We timed our visit to coincide with the famed independence day celebrations at the highland town of Goroka.
There are serious problems for the traveller to Papua New Guinea. This is a very violent society, most of the violence is directed between tribal factions, however travellers can unwittingly stray into dangerous areas. There is also a tradition of settling scores by personal and public combat.
The local newspapers are an interesting read. As per UK papers they are full of lurid crime stories. However in the UK it's all wildly exaggerated, here it's all true, exaggeration not being necessary. However the locals don't know this and imagine that the whole world is like PNG! This includes the ex-pats.
The local currency (Kina) has recently fallen in value making what was an expensive place to visit now great value. However as almost everything in PNG is imported, this has resulted in steep price increases for the locals resulting in a crime wave of robbery and burglary.Tourists are an obvious target. Every building is a fortress, the biggest source of employment is "security guard". The situation is completely out of control in several areas, the local tribes being "tooled up" with the best weapons they can afford, completely outgunning the police who are powerless to act. The local women (Short note, will make women's libber's hair curl.) get an especially good deal in PNG. (I jest.)
Most of the population are not "employed" in the first world sense but work in subsistence agriculture. There is the usual population drift to towns in the unfullfilled hope of wealth and employment. Families have strong bonds, anyone that is employed is very likely to be supporting many family members who are not. In practice this means a uniform level of poverty, few are able to accumulate sufficient wealth to start any sort of business. In spite of vast mineral resources PNG is therefore one of the poorest countries on the planet.
Almost every town however has at least one luxury hotel, islands of wealth and opulence in a sea of poverty, which is now now well within the budget of the independent traveller. Less than £50 gets you a double room. Needless to say they are ringed with razor wire, half of the staff are engaged as security guards.
Most people arrive in PNG via Australia, we were no exceptions. It's expensive to get there. However I did discover that it's cheaper if the journey is split ticketwise, ie UK/Australia and Australia/PNG. Your luggage can still be ticketed through. One of life's mysteries.
I also discovered another scam. If you are TRANSITTING Australia you don't need one of their electronic visas. Ticket shops try to sell you one (£20) without actually obtaining one, ie just pocket the money. However if you need to pass the Australian immigration officer for any reason you will need one. Make sure you get the little slip of paper confirming you've got one, don't accept some blurb from the ticket shop. The cost seems to be negotiable, I've paid from £0 to £20. Another mystery. So look out.
It was very difficult to plot an exact itinery in PNG. We did want to see the famed "Goroka Show" an annual independence day event when 10,000 tribesmen attend in all their traditional regalia, however finding accommodation was another matter due to the number of visitors to the show.
The next day we flew to Madang, (there's no road), another luxury hangout the "Madang Resort Hotel". We had a luxurious room literally a pace from an olympic size swimming pool. There were stunning sea views, palm trees and every convenience for for the indolant and pampered life. The usual security standards prevailed. The trees about the extensive hotel gardens were filled with hundreds of huge fruit bats. In the mornings and evening the sky was filled with them. With a wingspan of a meter they are an amazing sight.
From here we organised our first parrot spotting trip using the hotel's taxi. Less than an hours run from the hotel we stopped at a layby, there seeing more eclectus parrots, sulphur crested cockatoos and lorikeets than in the whole of our trip to Australia. We also saw several large hornbills crashing through the undergrowth and numerous other birds I could not identify. There were also numerous raptors, large and small, again I could not identify them.
We had a walk about the town. English is the official language, also pidgin English (in itself a fascinating topic.) In spite of their extreme poverty, PNGers are an extra-ordinarily cheerful bunch. I had several interesting conversations in the street. Due to the reputation of PNG not many tourist fraternise with locals which I fancy causes some ill-feeling. Many were afraid to leave the hotel. It's a great shame because in general, they are such lovely people.
Whilst in town we visited a local supermarket. In the foyer we were taken aback to be confronted by a line of "heavies" armed with clubs and motorcycle helmets scowling ferociously at shoppers entering the premises. Lurking off to one side was the owner of the establishment brandishing a huge revolver. It transpired he had received word that supermarket robbers were in the area and this was his reception for them, should they materialise.
