Paradise: the in-flight magazine of Air Niugini, July/August 2016

Paradise The in-flight magazine of Air NiuginI volume 4 July – august 2016

IN THE LAND OF VOLCANOES Lunar landscapes, war relics and secret caves in Rabaul

PIRATE TREASURE

SINGAPOREAN CLASSIC

CITY GUIDE

The legend of hidden riches in the PNG islands

A peek inside romantic Raffles Hotel

Everything you need to know about Yangon

PLUS: PNG CULTURE , BOOKS, MOVIES, GADGETS

in paradise contentS AIRLINE NEWS THE LATEST FROM AIR NIUGINI

A message from Air Niugini’s chairman New boss for Link PNG Milne Bay trekking packages Air Niugini's big birds take a holiday How to buy air tickets without cash or credit card Air Niugini engineers pass new test with flying colours

8 10 10 10 11 12

DEPARTURE LOUNGE NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Q&A: World War 2 wreck diver Rodney Pearce Submarine tours on radar for PNG The Stanley hotel opens in Port Moresby

14 15 17 18 20

A T-shirt that does all the talking How to find a village hut for yourself

PNG in world supermodel spotlight

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TRAVELLER OUR COUNTRY, OUR REGION, OUR WORLD

In the land of volcanoes Lunar landscapes, war relics and secret caves in Rabaul

22

Good vibrations A family trek to Indonesia’s big volcano, Krakatoa Aussie escape The quiet life at Queensland’s Fitzroy Island

34 38

City guide Everything you need to know about Yangon

44

4 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Singaporean classic Colonial comfort at Raffles Hotel

Out There A Highlands lodge in Huli country

56

Review Port Moresby’s Grand Papua Hotel

58

Three of a kind Nightlife in Port Moresby, Brisbane and Bali

52

Time Traveller

60 62

in paradise

contentS

LIVING

STRICTLY BUSINESS

LIFESTYLE, CULTURE, SPORT, ENTERTAINMENT

PEOPLE, COMPANIES, INDUSTRIES

Port Moresby on a plate Harbourside development to serve up six new restaurants Spotted in … Greece The PNG-born humanitarian worker helping refugees Pacific exhibition A rare collection of artefacts and works on show in Australia

64

116

Gas Total commitment to LNG project

118

Human resources 12 things to know about employing expats in PNG

124

In our quiz, can you recite the opening line of the PNG national anthem?

Solutions

80

Pirate treasure The legend of hidden riches in the islands

84

Book previews

Banking Top banker’s plan to fix foreign exchange crisis

QUIZ, PUZZLES, CROSSWORD

The UN ‘ambassador’ The nine-year-old Papua New Guinean taking on the world

Gadgets and travel accessories

112

BRAIN GYM

72 76

Ear gear Wrap yourself in these latest headphones

Manufacturing Industry responds to tougher times

ARRIVALS LOUNGE PNG VISITOR GUIDE

Advice, where to eat, hotels

96 98 100

Tok Pisin words and phrases Updated street map of Port Moresby

102

Movie previews

126 128

Street map of Lae AIR NIUGINI PASSENGER INFORMATION

130 136 137 138 140

MADE IN PNG SPECIAL FEATURE

Original and local From beer, to chocolate and handicrafts, PNG is making a wide array of world-class products

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Cover photo: Mount Tavurvur at Rabaul, photographed by DAVID KIRKLAND. See our story, starting on page 22.

July – August 2016

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Paradise

Paradise is the complimentary in-flight magazine of Air Niugini, Papua New Guinea’s international airline.

Business Advantage International publishes it six times a year.

BUSINESS ADVANTAGE INTERNATIONAL

EDITORIAL

PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Andrew Wilkins

EDITOR Robert Upe

COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Robert Hamilton-Jones

STAFF WRITERS Kevin McQuillan, David James

ADVERTISING ACCOUNT MANAGER Anthony Leydin +61 (0)415 586 027 al@businessadvantageinternational.com

CONTRIBUTORS Richard Andrews, John Brooksbank, Greg Clarke, Tim Coronel, Sally Hammond, Susan Gough Henly, Nina Karnikowski, Chips Mackellar, Dorian Mode, Sarah Nicholson, Mary O’Brien, Scott Roberts, Penny Watson.

