In my experience PNG isn’t so bad of a place. There are rumors though of people being killed, raped and tortured so I can’t really recommend it for a casual vacation destination. It would be an awesome adventure travel with a reputable travel tour. There are some amazing sights varying from wild rivers and canyons to mountain views, amazing oceans and reported good fishing for black bass, barramundi and non-native trout of all things.
Now, let’s define not so bad. Yes there are tropical diseases, malaria is common… very common. There is also Dengue fever, cholera, dysentery and a host of other things you can catch due to it being an under developed country in the tropics with sketchy sanitation. Yes, crime is common, violent crime especially robberies. There are regular stories about people being murdered for one reason or another, mostly tribal conflicts. If you traveled here don’t expect any sort of western hotel experience, expect more rustic Alaska lodge type of experience and I emphasize rustic… ie no electricity or running water unless you are by a stream although some lodges might have generators forget about wi-fi. There are civilized patches and I wouldn’t really recommend them. Port Moresby is the capital and probably the largest city followed by Lae and Mt. Hagen. Crap holes… right proper shanty town crap holes. This is where you will find the crime and the biggest problem with hygiene. With all that being said, I’ve never had any problems with a local, no one has ever been threatening except for this one guy and everyone knew he was a jerk. I have had malaria… antibiotics will sort it out if you can get treatment in a timely fashion, so that’s not such a worry. The aids rate is extremely high and the women seem to be anxious to bed a white guy, so be warned of that. If you keep these things in mind and expect these inconveniences, it’s not so bad. It is what it is… if you want the Hilton and someone bringing you drinks on the beach then this isn’t the place for you. If you want to experience a culture that is so far removed from anything you have ever experienced, to hike or even cut your own unbeaten path. If you ever wanted to experience what it might be like to be an explorer or seek the history of WW2 that’s not in a museum. You might dig the place.
I would not recommend going without a guide. If an aggressive native caught the lonely backpacker walking a back country hi-way (one lane dirt road) it would be likely for said backpacker to be mugged, beaten and left in the ditch to suffer their fate. If the backpacker was a young white woman, odds are good of being gang raped, but like I said I’ve never had any issues but I’m an overweight balding dude too and generally not on my own is deserted areas, actually I’m never on my own in deserted areas except for when the job makes me.
The justice system here is tribal. There is a police force but too few and too underpaid to be of much use unless an oil company or mining company has called them in to fix a “problem”. The way tribal law works is if you steal or injure someone from your tribe, the chief will deal out a punishment, generally “compensation” in the form of money or goods. If you were to steal or injure someone from another tribe, they go get their friends and take “compensation” in the form of blood or your stuff. If you are a foreigner the you don’t have a tribe so you are fair game. In the old days, the Australians and Dutch dealt out a brutal justice without use of courts. They defended their settlements in the same tribal fashion and with modern tools and arms. Generally, I think it was a good beating but I wouldn’t be surprised it some weren’t beat to death. Pacification of the native tribes seems to work like that in most places. One good about being white here is whitey brings the jobs and whitey is the employer. The local word for a white man is “masa”… meaning pretty much like it sounds… master. It’s common to be called boss where ever you go. Whitey got power. Which makes it less likely that you'll get attacked. If an ex-pat worker is hurt by local tribe’s person then the government takes action to ensure that doesn't happen again, once again, less so these days.
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| Lodge |
There is a lot of things to see and do here, if it was offered properly. There are wild parrots here and cockatoos, hornbills and Birds of Paradise and heaps of other animals that you won’t see in a zoo. This is where seeing things that would ordinarily be in National Geographic can happen. There are discoveries all the time of unknown species, WW2 relics and aircraft… even WW2 bodies that have been lost and never found. There are white water rivers that are beyond classification and rivers and lakes so full of fish that you couldn't miss them if you threw a rock. There are orchids in abundance, blooming jungle vines and trees. If you scuba dive and would like to wreck dive Papua New Guinea was the scene of some pretty historic WW2 battles.
Living or working here for the past six years makes me wonder a lot. I wonder why it’s still so backward and why it’s different across the border. Mostly it’s because of the people. They will destroy things as a form of extortion. They will steal, from each other and visitors. They fight and feud like as if they were still wild tribes, and to some extent they are. There is no guarantee if you go to say, the Hegigio valley and make an agreement with the locals to set a camp there for some tourists, you could make a contract and pay for the favor… all nice and proper; there is no guarantee that will stick. There is no guarantee that this tribe is actually in control of the area or if a group of them are. There is no guarantee that the person you are negotiating with has any particular authority or if others in the area might also think they have the similar rights as well. Some neighboring village may hear of the windfall and move in to demand similar compensation. It wouldn't be surprising either for someone to still come in and steal things if they were left unguarded.
Many people think the state this country is in is because of exploitation by one group or another. Perhaps; what’s the solution? Move everything out and let the natives fend for themselves? The place would implode, those that work and are improving themselves would be forced back into the village, better off? Some say it’s the oil companies doing it… OSL, Oil Search Limited, and the other oil companies give lots of money to the government and to the villages for the use of their land and resources, they provide health care and education to local villages and well as building community centers, roads and other things. What more do you want? They hire local when the can, training villagers for those jobs. The money and improvements are squandered and stolen from the people. Government officials are regularly caught embezzling as are tribal authorities. The solution is education and ending corruption in the government, laws to limit or end price gouging and providing means for the villages to receive the same services as the cities. I don’t see it happening in my life time.to demand similar compensation. It wouldn’t be surprising either for someone to still come in and steal things if they were left unguarded.
I’m often reminded of the book, “The Lord of the Flies” in which some young British kids are flown to safety from the blitz. Their plane crashes and they have to fend for themselves. It is a study of human nature and the civilizing effects of society’s mores. The children end up committing all sorts of atrocities and finally murder. These people remind me of that. They just don’t have the same sense of right from wrong as the rest
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| Tourist attraction Kaveing |
of us.
Of all the derogatory things I have said, I still have hope. I hope these people can figure out how to manage things better sometime in their future. I can see that ex-pat workers have a positive effect in some ways. They show an example of what can be with education and hard work. There is prejudice sadly, some of its earned.
Also bear in mind that I don’t go to tourist spots so I can’t speak with any authority on them. There are a few. The other aircraft’s crew chief is from Kavieng and he says they have tourists there. I’m sure it’s much nicer than where I’ve been. I’ve heard rumors that Madang is nice too, although I’ve recently heard rumors of some unrest there as well. I’ve never been there, they don’t put oil in nice places.
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| Mud men |
In my personal experience, I’ve never been seriously threatened. A chap on strike did storm into the chow hall and slap a stick on the table that I was eating at and yammered something I didn’t understand. I didn’t really feel frightened though. Masa was there and he’s Japanese so obviously a karate expert. I’ve never witnessed or seen the after effect of the violence. Screaming yelling and throwing rocks in ones general direction doesn’t count. One of the local boys was hit by a rock when one of his wives didn’t think she was getting her fair share of his paycheck. It was perfectly understandable really.
Here is the websites where I stole some pictures. http://www.worldsurfaris.com/surf-travel/surf-trips/Papua-New-Guinea/ and http://www.townandcountrytravelmag.com/vacation-ideas/best-vacations/papua-new-guinea-sp08
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