Someone suggested that we should visit the "Irish Club" on the seafront, as being a good place for a natter and cheap food (which it indeed is). There are no Irish but whilst there we fell in with an Australian ex-pat who offered us a ride in his pickup truck to his coffee plantation. Never being one to turn down a free offer we agreed. It turned out that this was the payroll run. First we called at the local police station to pick up a heavy. This was a local policeman who was doing a little work on the side, being armed with a pump action shot gun (standard police weapon here). We next went to the bank for the money which was furtively smuggled out of the back door in a cardboard box. This resided on the floor between our plod's feet. Our merry host also was armed with a large automatic pistol which he kept in a paper bag on his lap ready for instant use. We set off up the North coastal road at a merry lick. If a gang of pedestrians appeared, the gas pedal was floored and we drove straight at them. Fortunately no-one was hit. The money was delivered to a boat which our host regarded with dark suspicion as it ploughed across the sea to the off-shore island were the coffee plantation was situated. Our return was at a slightly less velocity. Our host informed me that he had been held up on several previous occasions, I suspect the purpose of our presence was to intimidate any potential robbers. (Huh!!)
We had a hard time arranging accommodation in Goroka due to the Goroka show. Finally we found a travel agent who had overbooked accommodation in the "Bird of Paradise Hotel" (at Goroka) and were able to make our way there by PMV (bus) by way of the spectacular mountain highway. The prelude to our journey was a crazy hunt for passengers around the Madang bus station. The few tourists were obvious targets, all were heading to Goroka to see the show. We had another inkling of the violence which lies close to the surface of PNG society when our driver came to blows with another for pirating his passengers in Madang.
The ride Madang to Goroka is through spectacular mountain scenary. Our fellow passengers were a cheerful bunch. The bus was packed. It was a twelve hour journey but time flew by due to the interest of the journey.
We arrived at the Goroka market and tramped through the packed streets to the luxury "Bird of Paradise" on foot, there are no taxis in most PNG towns. According to the guide book, Goroka was supposed to be deserted, I assumed the show was the cause of all the activity.
At the fortress "Bird" there are four security guards on the door armed with clubs. There's a nice patio restaurant. As well as waiters, security guards patrol the tables armed with clubs, helmets and body armour.(Does one tip the security as well as the waiters?) They also patrol the grounds and swimming pool.
In the evening, I went for a stroll. The moment I left the hotel a "Guide" assigned himself to me and refused to be dislodged.
He looked really villainous, I was quite alarmed by his appearance however he assured me that he was ultra-reliable as he was "SDA". I queried "SDA", it was Seventh Day Adventist. He was pleased that I was aware the Sunday actually fell on Saturday, a fact little known to the outside world. He was actually quite interesting and useful and walked at my side explaining everything we saw.
He was also a betel nut chewer. Soon we came upon a vendor and in anticipation of his tip felt able to indulge. Betel nuts grow on palm trees in the coastal area and look just like large acorns. They grow like "vine tomatoes" in bunches. They have to be shelled and then as many as possible are stuffed into the mouth and then topped off with a mouthful of ash from some plant. To get the maximum "hit" one apparently also needs a swig of coca cola. By the time he had loaded up with this lot, he was speechless for several minutes. I did ask him if he was aware that the cocaine had been removed from coca cola years ago (ie it's no longer the "Real Thing") but this was apparently irrelevant. Though the nuts are milky white, they soon turn red when chewed, large amounts of red spit are produced which is deposited everywhere in PNG. It doesn't do the colour of the teeth much good either.
By the market was a large open space, it was packed with a mob of thousands. There was an expectant air. My self appointed guide explained that they were waiting to see the fighting. Apparently as well as the more well known independence day celebrations, the locals come to town to settle old scores.