Business Advantage International Pty Ltd Level 23, HWT Tower 40 City Road, Southgate VIC 3006, Australia Tel +61 3 9674 7129 Fax +61 3 9674 0400 www.businessadvantageinternational.com

CORRESPONDENCE TO THE AIRLINE The Chief Executive Officer Air Niugini PO Box 7186, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea Tel +675 327 3458 Fax +675 327 3550

6 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

EDITORIAL CONSULTANT Eva Arni, Air Niugini DESIGN Michael Whitehead, Alicia Freile Editorial inquiries Tel +61 3 9674 7129 paradise@businessadvantageinternational.com Paradise online www.airniuginiparadise.com

Printed in Australia. Both printer and paper manufacturer for this publication are accredited to ISO14001, the internationally recognised standard for environmental management. This publication is printed using vegetable inks and the stock is elemental chlorine free and manufactured using sustainable forestry practices.

Some of the articles in this publication are edited versions of those first published on the online PNG business magazine, businessadvantagepng.com.

Unsolicited manuscripts, artwork, transparencies and photographs are submitted at the sender’s risk. While all care will be taken, neither the publishers nor the airline will accept responsibility for accidental loss or damage. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Statements, opinions and points of view expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher, editor, or the airline.

Information contained in this publication may be correct only at the time it was originally obtained by the writers and may be subject to change at any time and without notice. © Copyright. 2016. All rights reserved.

Welcome aboard

A

ir Niugini was recently named best state-owned enterprise employer for 2015, by the PNG Human Resource Institute.

Given the enormous challenges the management team, and all employees, of Air Niugini have faced in recent times, and especially throughout 2015, this award is a significant achievement.

As I have commented in earlier editions of Paradise, Air Niugini has had to undertake a major restructuring of salaries and conditions for all its employees.

There has been a reduction in overall employee numbers, achieved almost entirely through redundancies and voluntary retirement.

Not only has Air Niugini been acknowledged as the best SOE employer during this difficult period, the airline has also avoided industrial action. In this regard, we applaud our HR general manager, Rei Logona, for being awarded the best individual human resources practitioner of the year.

The board of Air Niugini joins with me in congratulating our management team, headed by our chief executive officer Simon Foo, and all our 2237 employees who share in this award.

We also acknowledge the co-operation we have received from the unions and associations representing our employees during the negotiations on revised awards and conditions.

This recognition has reminded me of the contribution Air Niugini makes towards the training and skilling of our employees, our flight crew and maintenance engineers in particular.

Since the cadet pilot training scheme was re-introduced in 1988, over 80 Papua New Guineans have progressed to be fully qualified pilots of our aircraft fleet right through from Dash 8 to Boeing 767 airplanes. So far, five female pilots have graduated under this program, and the recruitment of more females to be trained as pilots is receiving priority.

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In August this year, a milestone will be achieved when the first group of Air Niugini aircraft maintenance engineer cadets will complete four years training with the Air New Zealand Aviation Institute under a 10-year agreement Air Niugini entered into in 2012.

There are 38 cadets undergoing training under this program, which over the 10-year period, will cost Air Niugini close to PGK20 million.

It represents a very important investment in the training of national employees in a key area for the airline – aircraft maintenance.

Air Niugini also undertakes extensive training and career development programs for employees across the airline’s operations.

Our overall commitment to the career and professional development of our employees is today stronger and more effective than it has ever been.

As the national carrier, Air Niugini operates every day and night of the year and that means many of our employees have to give up being with their families on holidays and weekends.

The loyalty and dedication of our employees not only ensure the continued operation of the services Air Niugini and Link PNG offer, but has also enabled us to achieve on-time departures and arrivals at the highest level in our 42-year history.

