TRAS 010 10 Traveller Weekend Edition January 24-25, 2009 Weekend Edition January 24-25, 2009 Traveller 11 The Sydney Morning Herald DESTINATION PAPUA NEW GUINEA Treasure islands We pull in close to a village to see hundreds of children lining the beaches, staring at us with slack jaws. Craig Tansley finds a stunning secret world of teeming wildlife and island villages untouched by modernity. Heavenly ... (clockwise from above) a joyous child on one of PNG’s eastern islands; snorkelling in crystal waters; the ‘‘sing sing’’, a customary welcome; the MV True North. Photos: Lani Jensen Vibrant ... children perform traditional dance. Bismark Sea Arafura Sea 0 200km Port Moresby Alotau PAPUA NEW GUINEA PAPUA New Britain D’Entrecasteaux Is. New Ireland Duke of York Is. Admiralty Is. E ach morning the islanders are here with the sunrise and in the evenings, long after the sun sets, they linger, not missing a moment of watching us. When we move on through these eastern islands of Papua New Guinea, there’ s always more inquisitive locals. They congregate at the back of our ‘‘ spaceship’’ , in wooden canoes barely staying afloat, four or five children in tow, smiling at us with bright-red, saliva-stained teeth (everyone here chews betel nut until their teeth are mere fleshy, red stumps). Some days the crew on our cruise ship makes poodles out of balloons for the kids but the war- riors – all sinewy, sun-blackened muscle – refuse to miss out, wrapping bright-pink balloons around their fuzzy, black hair. Early one morning I talk to a girl in a canoe who can speak broken English. She asks for my address in Australia. ‘‘ Why would you like that?’’ I ask. ‘‘ I frite [write] you a letter, ’’ she tells me. ‘‘ But do you have a post office in your village?’’ I ask. ‘‘ What is a post office?’’ she replies. There are many among the islanders who have never seen white people before, a situation I’ ve never encountered in my travels. To feel like Captain Cook in this ridiculously modern world carries some responsibility. One evening I take a ride with the ship’ s engineer to a remote village in the Duke of York Islands. Twenty naked children stand staring at us as we land, one toddler crying in terror, hiding behind his bare-chested mother. They stare at me hard; I feel like the tiny insect specimens we’ d dissect and examine under microscopes in high school. Right here I feel I’ m responsible for the image – the public relations – of the entire popu- lation of white people on Earth. It’ s far too much for me to handle. I smile, I wave a little until I feel silly, I say hello 20 or so times in that funny accent we all put on when we travel overseas, then I dip my head self- consciously, avoiding their little eyes. I die on that stage. I crash and burn. On the boat ride back I chastise myself for my stage fright. I should’ ve sung, I should’ ve danced, I could’ ve been Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire and Jerry Seinfeld rolled into one. But I doubt it mat- tered; they were probably more interested in the quick-dry boardshorts with the luminous colours I wore and the wristwatch with the little hands that lit up like dull fire in the twilight. Others among our new friends off the back of our boat have more experience with white folk, like Lionel. ‘‘ Have there been many visitors through here?’’ I ask him. ‘‘ Yes, yes, many, ’’ he answers. ‘‘ We have had two dim dims [white people] here. ’’ I ask him when that was. ‘‘ Not long ago, ’’ he says. ‘‘ Eight years, maybe. ’’ One day, a passenger asks the ship’ s marine biologist why our new friends don’ t ever seem to want to go home. ‘‘ Think about it, ’’ he says. ‘‘ Most of the people round here haven’ t seen white people before. You imagine if a spaceship landed in your suburb at home and all these funny-looking aliens came out with their funny little gadgets, what do you reckon you’ d do?’’ I think of the 50 metres and $20 million of gleaming-white painted metal we travel in, the tenders with their noisy outboard motors that take us diving, snorkelling and fishing each day and the helicopter on the top deck that ascends to the heavens every morning. While it may be us paying good money to observe these people, I can’ t help wondering who’ s really on display. As a passenger says to me as we pull in close to a village to see hundreds of children lining the beaches, staring at us with slack jaws: ‘‘ They watch us watching them; we watch them watching us. ’’ That all this exists in by far the most perfect natural environment I’ ve ever seen says more about Papua New Guinea than anything else. Blue, waveless oceans teem with huge, tasty coral trout and tuna; performing dolphins; rare dugongs; gigantic turtles; unbleached, shockin- gly colourful coral; even a pod of killer whales (that we swim beside on one extraordinary morning). If this was anywhere else, Club Med, the Hil- ton chain, McDonald’ s and Starbucks would have taken over. We’ d be lining up for cabana chairs on these perfect, white-sand beaches and the locals, paid peanuts for wages, would be serv- ing us pina coladas, probably after making a show of climbing coconut trees to fetch the key ingredient. But this is Papua New Guinea, one of the last great frontiers and, remarkably, one of the least- visited countries. The perceived dangers of its capital, Port Moresby, keep travellers at bay, as does the difficulty in getting in and around (inter- nal air fares are at least five times more expensive than in Australia). To take a luxury boat ride through its most untouched regions, a world away from Port Moresby and any sense of danger beyond a nasty sunburn and a probable case of indigestion, must surely be one of the last great indulgences left to adventure-seeking Australians. What’ s more, because North Star Cruises travels through these parts only four times a year (when it’ s too hot to travel the Kimberley), you don’ t ever feel as if you’ re on a conveyor-belt tourist trap, nor will you see another cruise boat. Our cruise aboard the MV True North will take us from the remote islands of New Ireland off Papua New Guinea’ s eastern coastline about 1000 kilometres south-west to the mainland at Alotau, in Papua New Guinea’ s far south. For a week we’ ll pass through some of the world’ s most untouched islands: steaming south through the Duke of York Islands, New Britain, the tiny atolls of the Lusancays and onwards through the D’ Entrecasteaux Islands. Never heard of any of them? Don’ t feel too bad, you’ re not alone – check the internet and you’ ll find vir- tually nothing, although anyone versed in Aus- tralian war history will know these regions played a significant role in the Allies’ efforts to stop the Japanese advance into Australia during World War II. In fact, we have a war veteran on board: 88-year-old West Australian Eric Smyth. Several passengers are also here to retrace the footsteps of their fathers, offering them a rare insight into a past they dared never ask about. We even get to dive and snorkel on Japanese tanks and warplanes. While the region’ s war history is fascinating, I find myself more captivated by its people. The for- ests that stretch to the water ’ s edge are full of vil- lages with tribes speaking unique languages (there are almost 900 languages in Papua New Guinea). For a week I don’ t see a television antenna, power pole or generator. Many here have never felt cotton against their skin, or worn a pair of Levis; they’ ve never tasted Coca-Cola, or heard a Britney Spears song; they’ ve never downed a Big Mac, or seen Leonardo and Kate confess their undying love for each other in Titanic. Captain Cook explained their simple pleasures: ‘‘ Being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous but with the necessary con- veniences so much sought-after in Europe, they are happy in not knowing the use of them. They live in tranquillity. The earth and sea of their own accord furnish them with all things necess- ary in life. ’’ And the world they live in bursts with crea- tures. In terms of volume, variation and the bio- logical significance of flora and fauna, only the Amazon Basin compares. New Guinea is one- ninth the size of Australia but it has just as many mammal types, more than 215 species. It has more than 200 species of frogs, 300 species of reptiles, 300 species of fish, 400,000 insect species, the world’ s largest butterfly (the Queen Alexandra, which was so big that when it was first collected, it was felled by a shotgun blast), more than 750 species of bird, 20,000 plant species, 3000 types of orchids and 1200 tree species. There are more parrot, pigeon and king- fisher species here than anywhere else on the planet. This world we travel through is so delicate and precious even the wake from our boat feels like a trespass. The sea remains so calm and mirrored, especially at sunrise and sunset, that I find myself waking each morning in anticipation of first light and the vista it will unveil. When we swim we don’ t need masks to see the coral, while divers down 50 metres tell us they can clearly see the True North name on their tender bobbing at the surface. At night, the stars shine so bright it’ s just my ignorance that stops me learning all the constel- lations. And when we venture to a village one night by tender, I discover the darkest, quietest place on Earth. But for me, it’ s the experiences we share with the people of this land that make this journey. One morning near Goodenough Island, four children paddle out to us in an overloaded out- rigger canoe. It capsizes and we rescue them in our tender. They sit, frightened, at the end of our boat, then pass to us shyly what they were com- ing to give us: a single pawpaw as a gift. Near Kokopo, two girls swim out to greet us. A local warrior who’ d helped us out for the