The entertainment kicked off with a couple of childen fighting with sticks. As there was nothing else at that moment, the crowd roared encouragement. Things soon hotted up. A pair of middleaged women appeared, walking down opposite sides of the road hurtling abuse at one another in Pidgin English. My guide explained that one accused the other of screwing her husband and having a baby. Now the women of PNG often carry a string bag (bilum), with a variety of personal paraphenalia within. The combatants had their bilums weighted with rocks. One gave the other a hearty thwack with her bag, in a trice they both produced large knives and set about one another. The crowd closed in howling and yelling. My guide advised me that death was unusual with women, the object was disfigurment.
Soon half a dozen fights were going on about the place. The crowd orbited between them, wildly excited and agog to to see the participants and the outcome. The technolgy of the weapons depended on the pockets of the combatents, I saw knives, spears, clubs and machetes. Sometimes whole gangs of combatents were involved. Before each fight the combatants harangued the crowd, explaining the nature of their grievance, however this was hard to follow in pidgin English. It's apparently safe and acceptable for tourists to watch these fights, except where missiles are involved when it's best to leave. However it's quite difficult in practice to get a "ringside" place due to the crowd.
I had a natter with the hotel receptionist about big knives in bags. She immediately produced one of her own that would have shamed Crocodile Dundee. She assured me that if she caught her husband with another woman she would stick the knife in both of them. "We women in PNG will fight for our men" she said. ....(Hmmm)!!! I asked several other women about this, they all were able to produce large knives from their bags, razor sharp and ready for domestic tasks or any other little difficulties they might encounter.
I decided to visit the flying club at the local airfield, this being one of my other pursuits. However amazingly there are no light aircraft and no-one who can fly. It's just white folk having barbeques. The clubhouse has an amazing display of WW2 weapons on the wall, propellors and big machine guns etc.
At the hotel dinner we were royally entertained by an excellent local rock group. By way of a change the "mud men" were also there to entertain us. (They were in town for the Show). Wearing only loin clothes, plastered in white mud and wearing huge mud masks (reminiscent of Darth Vader) they ran through the tables threatening the diners with their spears, afterwards trying to sell all of these items to the assembled company. Everyone was hugely amused, clearly none had visited the local market that evening.
Normally every hotel has it's own special clientel, however here was a strange mix of people at the "Bird". There were backpackers, expensive tour groups, locals and a few ex-pats all of them in a convivial mood enhanced by alcohol and the camerady, brought on by the real and perceived dangers of Goroka outside of redoubt Bird.
Skulking in the shadows were po-faced American missionaries with their dowdy wives (God it seems, doesn't like women to dress attractively) also their frustrated children. Sat drinking orange juice, they were all aquiver with outrage at the boisterous atmosphere. Clearly they resented our presence, come to see (and encourage) the very culture they were bent on destroying. Missionaries by the way don't have holidays or vacations they have "furloughs". Apparently they just go somewhere slightly more civilised for a while but continue trying to convert people.
One of the daughters suddenly came and sat by me. (For some reason I always attract Mormons and Jehova witnesses). She however was apparently some kind of Southern Anabaptist. P.N.G is full of strange religions. She was dressed like one of the Famous Five and was, as our American cousins would say, slightly "goofy" (can't think of a Brit equivalent). She wanted to know if I had been "saved". I considered telling her I was a Roman Catholic (a sure fire way of getting rid of these people). However in the end I told her my wife saved me from from most of lifes hazards, they being mostly financial. This served to convince her that I was sufficiently gullible to fall into her carefully prepared proof of the existence of her God.
When I eventually tired of her discourse, I asked her if she believed in flying saucers and alien beings, as they were described in the bible. As I suspected, she hadn't read that bit, so I referred her to Ezekiel 1/4. When she rushed off indignantly to get her bible I cunningly disappeared.
(But it's all in there).