Recently we revitalised our service ambitions under an extensive customer care program to improve our delivery of service to you, our valued customers. To that end, I thank all the employees of Air Niugini, no matter what their position in the airline, for helping the board and management achieve a smooth restructuring of our operations that will secure the airline’s future.

Enjoy your flight.

Sir Frederick Reiher, KCMG, KBE Chairman, Air Niugini Limited

Airline news The latest from Air Niugini

New boss for Link PNG

Taking the plunge … expect to get your feet wet on Air Niugini’s Milne Bay expeditions later this year.

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Milne Bay expeditions

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ir Niugini has packaged a series of group walking, kayaking and standup paddle boarding expeditions in the Milne Bay area during October, November and December.

The five-night trips include accommodation at Ulumani Treetops Rainforest Lodge, which has balcony views over Milne Bay. Expeditioners on the November 12 departure will also be able to attend the

spectacularKenu and Kundu Festival in Alotau.

The trips start at PGK7608 twin share per person (minimum of 10), and include return airfares from Port Moresby to Gurney (Alotau), airport transfers, a guide and trek leader, two-person tents, and meals. Tours of Samarai and Kwato islands are also included.

Contact Air Niugini Tours on 1802121 / 327 3557. n

ir Niugini has appointed Bruce Alabaster (pictured) as the new general manager of its subsidiary company, Link PNG. The chairman of Air Niugini and Link PNG, Sir Frederick Reiher, says the board and management are confident Alabaster will take the airline forward in its second year of operation.

Alabaster has taken over from Captain Daniel Wanma.

He vacated the job with commendation by the Link PNG board for his contribution in setting up the company on a sound footing and a profitable first-year result.

Wanma has been assigned to a similar role within the Air Niugini group.

Alabaster has previously been in management roles with Airlines PNG (now PNG Air), Jetconnect and Air New Zealand. He has also clocked 8000 hours as a pilot. n

Air Niugini wins best employer awards

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he PNG Human Resource Institute has named Air Niugini as the best stateowned enterprise employer for 2015.

The airline’s general manager of human resources, Rei Logona, also won the award as best individual HR practitioner for 2015.

Air Niugini chairman, Sir Frederick Reiher, says: “Air Niugini has worked very hard to maintain good relations with all its 2000 employees, and I appreciate the acknowledgement by the PNG Human Resource Institute by giving the airline the award.”

Big birds take a holiday

If you’ve noticed something different about Air Niugini’s two Boeing 767 aircraft in recent weeks, it’s because they have been replaced temporarily by a lease aircraft from Euroatlantic Airways.

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HR honours … (from left) airline CEO Simon Foo, chairman Sir Frederick Reiher and HR general manager Rei Logona.

Air Niugini’s big birds usually fly, including Brisbane and Singapore.

The aircraft are provided under a ‘wet lease’, whereby the pilots, engineers and senior cabin crew are provided by Euroatlantic, while the cabin crew are from Air Niugini.

Euroatlantic also provides wet lease aircraft to British Airways and Etihad.

Air Niugini’s aircraft are expected back in service around mid-July.

The lease aircraft has been brought in for two months while Air Niugini’s regular aircraft are overseas on scheduled maintenance.

Euroatlantic is a Portuguese airline and the lease aircraft is operating on the routes that

Air Niugini is doing improvement work in Lae, where the airport check-in counters are being upgraded and a lounge is being built for Executive Club members. The work is scheduled to be finished by September 1. n

Lae improvements

airline news

The latest from Air Niugini

Airfare payment through mobile phone

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ir Niugini has announced a partnership with Bank South Pacific (BSP) to allow BSP customers to purchase airline tickets through mobile banking. The new service will be offered to subscribers of bmobile, Digicel and Vodafone who are registered BSP mobile banking customers.

The new functionality on BSP’s mobile banking brings greater convenience to customers, who can now pay direct from their bank accounts using the short code *277#.

