Papua New Guinea: a postcard from the lost world

Our first overseas journey, to Papua New Guinea, remains one of our most adventurous. While not the hardest physically, nowhere else have we ventured so far off the beaten track, days away from any means of communication with the outside world and deep into a realm so unknown to us. 

Port Moresby

Port Moresby is no one’s favourite capital city. It is a sprawling place and can be dangerous, especially after dark. But we’re staying with family in a secure apartment overlooking the sea and have a driver on call. Although the main shopping area seems calm, almost carefree, we’re instructed to be hypervigilant. At night on Ela Beach, the kilometre-long stretch of sand is deserted and the palm trees sway forlornly in the breeze. In the morning, the same beachside promenade is awash with joggers. 

Anna’s aunt and uncle, Marie and Brian, are well connected. They know Michael Somare, the former Prime Minister. He’s from the East Sepik and they say he’ll have people looking out for us when we travel there. Others will look out for us in the Highlands. 

One evening we attend a BBQ at the Australian High Commission compound. There are strict security checks before we’re allowed through the electronic gates. From inside, the razor-wire topped walls block out everything but a square of the sky. There’s a palpable sense of anxiety about personal safety. Every conversation we have is about carjackings and robberies that have happened to someone else, or a friend of someone else. We leave wondering if the rumour-rife compound warps the perspective of those who live there.

Another evening, Marie and Brian invite the Bishop of Bougainville and his consort to dinner. The alcohol flows and so do the stories. The Bishop, Gregory Singkai, is an advocate of peace and autonomy for his war-torn homeland. He’s been caught in the crossfire between Papua New Guinea soldiers and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and had to leave the island for a time because his life was in danger. His anglo consort has strange, dark tales of his own to tell. Some involve spirits and ghosts and are so bizarre that we question their veracity in the sober light of day.   

Sogeri

We travel up into the hills to Sogeri, 50 kilometres from Port Moresby. We’re here to visit Judy and Gino, friends who are teaching at the national high school. It rains every day, even though it’s the dry season. The mountainous landscape is a watery, green backdrop to our languid afternoons. We read and wander and listen to the Blues on an old tape deck, the melancholic music overlaid by the rhythmic chirping of frogs and the tech tech of geckos.

One day we walk towards Owers’ Corner, where the Kokoda Trail begins. A farmer working in his garden attracts our attention. He tells us that we should turn back because there’s been trouble on this road recently. We can’t see anything of concern but we pay heed to his warning. Later, back in Port Moresby, Brian explains that the farmer is from the same clan as friends of his. It’s the wantok (one language) system at work and through our personal connections, we’re included in the extended clan.

Madang

Lured by coral reefs, offshore islands and white-sand beaches, we journey to Madang. There are few roads in Papua New Guinea so, like the locals, we catch a flight to this northeastern port city. The plane is crammed with barefoot farmers, live chickens, great stalks of bananas and bulging bilum bags.  

We stay in a hut on Siar Island, just off the coast. We spend days swimming and snorkelling in the crystal clear water. Every dip and dive stirs up waves of beauty; vibrant-coloured coral, clouds of neon fish, rippling turquoise light. There’s the rusting wreckage of a WWII American plane on the beach. Otherwise, the island is a serene tropical paradise.  

Western Highlands Province

We’re staying with our friend Chris in the village of Menj. He’s a plumber working as a volunteer in the highlands to bring clean water to remote villages. We drive with him all over the Wahgi Valley, stopping at aid posts, villages and mission stations to check on newly dug wells and meet with the locals. Chris is regarded as a deliverer of miracles and known to all as ‘Mr Waterman’. 

These fertile highlands are the most densely populated area of Papua New Guinea and no matter how high up into the mountains we climb, the villages and food gardens continue. Highlanders grow subsistence crops (sweet potato, yam, taro, sago, bananas) but also earn some cash income from coffee, betel nut and cocoa. The coffee trees are coming into bloom. Chris says that when it is wet, the flowers smell like lily-of-the-valley and evoke memories of his childhood in the Netherlands. 

