Jun 2007

To start with, I will give you my complimentary in-depth expert analysis of PNG: PNG could be an incredible wealthy country, with major natural resources including gold, oil, natural recources and tourism potential.

However, screwing up everything in a major way does not really help the country forward. Politicans work very hard, but mostly at election time to promote themselves and primarily to fill their pockets. Here is a Politican campaigning in a boat, visiting small islands (see picture).

Too bad that the country is a bit of a mess. Infrastructure and everything is more or less there; It just does not work most of the time (like in the Solomons). Howeve, all people I met were incredibly helpful. At the airport they even gathered money for me to buy a duty free bottle. However, PNG also has a nice collection "mountainpeople" and raskals (bandits). They specialize in physical communication, including chopping of limbs if they do not really agree with what you do or say. To meet these fine people, you have to look for them. I thought visiting obscure clubs in Port Moresby at about 03.00 with the national champion kick boxing should do the trick. It did! The girls were very nice to me, but the red teeth (beetlenut chewing) and their unlimited requests for drinks were a turn-off; Highlight was the gentleman trying to pickpocket me. He was “escorted” out by my personal boddyguard. His shirts und pants remained on the premises.

By the way, playing golf here is a pretty informal affair, involving hitting a provisional ball at people to chase them away

Then the unavoidable part on diving and snorkeling (sorry, I will keep it short): We went on a exploratory trip to some island, where nobody dived before. Sleeping in a small village where no tourists ever slept before was great. Of course the food was also very special, with corned beef as highlight. This is actually a delicacy and only offered to special guests. The diving was not so good on this trip.But back at the resort, the most amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing thing happened to me (again). After five minutes of diving on the housereef and at only 3 meters deep a dugong almost swam into me, giving us both the scare of our lives. Even the owner had never seen one before in 11 years!!! After Solomons, now again!! But now I know why: The fishies (and bigger fishies) want to be friends with me because I do not eat them!

And my last day in PNG finally got me close encounters with some wild, but domesticated, birdlife. Here are some pictures

As expected, the Solomons and PNG were the highlights of my Pacific trip: wild and beautiful!!!

Back into civilization now. Actually, when you are reading this, my short Australia trip is behind me already (most people do a few months Australia and a few days Pacific, I did it the other way around). Also, I had a week in New Zealand again, Skiing. Life is short. I want to do it all now...

After the founder/owner of this website wrote me a very positive email on my Solomons story and featured my pictures on the homepage, I got new inspiration for writing the first part of my PNG trip.

PNG is Papua New Guinea. It has 5 million people, very friendly people and a developing economy. But it also has a major security problem with Raskals (bandits) doing whatever they want. People still solve problems by chopping each others heads or hiring a killer. I was so smart to come during elections; well you can imagine what that could mean. But most of the time it just means election parties:

taking taxis everywhere and several helpful locals walking with me on the streets. And it is not so bad if you are cautious in Port Moresby, the other big cities and the highlands; What remains are very nice (and generally) safe islands, great for snorkeling and diving. Most of the country most people and infrastructure looks developed than the Solomons. But other areas are still very remote and traditional. People use zoom (benzine/oil) as money. Without the reputation for security problems, the country and tourism (now 22,000 people per year) would be booming; Nature is unparalleled. Birds like parrots, hornbills and kakatoes (there we go again) and other birds with complicated names are everywhere, and f.i. a Rhino beetle (with strange claws) used me as airstrip today. Amazing coral landscapes and the best biodiversity in the world await.

In the first week, diving was difficult because the dive centers guy almost died and left PNG. So we rented some tanks and went diving ourselves. After five minutes in the water (still snorkeling), this big gentle creature was my first intro to the underwater scenery in PNG.

Manta at Samarai

This was quickly followed by a less nice creature: an attacking trigger fish, taking some bites out of my leg. The next day solo diving (very normal here) on a wreck, gave my a big freight. As I was making pictires of a nemo, a strange creature dropped itself one meter next to me, saying, "hello, why aren't you making picture of me".

wobbegong

The place were I staid had a nice pet

kasuari at Wagawaga/Alotau

Slowly I get to be a real diver, like, I am getting interested in critters, normal people would call this small stuff. This is a serious condition, because it will lead to isolation from landpeople; And to the need to do 10 day live-a-boards followed by the same 10 day live-a-board direct after (some lady really did this). It also leads to mentioning as the highlight of this 10-day live-a-board some kind of hairy shrimp. By the way, why do they call it live-a-board if people are underwater five hours a day? Can somebody save me. I even made a picture of a shrimp and a stupid crab...

Pffff, fuck live-a-boards, one diveguide did 1000 dives on this live-a-boards and never saw one hammerhead. He went with me yesterday, I actually swam off from the group, down to 50 meters and into the blue and he went after me and Bingo: up to a few meters and 3 to 4 meters (no kidding) long.

Well, I thought, I try an artistic picture, just an experiment, sorry...
perfect bubble

And then of course more sharks, sorry, I am still obsessed. Here is a grey reef shark:

and here is a silvertip, my first one

And a suckerfish that preferred me above a shark

I realize I should make some land pictures too. I will try next time, but I am afraid being killed here on land, so... we will see.

So, then some more underwater pictures
turtlehead at walindi (that featured as homepage picture of the website yesterday)

And do not do this at home, playing with a morray eal