Air Niugini chief executive officer Simon Foo says the airline is continually striving to deliver the best service in providing greater accessibility, ease and convenience to customers.

“The BSP and Air Niugini partnership has been in place for over 40 years and

this exciting development is just one avenue by which we aim to provide greater accessibility and satisfaction to our customers.”

BSP general manager retail, Paul Thornton, says the partnership is a perfect fit for the bank’s commitment to delivering convenient and innovative banking solutions.

“We are committed to make banking more accessible to all, and with this partnership with bmobile, Vodafone and Digicel, we are able to reach right across the country to every BSP customer who is registered to our mobile banking product.”

Customers can sign up for BSP mobile banking to access the service by simply contacting the BSP Service Centre on 320 1212. n

July – August 2016

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airline news

The latest from Air Niugini

Air Niugini engineers qualify for new licences

T

wo Air Niugini aircraft engineers were among the first six engineers in the country to receive their aircraft maintenance engineer licences under revised civil aviation rules.

The two are Bronwen Kasito and Benedict Oraka.

Kasito, who is from the Sirumpa village in Henganofi, in the Eastern Highlands, received her electrical and instrument licences, specialising in Fokker 70 and F100 aircraft.

Oraka, Air Niugini’s executive manager in maintenance control, received his licence in power

Fully qualified … Air Niugini aircraft maintenance engineers Bronwen Kasito (second from left) and Benedict Oraka (far right), receive their certificates from CASA PNG managing director, Wilson Sagati, and Air Niugini board director, Leslie Hayward.

plant and aeroplane, specialising in Boeing 767, B737, Fokker 100/ F70 and the Dash 8-100/200/300 aircraft.

The revised civil aviation rules

(Part 66) are adopted from the New Zealand AME licencing system and ensure Papua New Guinea aircraft maintenance engineer licensing meets the

international Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) standards.

Air Niugini board director, Leslie Hayward, congratulated the engineers for their achievement.

He also commended PNG Civil Aviation & Safety Authority (CASA) for continuously increasing self-sufficiency and ensuring higher safety obligations.

CASA PNG managing director, Wilson Sagati, said the revised part 66 licence is fully compliant with ICAO and is recognisable worldwide, unlike the old AME licence, which was only recognised with PNG. n

Gathering of female leaders

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ne of Papua New Guinea’s pioneer female engineers, Emma Waiwai, was guest speaker at Air Niugini’s recent women in leadership and emerging leaders’ luncheon at the Gateway Hotel in Port Moresby.

“Be decisive, determine who the influencers are and work with them,’’ she told the 40 attendees. “Empower those in your team to make decisions

to impact and influence your spheres of influence.”

The event was the first organised by the airline to motivate and empower women in the workforce.

Waiwai worked in the aviation industry for 26 years, before starting her own communications and networking company and was chair of the 2015 Pacific Games Organising Committee. n

12 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

At the women’s lunch … (from left, seated) guest speaker Emma Waiwai, CEO Simon Foo, and the general manager of human resources Rei Logona.

Departure Lounge News, briefings, local knowledge

Paradise Q&A:

Rod Pearce

PICTURE: ROBERT UPE

This veteran diver is credited with finding some of the most significant World War 2 plane wrecks under the sea in Papua New Guinea.

Q: Which plane would you list as the most significant?

A: Blackjack, an American B17 bomber that is intact in 43 metres of water at Cape Vogel, Milne Bay. Blackjack was perhaps the most famous bomber in the south-west Pacific and went on many successful missions. It went down in 1943 after a bombing raid on

14 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Rabaul. It developed engine trouble and had to ditch. All 10 crew got out alive because the plane floated for a while before sinking to the bottom.

Q: Can you briefly tell the story of one of the more fascinating wrecks?

A: There is a Beaufort A9-217 that crashed at Kawa Island in 1943. All on board were

lost. I found this in 2000 and with the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) did a recovery of the MIAs (people missing in action). The plane had been part of a bombing mission on Rabaul with 12 other Beauforts. On the way back to their base they split up and it’s thought A9-217 was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

Q: Which military have you assisted in searches for their aircraft?