The next day we went down to the market, again passing the fights. On this occasion a gunfight was in progress, pretty low tech, they were homemade single shot "pistols" but dangerous to bystanders for all that. The fighters orbited around one another, as the gun was aimed, hundreds of spectators fled from the perceived area of danger or flung themselves flat. In the mayhem several youngsters were trampled. It also became apparent that the single shot pistol poses an interesting tactical problem, If you fire and miss, your opponent can then just run up to you and shoot you. It's important either (a)-not miss or (b) -cause your opponent to miss and then run up to him and shoot him!
Or of course (c)-have a second weapon hidden about your person!)
It was explained to me that the popular Kalashnikov, easily available from not-far-off Viet Nam, solves all these problems, if you can afford one!
Eat your heart out OK Corral!
The electricity in the atmosphere was indescribable, Was it the same in the arenas of ancient Rome where death also stalked?
On several occasions the police cruised by, showing not the slightest interest. The most deadly of all traditional weapons are bows and arrows, there are some real hot shots here, apparently deaths are not unusual. We hid behind a market stall for a while until things quietened down a bit and then crept back to the hotel.
Whilst in hiding, I had a conversation with the stallholders wife (who also was able to produce a very impressive knife). She offered to give me a few hints on self defence using a knife. Apparently they learn this stuff at their mothers knee. I explained that interesting though this might have been, big knives were frowned upon in the UK, indeed one could go to jail for having one. I could see she didn't believe me.
We had purchased the expensive tourist tickets to the Goroka show (about £20). This entitles one to go into the compound with the dancers and to take photographs from as close as one likes. This has to be the world's best value for money. The show lasts for three days with the grand finale being on the last day.(The venue is actually the local sports field.) Most of the locals can't afford these tickets and must view the proceeding from outside the compound with a cheaper ticket, until they manage to sneak in that is. This means in practice that only foriegn tourists have access to the compound. A mob of thousands of the poor congregates in the streets outside, unable to afford any of the tickets.
It's really intimidating to make ones way on foot through them and as my regular readers will be aware, I'm not that easily intimidated. One can be transported in the hotel bus but even so it can be quite a frightening experience, there is an air of indefinable menace and hostility. Armed police divested/disabled the most dangerous of the weapons carried by the dancers and visitors. Every weapon you see is the real thing, intended to kill people. A police helicopter buzzed about overhead. Posses of armed security guards dashed about the field, directed by officers with swagger sticks. The police were there in force but only inside the compound. There was a diaz for local and national politicians and a grandstand with sun shade. Surprisingly there was only a small number of kiosks selling refreshments. I suppose there must have been hundreds of tourists there but amongst the thousands of locals it was not apparent. One could walk around the show for hours and not see another white face.
The dancers process about the outside of the field for the benifit of the poor before entering the field, it really is a stunning sight. There are about two thousand tribal groups in PNG, all with their own style of dress, weapons, dancing and singing. They all seemed to be there. They shake the earth with their dances and the air with their song. There are men, women and children. Some were tribal groups others were "sing sing" clubs. Many carry weapons, the police try to disable or divest them of the most dangerous. However there were still thousands of spears, bows and arrows, knives etc. dangerous in the hands of their owners who could see many of their enemies scant feet away. The face painting is especially impressive.
Many young girls were paraded in all their tribal finery, ready for marriage to anyone that could afford them. Many seemed to have an air of understandable trepidition at the prospect. Several of them asked me if I would marry them and take them to England. (Quite flattering for an old git like me!) They were quite disappointed to learn that I had a wife already (although some seemed to consider this not to be a problem.) The girls from the coast are especially attractive, but all were well educated, witty, feminine and pleasant to talk to. Many ex-pats. marry them and will tell you that the women of PNG make a far superior wife to any Western woman. I can well believe it.
I have travelled the world but the sight of all this is beyond the imagination, more than I can explain, you have to see for yourself. However I was informed by a local that the show was a poor affair that year due to some adminstrative cock-up.
