA will introduce legislation banning the import of ships and motor vehicles older than five years and impose heavy taxes in an effort to clean up the nation's transport industry in the wake of the MV Rabaul Queen disaster.

Transport Minister Francis Awesa said he had instructed his department to work on introducing tough new measures on the transport industry. "All transport will be under review," he said.

"I have instructed the Ministry of Transport to look at putting a 1,000 per cent tax on any vehicle more than five years old. We will impose taxes on second-hand vehicles. Any ship more than five years old ... should not be brought in," he said.

"All Papua New Guineans know, we are being used as a dumping ground."

Mr Awesa said he also wanted to break the dominance of four shipowners in PNG, of which owner of the MV Rabaul Queen, Rabaul Shipping, is one.

Describing how some passenger ships in PNG are tug boats made for towing logs, he said it was unfair to ask people to use them.

"These boats are not made for the 12, 24-hour journeys."

First impressions of Wewak: town of silent edifices

BY MARTYN NAMORONG
THE NAMORONG REPORT

THE CAPTAIN ANNOUNCES OVER THE INTERCOM, “Cabin crew please prepare the cabin for landing.”

For a moment I notice that the Fokker 100 aircraft has paused in mid-air above the mighty Sepik River below. A brown slithering body of water makes its tortuous journey into the Bismarck Sea. The flood plains below look like puddles of mud.

As we approach Wewak, I notice villages lying on tiny strips of land sandwiched between the roaring sea and brackish lagoons. I see in nature a metaphor of the state of the people of my country: a people trapped on a flimsy strip of land and compressed by globalisation and imperialism.

As the aircraft circles Wewak town, the strain of the engines seems to create goosebumps in the sea below. An eager crowd gathers at the terminal straining their eyes to notice familiar faces. I’m not sure whether my ears are locked but there is an atmosphere of silence that hangs above the town. A sort of post-coital calmness.

I noticed this silence in the loneliness of a young boy sitting in the grass at the edge of the airport, watching the plane as it taxies along the runway. It brings back memories of growing up in a logging camp and watching planes land and take-off just for the pleasure of it.

And perhaps this explains why, as I’m being driven into town, my driver tells me he’s never seen any games played at the Chinese built stadium. Perhaps the stadium just exists for the pleasure of existing.

And yes, the stadium is silent as we drive by. I am told by my driver that they plan to build a volley ball court at the silent stadium. Up on the hillside I notice a whitewashed mansion with red roofing. “Somare’s mansion,” my driver says. It stares silently at the stadium.

There is a yawning gap between these two modern buildings and the dilapidated state of the rest of the town.

I have found the people here to be reserved but very friendly. Perhaps it’s because I chew betel nut and mauswara a bit. Or perhaps its just that Wewak’s residents are simply very friendly people.

In the evening I have a chat with two other guests at the place I’m staying. We talk about the latest news and politics. They are both fascinated by my blog. Both men are on the Joint District Budgetary Planning Committee of the Ambunti-Drekikir electorate.

They are stunned when I tell them I set up my blog for free. Their electorate had just allocated K30 000 to create a website. Perhaps no one will visit that electorate’s website but I hope more people visit Wewak.

I’m beginning to like the place. There’s a sense of remoteness about it; not in terms of its backwardness but in a more romantic and rustic sense.