day waves to them. When a passenger asks him if they’ re his girlfriends he giggles like a schoolgirl, hiding his face with his huge hands. Then, I find utopia. At Jacquinot Bay on New Britain’ s unexplored east coast we chance upon an idyllic scene. We take tenders to the shore, where hundreds of children line a white pebbled beach. When we start waving, they yell a greet- ing so loud it scares us. They live here beside the beach, next to a thunderous waterfall that gushes from a cave directly into the sea. We play with the children for hours, swim- ming beneath the waterfall, sinking low into the sea to feel the saltwater underneath, at least 10 degrees warmer than the fresh water. When it’ s time to go the children don’ t want us to leave. I give a little girl my drink bottle; she shows it off to her friends. They scramble beside us in our tenders. I notice the passenger beside me is crying and the one beside her, too. ‘‘ I’ ve been using tears as an eye wash on this trip every day, ’’ she says. ‘‘ These kids just make me blubber, look at them, are they really real?’’ One day soon, villagers may abandon their tra- ditional ways for the new and experiences like this on board the True North will seem the stuff of science fiction. While the True North visits only a few times a year and varies its itinerary, surely it can’ t be long before mass-tourism operators dis- cover this wonderland right on our doorstep. But it’ s nice to know paradise does still exist on this war-ravaged planet, at least for now, and that paradise looks, smells and tastes just like you thought it would: salty, sweaty, sticky and with the sweet tang of coconut milk. Craig Tansley travelled courtesy of North Star Cruises. FAST FACTS Getting there North Star Cruises provides a return chartered flight out of Cairns to Papua New Guinea. Virgin Blue has a fare to Cairns for $139 from Melbourne and $115 from Sydney, while Jetstar charges $169 from Melbourne and $119 from Sydney. Some flights are non- stop. (Fares are one-way, including tax.) Australians require a visa for PNG for a stay of up to 60 days, which can be obtained before departure or upon arrival. Cruising there North Star Cruises has four seven-night Adventures in Paradise cruises in November. From $9995 a person, which includes all meals, activities and a return chartered flight out of Cairns. Phone (08) 9192 1829 or see northstarcruises.com.au.
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TRAS 010
10 Traveller Weekend Edition January 24-25, 2009 Weekend Edition January 24-25, 2009 Traveller 11The Sydney Morning Herald
DESTINATIONPAPUA NEW GUINEA
Treasureislands
We pull in close to a village to see hundreds of childrenlining the beaches, staring at us with slack jaws.
Craig Tansley finds a stunning secret world of teemingwildlife and island villages untouched by modernity.
Heavenly ... (clockwise from above) a joyous child on one of PNG’s eastern islands; snorkellingin crystal waters; the ‘‘sing sing’’, a customary welcome; the MV True North. Photos: Lani Jensen
Vibrant ... children perform traditional dance.
Bismark Sea
Arafura Sea
0 200km Port Moresby
Alotau
PAPUANEW GUINEA
PAPUANew Britain
D’Entrecasteaux Is.
New Ireland
Duke of York Is.
Admiralty Is.
Each morning the islanders are herewith the sunrise and in the evenings,long after the sun sets, they linger, notmissing a moment of watching us.
When we move on through these easternislands of Papua New Guinea, there’s alwaysmore inquisitive locals. They congregate at theback of our ‘‘spaceship’’, in wooden canoesbarely staying afloat, four or five children in tow,smiling at us with bright-red, saliva-stained teeth(everyone here chews betel nut until their teethare mere fleshy, red stumps).
Some days the crew on our cruise ship makespoodles out of balloons for the kids but the war-riors – all sinewy, sun-blackened muscle – refuseto miss out, wrapping bright-pink balloonsaround their fuzzy, black hair.
Early one morning I talk to a girl in a canoewho can speak broken English. She asks for myaddress in Australia. ‘‘Why would you like that?’’I ask. ‘‘I frite [write] you a letter,’’ she tells me.‘‘But do you have a post office in your village?’’I ask. ‘‘What is a post office?’’ she replies.
There are many among the islanders whohave never seen white people before, a situationI’ve never encountered in my travels. To feel likeCaptain Cook in this ridiculously modern world
carries some responsibility. One evening I take aride with the ship’s engineer to a remote villagein the Duke of York Islands.
Twenty naked children stand staring at us aswe land, one toddler crying in terror, hidingbehind his bare-chested mother. They stare at mehard; I feel like the tiny insect specimens we’ddissect and examine under microscopes in high
school. Right here I feel I’m responsible for theimage – the public relations – of the entire popu-lation of white people on Earth.