On the way to work, Chris drops us off at the Mount Hagen Show, one of the largest cultural events in Papua New Guinea. It’s a showcase of traditional arts, crafts and dance from many of the country’s 600 tribes and 800 language groups. 

As we move among them, dancers oil their bodies and decorate themselves with extravagant bird of paradise feather headdresses and adornments made of shells, beads, feathers, fur and woven string. They paint their faces with traditional clays and ochres as well as synthetic materials like white-out (correction fluid). 

The Kunai and Huli tribes favour vivid yellow and fierce red battle colours. The Asaro Mudmen from the Eastern Highlands paint their skin pale grey before donning their ghoulish, clay spirit masks. The Bugamo tribe paint haunting white skeletons onto their black bodies to frighten ghosts.  

To the beating of Kundu drums, the performers make their way onto the arena. In a cloud of dust and a swirl of magnificent costumes, dozens of different tribes dance and chant. It’s an intoxicating whirlwind of colour and rhythmical sound and movement. A stunning celebration of tradition-rich cultures. 

Later on, it’s the turn of the string bands. Young musicians deck themselves with silver tinsel and black wrap-around plastic sunglasses in a statement of cool. They play their PVC pipe instruments with found objects like rubber thongs. The crowd is as wild for them as it is for the traditional performers.

We leave the Western Highlands feeling euphoric. The Mount Hagen Show is a heady, immersive spectacle that everyone should experience at least once in their lives. 

East Sepik Province: The Upper Sepik

The Sepik River (or the Sepik Highway as it is known locally) is Papua New Guinea’s longest, free-flowing river. It rises in the northern mountains and snakes its way for 1,120 kilometres, down through tropical cloud forests and lowland mangroves to the sea. It sustains a remarkable diversity of cultures and communities and is home to some of Papua New Guinea’s rarest plants and animals. 

We’re hoping to explore parts of the Upper and Middle Sepik. But our fax communication with Alois Mateos, the tour operator recommended to us, has recently petered out. The only firm arrangement we have is to meet him in Ambunti, hundreds of kilometres upstream from the mouth of the river.

As the warm, southeast trade winds blow, we travel in the back of a pick-up truck from Weewak on the northern coast, across the Prince Alexander Mountains and on to where the road ends at Pagwi. From here, we take a motorised dugout canoe to Ambunti where we’re the only guests in the only lodge in town. 

We spend a day in limbo. There’s no word from Alois. As no one else seems perturbed, we try to relax into the situation. The next day, Alois appears with a team of six men and two dugout canoes. We are taken aback by the size of our `expedition’ until we understand that two of the men are needed to return the canoes to Ambunti and the other four represent the clans whose land we will pass through. We settle on an itinerary; a couple of days on the Upper Sepik, a three-day walk across the Hunstein Rainforest to the village of Wagu, and then downstream to Chambri Lakes on the Middle Sepik. 

Sunday on the Sepik. First the beating of drums, then church bells ringing out. Most Papua New Guineans identify as Christian but combine their faith with traditional animist beliefs. The river and the rainforest are still imbued with the presence of ancestors, non-human spirits, shapeshifters and ritual magic. 

We travel by dugout canoe up the Sepik, following its wide majestic folds, past lagoons and into the blackwater of one of its tributaries. Herons, cormorants and egrets dip in and out of the river. Our guides insist we remain seated as they push the canoe through shallow water and across logs and floating islands. There are varying opinions on which of the narrow channels flowing into the tributary we should proceed along. We venture further upstream until a small landing comes into view. We disembark and step into the unknown.

The Hunstein Ranges are covered with tropical rainforests. We walk deep into the dense steamy greenness with its tangle of creepers, palm fronds and vines. There are oaks, beeches, red cedar, kauri pines and fragrant agarwood, used in the manufacture of incense and perfume. We cross rivers and wade through streams, trying not to think of what might be lurking unseen in the mud. The humidity is intense. Our guides use their machetes to clear paths where none appear to exist and to scrap leeches off our legs. They teach us about the forest; how to identify and use the medicine plants, the value of the spice trees, where to find the fibre suitable for weaving. 

