From Rabaul (East New Britain), which, funnily enough what it was reduced to by the Volcano in 1994, I tried to get a boat to Kimbe (West New Britain), as its impossible by car and is quite expensive to fly.  Besides, I thought it would be more adventurous.  But when I went to buy my ticket, and asked for a first class ticket - I am glad I did, as otherwise I would have been sleeping in the rain on the deck - they were suddenly 'pullup' (Full).  I got a bit suspicious as I had been told that they don't sell tickets to expats - i.e Westerners.  I phoned the owners and they were quite open about it: No tickets to expats as they complain too much.  I explained that I was a backpacker and am used to roughing it, and they said that those were the worst!  They eventually sold me a ticket when I promised I wouldn't complain.  It seems as though white is the new black!

 

I finally managed to get to Kimbe, which is primarily an oil palm plantation town and managed to hook up with an English plantation farmer and retired Entomologist (studies Insects, or in his words: 'counts the hairs on the legs of aiphids'), called Bob Prior.  His claim to fame is the introduction of a weevil from Cameroon that pollinates the oil palm and in so doing, has increased the yield so much so that it saved the oil palm industry in PNG.  He has also built himself a guest house with an English style pub called the “Queens Head”, in which he hosts the local disco.  This guy was a hell of a character, a lot more interesting than most of the expats I had met thus far in PNG, who had been married to two PNG girls, about half his age, fathered about 6 children and had a lot of great stories and insight into the country and the people.

 

One such insight that I can remember, is that there is more to some of the violence here than the media reports:  A doctor was returning home in Port Morseby and knocked down a woman, when he stopped to help, the relatives attacked and killed him in revenge, even though the woman wasn't dead. He also sighted another case where a the wife and daughter of an expat had been raped, and said that what the papers failed to report was that this was carried out by the relatives of the 'house mari' (Literally: house woman, or maid) as their form of justice.  Apparently, the husband had gotten the house mari pregnant and then refused to support her or pay for the support of the child, so her relatives raped his wife and daughter.  This he terms: 'Justice, PNG style'.  He said that a lot of the expats here don't understand the PNG custom, or the 'PNG factor', which in his words: 'You can't put into an equation, because most of the time you don't know what the hell it is!'  There were many more stories, but I can't remember them all right now.

 

I had some coral cuts on my hands, arms, legs and feet from a dive in Rabaul, called the sub-base - so called as from the shore for about 50m there is shallow coral and then it suddenly drops vertically to 300m, so the Japanese used to dock their submarines their during the WWII, surface and the crew would simply walk ashore.  This is fine on a calm day, but we went there as it was too rough to take a boat out. When coming out from the dive we were all dumped by some big waves and dragged across the coral, hence the cuts.  Bob was very concerned about these and told me a photographer for Camel had been too macho to tend to his cuts and had to be airlifted out as he couldn't walk eventually. Apparently, people have also died from Septicemia from simple cuts in the tropics.  But I was more concerned about the cockroaches in my room, especially when they landed on me twice one night, which really gave me the heeby-geebies: I got cross - PNG style – and killed 6 of the little buggers in one night; and another 10 over the next 2 nights!  My cuts are coming along fine thanks.

 

I did some diving in Kimbe, through a resort called Walindi Plantation Resort, next door to Bob's place.  It was phenomenal, some of the best diving ever, and I didn't even see it at its best as the Southeaster had started to blow, which reduced the visibility somewhat.  Despite that we had about 25 meters, but apparently it’s usually over 50m.

 

From there I caught a flight to Lae on the mainland, but didn't stay as there is nothing to see and its purportedly dangerous, and then caught a PMV up to Goroka in the highlands.