The stranger might well think that these are wild tribesmen from the jungles and some of them are. However as they speak English you can talk to them and I soon found that there were also doctors, dentists, engineers, people indeed from all walks of life. Many tourist seem afraid to talk to them, (indeed Japanese tourists behaved abominably towards them) treating them as objects to be photographed rather than people. However like people everywhere they are very interesting and interested to talk to. I had a brand new digital camera, and always showed my subject the photograph on the viewer. They were fascinated and virtually fought to get in front of the lens, always thanking me for taking their picture!!!
The reason we had come to PNG was of course to see wild parrots. Many once common parrots are now extremely rare. It's not hard to see why at the Goroka show. The headdresses of the dancers consist largely of feathers with parrot feathers figuring extremely largely. Most prominant of all was the bright orange of Pesquet's parrot, also the eclectus and the white cockatoo, not to mention the cassowary, now as rare as hen's teeth. I also saw complete corpses of lorokeets and owls. There were many others I had not the faintest notion about. I would estimate that there were the feathers from at least a hundred thousand parrots at this show. Princess Stephanies bird of paradise feathers were extremely popular and easy to identify.
On the last day the president and the governor of the province were there to harangue the crowd from the diaz in English and Pidgin.
As we returned to the hotel we saw a violent argument outside the show ground. It rapidly escalated into a confrontation between two gangs armed with spears. They closed in on one another, it seemed about time to move on. As we left we could hear wild shrieks, someone apparently had come off rather badly.
That night, whilst in our hotel room, we heard automatic weapons firing. We later heard there was a supermarket robbery down the road. The police had responded with the machine guns. I was also later told that the next time I heard such a thing, to be sure to lie on the floor in order to aviod any stray bullets. Rumour had it that the two people had been speared to death outside the showground in the tribal altercation we had witnessed. It was clearly time to press on.
Dancer1 Dancer2 Dancer3 Dancer4 Dancer5 Dancer6 Dancer7 Dancer8 Dancer9 Dancer10 Dancer11 Dancer12 Dancer13 Dancer14 Dancer15 Dancer16 Dancer17 Dancer18 Dancer19 Dancer20 Dancer21 Dancer22 Dancer23 Dancer24 Dancer25
It's necessary these days to go to quite remote places in PNG to see parrots that were quite common only ten years ago. There is however a state of constant tribal "payback" warfare in many areas where it's quite unwise to go. The country is divided into a mosaic of tribal lands with invisible boundaries that cannot be crossed in certain places. It's therefor necessary to be well informed and well guided before going anywhere in the highland area. The major city of the highlands is Mount Hagen, our next destination. Top of the list in this area was the giant palm cockatoo, Proboscigar Atterimus Goliath and the vulturine or Pesquet's parrot,Psittrichas Fulgidus.
There's lots of information on the internet on where to find them and Mt. Hagen is the place to start out from.
The next morning we made our way to the local bus station. Total chaos ruled. Hundreds of folks milled around, there was no sign of any buses. The best information we could get was that a bus for Mt. Hagen would be "soon". Two hours later there was still no bus however a truck appeared and there was a general rush towards it. It transpired it was indeed going to Mt. Hagen. About fifty or sixty of the locals piled in the back. We negotiated a ride for ourselves up front and for security, cunningly kept our luggage with us in the cab... Ha!
The journey went pleasantly enough. Our driver was quite chatty, I fed him on biscuits which he seemed to appreciate. If anyone wanted to get down, they banged on the cab roof and the driver would stop. Once again the scenery was splendid.
There were various police check points on the road. At one of these, a passenger on our truck must have made some disparaging remark about the police. In a trice he was hauled off the truck and given a few thwacks with a club. Then he was made to do press-ups in the road after which he was given a lecture on respecting the police, unceremoniously thrown back in the truck and we were waved on.
The road grew more ill-maintained and potholed but we made good speed, until about a half hour before journeys end once again there came a bang on the roof. This time time however two men armed with two foot machetes raced round to the front and dragged me down from the cab and with a the machete cut my money belt from me. The other seized all our luggage from the cab. They ran off into the bushes with the lot, I suppose it took about thirty seconds. Everone was stunned by this. There being nothing else to do we carried on. We were left with nothing except the clothes we stood in. (I have since heard tales of travellers relieved even of these!) However as women are considered to be somewhat lower than dog turds in PNG they never thought to check out the wife so we still had her plastic.