It’s far too much for me to handle. I smile, Iwave a little until I feel silly, I say hello 20 or sotimes in that funny accent we all put on whenwe travel overseas, then I dip my head self-consciously, avoiding their little eyes. I die onthat stage. I crash and burn.
On the boat ride back I chastise myself for mystage fright. I should’ve sung, I should’ve danced,I could’ve been Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire andJerry Seinfeld rolled into one. But I doubt it mat-tered; they were probably more interested in thequick-dry boardshorts with the luminous coloursI wore and the wristwatch with the little handsthat lit up like dull fire in the twilight.
Others among our new friends off the back ofour boat have more experience with white folk,like Lionel. ‘‘Have there been many visitorsthrough here?’’ I ask him. ‘‘Yes, yes, many,’’ heanswers. ‘‘We have had two dim dims [whitepeople] here.’’ I ask him when that was. ‘‘Notlong ago,’’ he says. ‘‘Eight years, maybe.’’
One day, a passenger asks the ship’s marinebiologist why our new friends don’t ever seem towant to go home. ‘‘Think about it,’’ he says.
‘‘Most of the people round here haven’t seenwhite people before. You imagine if a spaceshiplanded in your suburb at home and all thesefunny-looking aliens came out with their funnylittle gadgets, what do you reckon you’d do?’’
I think of the 50 metres and $20 million ofgleaming-white painted metal we travel in, thetenders with their noisy outboard motors thattake us diving, snorkelling and fishing each dayand the helicopter on the top deck that ascendsto the heavens every morning.
While it may be us paying good money toobserve these people, I can’t help wonderingwho’s really on display. As a passenger says tome as we pull in close to a village to see hundredsof children lining the beaches, staring at us withslack jaws: ‘‘They watch us watching them; wewatch them watching us.’’
That all this exists in by far the most perfectnatural environment I’ve ever seen says moreabout Papua New Guinea than anything else.Blue, waveless oceans teem with huge, tasty coraltrout and tuna; performing dolphins; raredugongs; gigantic turtles; unbleached, shockin-gly colourful coral; even a pod of killer whales(that we swim beside on one extraordinarymorning).
If this was anywhere else, Club Med, the Hil-ton chain, McDonald’s and Starbucks wouldhave taken over. We’d be lining up for cabanachairs on these perfect, white-sand beaches andthe locals, paid peanuts for wages, would be serv-
ing us pina coladas, probably after making ashow of climbing coconut trees to fetch the keyingredient.
But this is Papua New Guinea, one of the lastgreat frontiers and, remarkably, one of the least-visited countries. The perceived dangers of itscapital, Port Moresby, keep travellers at bay, asdoes the difficulty in getting in and around (inter-nal air fares are at least five times more expensivethan in Australia). To take a luxury boat ridethrough its most untouched regions, a world awayfrom Port Moresby and any sense of dangerbeyond a nasty sunburn and a probable case ofindigestion, must surely be one of the last greatindulgences left to adventure-seeking Australians.
What’s more, because North Star Cruisestravels through these parts only four times a year(when it’s too hot to travel the Kimberley), youdon’t ever feel as if you’re on a conveyor-belttourist trap, nor will you see another cruise boat.
Our cruise aboard the MV True North willtake us from the remote islands of New Irelandoff Papua New Guinea’s eastern coastline about1000 kilometres south-west to the mainland atAlotau, in Papua New Guinea’s far south.
For a week we’ll pass through some of theworld’s most untouched islands: steaming souththrough the Duke of York Islands, New Britain,the tiny atolls of the Lusancays and onwardsthrough the D’Entrecasteaux Islands. Neverheard of any of them? Don’t feel too bad, you’renot alone – check the internet and you’ll find vir-tually nothing, although anyone versed in Aus-tralian war history will know these regionsplayed a significant role in the Allies’ efforts tostop the Japanese advance into Australia duringWorld War II.
In fact, we have a war veteran on board:88-year-old West Australian Eric Smyth. Severalpassengers are also here to retrace the footstepsof their fathers, offering them a rare insight intoa past they dared never ask about. We even getto dive and snorkel on Japanese tanks andwarplanes.
While the region’s war history is fascinating, Ifind myself more captivated by its people. The for-ests that stretch to the water’s edge are full of vil-
lages with tribes speaking unique languages (thereare almost 900 languages in Papua New Guinea).
