Madang

I have now been here in PNG for around 5 weeks, so I figured it was about time I had another holiday. Well actually a bunch of others were heading to Madang for a 6 days and asked if I would like to come along. There were 8 of us going, so the most economical way for us to go was to catch a PMV from Ukarumpa. The nice driver picked us up bright and early at 7am on Wednesday and we set off. I was told by a national chap that it takes 3 - 4 hours depending on the driver. I now am wondering whether that chap actually had a watch, because there is no way you could drive there in 3 hours, I think we took at least 5 hours. Thankfully it was a very boring trip, no accidents, no armed holdups, not even anyone blocking the road armed with shovels asking for money.

Madang is on the coast of PNG and has some very nice snorkeling and diving spots and a great supply of coconuts, mangoes and papaya, yummy. On the afternoon that we arrived we took a short trip in to town to go to the market and to the supermarket to get most of the ingredients for the various meals we were planning to cook over the week. There were 4 supermarkets that we went to over the week and they were pretty good by PNG standards. I picked up a few ingredients that I can't find or are expensive in Ukarumpa, yay I can start cooking with olive oil again.

On Thursday we went second hand clothes shopping in the morning, not really my cup of tea, although I was surprised at the quality of some of the clothes available. Unfortunately nothing caught my fancy so I didn't buy anything. After a while I grew a little bored so went for a walk to take some photos of the town. I found a bunch of big bats hanging in a tree, they are not the prettiest of creatures.

In the afternoon we went snorkeling and I am happy to report that I did indeed find Nemo. He was darting in and out of an anemone. We also saw a bunch of other colourful fish and even a sea snake, right next to the spot I had been standing a few minutes earlier.

We then all went out to the golf club for dinner, a lovely Chinese restaurant, very tasty. We were going to have ice-cream but they had run out and they apparently didn't have anything else available for dessert.

On Friday we went to visit the village that Tiffany lived in for 5 weeks during her POC orientation course in January. They were very nice people and extremely generous. They didn't know we were coming, and yet still they fed us all a big lunch including a chicken and various root vegetables. One man was particularly talkative and liked to tell stories. I am not exactly sure what the moral of most of the stories were, but the theme that seemed to reoccur time and time again is that if you are going in a boat, don't let any cassowary birds in with you, they are not to be trusted. In one story it pushed a wallaby in to the water and then ate a turtle, very odd stories indeed.

On Saturday we went up to visit the people currently on the POC course. The course runs for either 6 weeks or 15 weeks, depending on the kind of work you will be doing in PNG. During the weekends they all have to cook for themselves on outdoor fires, so that they can learn how to cook while in a village. Ron and I were on cooking lunch that day, so we made tortillas on Friday night and then cooked up some mince and made salsa and guacamole. It was jolly tasty and everyone seemed to appreciate it. Home made tortillas are much nicer in my opinion to the store bought variety and they really are not that hard to make.

On Sunday we went to a local church in the morning, we turned up a little late, but still managed to catch the last 3 1/2 hours or so. It was mostly in English so at least I could follow what was going on. In the afternoon we went to another snorkeling spot, one that had a restaurant too. So after a nice steak lunch I went and had a snorkel for a while. I saw more clown fish and a few other of the finding Nemo cast. The water was not as clear as the first spot, but there were bigger fish around so it was nice to see a bit of variety. In the evening a few of us went out for dinner, the last opportunity I will have for a while to eat out. I decided to see whether they could top the steak I had for lunch, and what do you know they could. It was very tasty although the mushroom and red wine sauce seemed to be missing the red wine. The specials board said there were strawberries and ice-cream for dessert, but it turned out that there were none left. So we inquired about the cheese-cake of the day, "Sorry no cheese-cake today". There were only 2 more items on the dessert menu, ice-cream and pie of the day. Ah yes a nice pie, so what was the pie of the day? Well at first we were told peach pie. Then after we finished our main course it had changed to apple pie with strawberry ice-cream, apparently there was no vanilla. So 3 of us ordered the apple pie with strawberry ice-cream. What we actually got was what we are assumed to be a peach pie, and vanilla ice-cream. The steak was significantly better than the pie was.

This morning (Monday) we left the SIL guest house at 7:15 and were dropped off in town to catch a PMV back to Ukarumpa. With 8 of us we figured it couldn't take too long to fill a PMV (they don't leave until they are crammed full of people). If any of you have played Pitt and were good at it, then you may want to consider moving to PNG and becoming a 'boss man', this is the guy who calls out of the window trying to attract more passengers. It seems that the number of available seats was a pretty flexible number. The boss man started off yelling "4 pela Goroka, 4 pela Goroka" (not too sure on the spelling sorry), meaning room for 4 more passengers going to Goroka. When he realised that the 8 of us who were already in the van were only going as far as Kainantu the call changed to "4 pela Kainantu, 4 pela Kainantu". Eventually 2 more passengers were found and they jumped in. The call then changed to "3 pela Kainantu". Now it has been a while since I was at school, but last time I checked 4 - 2 = 2 not 3. Hmm, I wonder where the 3rd person will sit. We drove around town for a while more calling for 3 people sometimes and 2 people other times, possibly depending on how many people we were passing at the time. Then one of the passengers that was in the van decided to get out, right back were he got in. I guess he wanted a break from the sun or something. Finally after much futile calling and driving all around Madang centre, we took off, with 1 spare seat. The trip back was equally as uneventful as the trip to Madang and I am now back safe and sound in Ukarumpa.