There are clouds of iridescent blue butterflies and a cacophony of birds; parrots, hornbills and palm cockatoos with their black bodies, red cheeks and magnificent crests. 

Our journey takes us through different clan lands, from cassowary country to hornbill country and on to eagle country. Ninety-seven per cent of the land in Papua New Guinea is under customary title; clans own the traditional lands they occupy. In the evenings we set up camp and eat separately from our guides. They eat what they have hunted, usually turtle or cuscus. We eat the same thing every night; tin fish and rice. We come together once it’s dark, to share stories.

The talk is often about logging. Multinational companies are greedy for the riches to be had in this pristine forest but the traditional owners are wary. They want cash to buy outboard motors and to send their children to high school but if the Hunstein is destroyed, they know their culture will die. 

They are curious about Australia. We tell of snow on the high plains and vast expanses of red sandy desert. They ask about the rights and customs of the traditional owners. They also tell stories about the Second World War; their fathers’ pride in fighting alongside Australian soldiers, the close affinity they feel with Australia. We are moved to hear that they recently donated money to help people affected by the devastating NSW bushfires.

Mount Hunstein is smoky blue in the distance as we drift into Wagu village. The next morning at dawn, we paddle across the lagoon and climb into the cloud forest to watch the courtship ritual of the bird of paradise. A male with an iridescent blue chest spreads out his black feathered cape and dances around a female until she is enthralled. The strutting and shimmery blur of feathers are a sight to behold.

East Sepik Province: The Middle Sepik

We navigate a complex of river meanders, oxbows, marshes and woodland swamps to arrive at Chambri Lakes on the Middle Sepik, the art capital of Papua New Guinea.

The different tribes that live along the Middle Sepik produce distinct artefacts and art styles. We visit the village of Aibom, renowned for its clay pottery that is traded across the Sepik. And Kamanimbit, home to the Havalan clan known for their exquisite wood carvings and artefacts. Along the way we pass men fishing from dugout canoes, children swimming in the mud-brown water and women processing sago on the river bank. 

As we canoe downstream, villages and haus tambarans (spirit houses) come into view. The Middle Sepik is famous for these tall, traditional ancestral worship houses that tower over the village. Their decorated facades often feature a carved female figure with legs spread, a symbol of rebirth. There is a row of sacred stones (bloodstones) out the front of one of the spirit houses we visit. Warriors severed the skulls of slain enemies on these stones and buried them under the haus foundations. 

Inside, the spirit house is mystical with sacred carvings, masks, painted bark panels and drums formed from hollowed-out tree trunks carved into the shape of totem animals. It is a place of initiations and religious ceremonies, accompanied by the music of bamboo flutes and the rhythmic beating of drums. 

Palembei, a village of palm-thatched huts, has one of the Sepik’s best-preserved haus tambaran. The Yatmul tribe who live here are economically, culturally and spiritually tied to the crocodiles of the river. During initiation, the upper torsos of boys are scarified so that their skin resembles the scales of a crocodile, their ancestral being.

Local villagers along the Sepik rely on the river for food, water, transport and culture. It’s bound up with their identity, stories and belief systems; the river and the people are as one.

Postscript

We have travelled widely since that first overseas journey together but Papua New Guinea lives on in our memory as an extraordinary adventure. Becoming hypnotised by the beating of drums and ritual performances at the Mt Hagen Show. Entering a haus tambaran and seeing a spirit world emerge out of the gloam. Moving with the sinuous, serpent-like flow of the Sepik. Visiting isolated villages where artists and craftspeople produce complex and beautiful work. Walking for days through the deep green rainforest, fecund with a thousand flowering plants and brimming with sound. Strangers looking out for us because, for a brief time in history, we were kin. 

Papua New Guinea, August/September 1994

Postcards from the Lost World are from places we roamed before borders closed and overseas travel was restricted. As we sit out the long interlude between journeys, we reimagine past wanderings and dream of a time before this time began.

Other postcards from the lost world: Istanbul, Gotland, Achill Island, Jodhpur and Cinque Terre