For a week I don’t see a television antenna,power pole or generator. Many here have neverfelt cotton against their skin, or worn a pair ofLevis; they’ve never tasted Coca-Cola, or heard aBritney Spears song; they’ve never downed a BigMac, or seen Leonardo and Kate confess theirundying love for each other in Titanic.
Captain Cook explained their simplepleasures: ‘‘Being wholly unacquainted not onlywith the superfluous but with the necessary con-veniences so much sought-after in Europe, theyare happy in not knowing the use of them. Theylive in tranquillity. The earth and sea of theirown accord furnish them with all things necess-ary in life.’’
And the world they live in bursts with crea-tures. In terms of volume, variation and the bio-logical significance of flora and fauna, only theAmazon Basin compares. New Guinea is one-ninth the size of Australia but it has just as manymammal types, more than 215 species. It hasmore than 200 species of frogs, 300 species of
reptiles, 300 species of fish, 400,000 insectspecies, the world’s largest butterfly (the QueenAlexandra, which was so big that when it wasfirst collected, it was felled by a shotgun blast),more than 750 species of bird, 20,000 plantspecies, 3000 types of orchids and 1200 treespecies. There are more parrot, pigeon and king-fisher species here than anywhere else on theplanet.
This world we travel through is so delicate andprecious even the wake from our boat feels like atrespass. The sea remains so calm and mirrored,especially at sunrise and sunset, that I findmyself waking each morning in anticipation offirst light and the vista it will unveil. When weswim we don’t need masks to see the coral, whiledivers down 50 metres tell us they can clearly seethe True North name on their tender bobbing atthe surface.
At night, the stars shine so bright it’s just myignorance that stops me learning all the constel-lations. And when we venture to a village onenight by tender, I discover the darkest, quietestplace on Earth.
But for me, it’s the experiences we share withthe people of this land that make this journey.
One morning near Goodenough Island, fourchildren paddle out to us in an overloaded out-rigger canoe. It capsizes and we rescue them inour tender. They sit, frightened, at the end of ourboat, then pass to us shyly what they were com-ing to give us: a single pawpaw as a gift.
Near Kokopo, two girls swim out to greet us. Alocal warrior who’d helped us out for the daywaves to them. When a passenger asks him ifthey’re his girlfriends he giggles like a schoolgirl,hiding his face with his huge hands.
Then, I find utopia. At Jacquinot Bay on NewBritain’s unexplored east coast we chance uponan idyllic scene. We take tenders to the shore,where hundreds of children line a white pebbledbeach. When we start waving, they yell a greet-ing so loud it scares us. They live here beside thebeach, next to a thunderous waterfall that gushesfrom a cave directly into the sea.
We play with the children for hours, swim-ming beneath the waterfall, sinking low into thesea to feel the saltwater underneath, at least
10 degrees warmer than the fresh water. Whenit’s time to go the children don’t want us to leave.I give a little girl my drink bottle; she shows it offto her friends.
They scramble beside us in our tenders. Inotice the passenger beside me is crying and theone beside her, too. ‘‘I’ve been using tears as aneye wash on this trip every day,’’ she says.‘‘These kids just make me blubber, look at them,are they really real?’’
One day soon, villagers may abandon their tra-ditional ways for the new and experiences likethis on board the True North will seem the stuff ofscience fiction. While the True North visits only afew times a year and varies its itinerary, surely itcan’t be long before mass-tourism operators dis-cover this wonderland right on our doorstep.
But it’s nice to know paradise does still existon this war-ravaged planet, at least for now, andthat paradise looks, smells and tastes just likeyou thought it would: salty, sweaty, sticky andwith the sweet tang of coconut milk.
Craig Tansley travelled courtesy of North Star Cruises.
FAST FACTSGetting there North Star Cruisesprovides a return chartered flight out ofCairns to Papua New Guinea. Virgin Bluehas a fare to Cairns for $139 fromMelbourne and $115 from Sydney, whileJetstar charges $169 from Melbourne and$119 from Sydney. Some flights are non-stop. (Fares are one-way, including tax.)Australians require a visa for PNG for astay of up to 60 days, which can beobtained before departure or uponarrival.Cruising there North Star Cruises hasfour seven-night Adventures in Paradisecruises in November. From $9995 aperson, which includes all meals,activities and a return chartered flightout of Cairns. Phone (08) 9192 1829 orsee northstarcruises.com.au.
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