Combination. That’s the word of the day today. My bus to the airport stopped for half an hour to await a connection with another bus, making me nervously close to the check in cutoff time for my flight. Only when I arrived there did I find out they pushed the flight back from 7:30am to 10:30am. The reason was they had combined two flights that day into one. It turned out to be not such a bad thing, however, I had free wifi to keep me busy for the three hours, then also the forth when the flight was delayed. Again I was nervous, this time about my 2:30pm connection out of Port Moresby. The plane was delayed no further and I was able to board. Thankfully I wasn’t last in line. An unlucky couple that were last in line were turned away from the plane on the tarmac when the plane turned out to be overbooked. I’ve heard of hotels being overbooked, but a plane? Anyways, I arrived in Port Moresby at 1pm and queued into the check in line, about a mile long due to another combination of two Air Niugini flights. I finished checking in ten minutes before the boarding time and finished my customs process and security check, arriving at the gate with barely enough time for a quick pre-flight piss.
So here’s the Papua New Guinea wrap up. During the whole ten months of traveling I had been looking forward to traveling this country, thinking of it as my pinnacle destination. It sure lived up to it. Although it’s still hard to pick a favourite out of Nepal, the Philippines and PNG, I can definitely say I had the richest experiences of my trip here. Never before have I felt so welcomed to a country by the locals, who seemed only too eager to show us their culture and customs. I’ve seen some incredible displays of culture and scenery, ranging from a jungle engulfed river to a breathtaking coastline to a high altitude mountain peak. I’ve checked a couple life goals off my list by seeing the Baining Fire Dance and climbing an active volcano. PNG truly is the land of the unexpected, a true treasure chest of adventure for those willing to open it for themselves. The whole time building up to this country all I heard was negative things about it: it’s unsafe, you’ll get eaten by cannibals, you’ll get killed by a tribe, bla bla bla. The lesson learned from traveling here: when you hear anything from an Australian about PNG, don’t fucking listen to them. If you have no business interests or aren’t a member of a clan, you’ll be fine. Don’t flash money and don’t wander around at night. You wouldn’t have any reason to do the latter in this country anyways, there’s simply nothing to do at night.
The good: The people. You’ll never find so many friendly people in the West as I’ve met in PNG. I can guarantee that, stamped, signed and sealed. Every stroll around town we were greeted with smiles and handshakes. Numerous people invited us to stay with them, and the ones that we did stay with completely surrendered themselves to giving us the most enjoyable experience we could possibly have. Notably among these are Augustine from New Ireland, Jonathan and his family from Bangus, and Cliff from the village outside of Mt. Hagen who’s name escapes me. The wilderness. It’s hard to find truly untouched wilderness like you can find in Papua New Guinea. Being in the jungle there makes it easy to believe that they are constantly discovering new species every year, as does it when you’re diving the pristine reefs of New Ireland. The culture. Some of the strongest I’ve seen in my travels. It was incredible to see people still living as they have done for the past hundreds of years, possibly thousands. I must also include the food here too. Not so much the meals themselves, but the fresh vegetables and fruit. The biggest and tastiest bananas, amazing sweet potatoes, fresh coconuts, exotic tropical fruit, and the freshest and tastiest vegetables I’ve ever had were some of things I got to enjoy.
The bad. The costs. I spent easily twice what I have in every other month of my travels. Thankfully traveling with Matt and being hosted in villages managed to cut the costs down substantially, as well as our breaks we caught with the Tourism PNG people in the Sepik. Flights were what killed us. They cost more per kilometre than they do in Canada, and often you have no choice but to take them due to the lack of road infrastructure in PNG. There’s hardly any tourism infrastructure in place for backpackers, the majority of it being geared towards corporate tourism, which is another reason hotels can charge the outrageous amounts they do. One thing I hate seeing is the way people are treated here. Abandoned is a good word. Abandoned by a government who’s officials are only concerned with lining their own pockets, stealing money from the future generations who have no choice but to tolerate the deteriorating education, health care and infrastructure systems. The violence here is also a major eyesore. It was hard to comprehend and accept how the local clans can war with each other over such petty things. The amount of alcohol abuse here is disturbing as well. Like I’ve said before, it’s common to see many young men pissed drunk in the morning or early afternoon, and it’s a given that they’ll be all over the streets at night (the chief reason you don’t wander around at night). Amazing as the culture is here, it’s dying quickly. It was sad to see that the young generation has no desire to continue the traditions of their fathers and grandfathers, instead opting to move towards the modern world which is leaving theirs behind quickly. Many times we were told there’s a story to this or that, only to inquire and be told they can’t tell us the story because it would take a whole day to explain. An obvious excuse for not being privy to the story.
The costs: PNG is EXPENSIVE. I spent more than double than what I would have in any other Asian country, and we did it very cheaply in comparison to most tourists here. I won’t break it up completely this time, but I spent a total of roughly $3900, onward flight included.
All in all I’m so glad I was able to visit this country and see the wonders it contains. Because of the culture death that is taking place, I feel very lucky to have had the means to come see these things before all that remains of them is pages in a history book. Apo sin! (middle Sepik greeting/farewell)
No comments:
Post a Comment