We called in at the police station in Mt Hagen to report the event and to get a police report for insurance purposes. Several passengers who witnessed the attack came with us. However as we neared the police station most hesitated and finally fled. In the end only two were bold enough to venture inside. The police station was extremely run down and ratty. Many of the staff didn't even have their own chair to sit on and had to share. Peeling paint, potholed floors, broken windows completed the picture. It was hardly surprising that moral was low. I never got to see the cells, I suspect that would have been an eye-opener.
We were interviewed in a shabby room where the door hung off it's hinges, all the glass was broken on the internal partitions. Numerous curious bystanders hung through the windows to get an earfull of what was going on and to add their own comments and questions. It took fifteen minutes to find servicable chairs for us to sit on. A detective interviewed us, laboriously writing his report on the back of an old envelope.
It transpired our driver knew the name and village of one of the rascals and gave this to the police. Immediately a posse of them went and got tooled up with and array of machine guns and strutted about the station waving them about. After a while however reality took hold and they put their guns away. It seemed that the tribe concerned were also notoriously well tooled up and any police raid would result in a minor war. One of the policewomen offered to let us stay at her house if we were stuck, a very kind thought. In the end I gave a detective a list of our stolen possessions, he would type out a report for the next day and nothing was done.
We moved into the "Haus Poroman Lodge", an upmarket twee out of town site with jungle huts. As well as my camera, I had lost my traveller's cheques, passport, airtickets. The next day we discovered that there were no clothes that would fit us as Highlanders are of very short stature. We were therefore reduced to combing the numerous "Secon han klos" shops of Mt. Hagen (I formed the theory that they were actually fencing stolen tourist's clothes.) The management of the "Haus Poroman" kindly gave us some clothes. There was an earthquake on the North coast that night, we could distinctly feel our hut swaying even a hundred miles away.
A party of Germans turned up. Apparently they had been marooned in the highlands as a result of tribal fighting. The rumours about the spearings at Goroka were true and a full scale tribal war had erupted between the "Wantoks" of the victims and the assailants. The Germans had eventually been rescued by a squad of armed police but they had had a few scary moments meantime.
Next day whilst wandering the streets of Mt. Hagen searching for clothes I was stopped and offered the return of my passport and air ticket. All this is so common that there is a regular routine to get passports back. One parades up and down the street between the Air Niu Guinea office and the police station when you may be approached. Negotiations are conducted in the "Garden Café" opposite the Post Office. It set me back around £15 after a protracted haggling session.
We saw several cars in the street with all their windows smashed and the bodywork hacked about with machete cuts. Apparently this is a common outcome of matrimonial strife. (Woman attacks husbands most prized posession. Come to think, that happens in the UK from time to time!)
The whole population of Hagen was aware of our predicament and knew the routine. We were frequently stopped as passersby solitiously equired if I had got my camera back. However I didn't manage to get anything else back although we hung around for three days. Lost were cameras, all pictures of the Goroka show, binoculars etc, total value of £2500, we had to withdraw back to Oz as I had lost my LP book and all my notes, tel. nos. etc. (They sell LP in the Christian Bookshop in Hagen but not the PNG one!) One policewoman at the police station offered to let us stay at her house, a very kind act I thought. Most PNGers are the nicest people you can possibly imagine. It's best I think for visitors to stick to air travel in view of the above.
UPDATE The travel insurance paid up with no problem, three gold stars for the National Farmers Union. (UK)
Under construction, to be continued.
American Express also paid up with only minor queries, so three gold stars for them too!
The UK foriegn office site has now been updated as a result of the report I sent to them, surface travel is no longer recommended!
The pictures you see were very kindly given to me by an American tourist we met at the Poroman Lodge.
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"Post Courier," P.N.G.'s main daily newspaper, interesting reading!