A: Australia Japan, and the US. Q: Are there more wrecks to find?

There are hundreds of aircraft war wrecks around PNG, then add those in the Solomon Islands and Indonesia and you have thousands.

Q: What are you currently searching for?

I am looking for Australian pilot Bill Newton’s Boston A28-3, lost at Salamaua, just south of Lae. He won the Victoria Cross for a series of daring attacks on the Japanese base at Salamaua, but ditched his burning plane after it was hit by ground fire. He was captured and later executed.

Q: Do you work alone or with a tried and tested crew?

A: I work in with people in the know and who have the knowledge to look for these aircraft, but I do all the research and planning.

Q: How long have you been diving in PNG? I first started diving in PNG in the late 50s, but really got into it after leaving school in the late 60s.

Q: Were you born and raised in PNG? A: I’m Australian by birth but grew up in Rabaul, where my father worked for the trading company Colyer Watson. We then moved to Lae in 1963.

Q: What are the hazards of your work?

A: I have been hit by the bends a number of times from deep diving and I have had to be re-compressed in Sydney after being flown out by medevac.

Q: Where are you based now?

A: I live on board my vessel, Barbarian, at Rabaul Yacht Club.

Q: Do you do charters?

A: Yes, it is available for charters for divers through the islands, but my main interest now is finding aircraft and searching for servicemen missing in action. n

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NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE with Robert Upe

What lies beneath ... entrepreneurial trio Tony, James and John Collins who want to start submarine tours (main); a poster for the Deepsea Challenge movie; James Cameron in the hot seat of a submersible that took him down to 10,908 metres.

Submarine tours on radar for PNG

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he world watched with fascination when Hollywood director James Cameron made his 2012 solo dive to 10,908 metres below the ocean into the Mariana Trench, near Guam.

Solo, Cameron piloted Deepsea Challenger to the deepest part of the ocean and chronicled the journey in a 3D movie.

Now, there are similar goings-on in Papua New Guinea. On July 26, a Chinese-led expedition, Rainbow Fish Ocean Technology Co, is due to test a new manned submersible vehicle in the New Britain Trench off PNG. The 9149-metre trench lies between PNG and the Solomon Islands.

If the test is successful, the Rainbow Fish will be taken to the Mariana Trench for a dive later this year, according to Cui Weicheng of Shanghai Ocean University.

In conjunction with the University of Aberdeen, the University of Hawaii and the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Rainbow Fish submersible will ultimately probe the world’s 26 oceanic trenches beneath 6500 metres.

A key part of the July tests is PNG’s Collins

Shipping. The company will ferry scientists and tourists in a parallel tourist operation, starting in Alotau and finishing in Lae. The tour will take in some of PNG’s tourist attractions such as the Dei Dei Hot Springs,

The tourists will take turns in the submersible, on a two-hour dive to 300 metres.

the Trobriand Islands and the remote Star Reefs. Along the way the tourist vessel will rendezvous with the Rainbow Fish vessel for dives to 300 metres.

Managing director James Collins says if the July expedition goes well, a new style of adventure tourism will open up for people wanting to examine what lies beneath.

The Collins brothers – Tony, John and James – have pedigree when it comes to business.

They grew up on a coffee plantation in

Mount Hagen, but have also operated dive charters and provided support vessels for the mining industry. They’ve also worked in tourism, conducting charters.

The tourists on the July trip will take turns doing a dive in the submersible, which will take the operator and two tourists under for two hours.

“We are planning on doing the dives at a World War 2 shipwreck in the Star Reefs,” James says. “The tourists will be able to follow the wreck from the surface down to 45 metres and then follow the reef down into the depths. It’s a once-in-a lifetime experience, and only available to celebrities or the superwealthy at the moment,” he says.

“Should that go well, we will upgrade our biggest ship, the Sepura, with cabins and ensuites for 28 people. We’re hoping we can run eight to 10, 12-night cruises a year.”

And if this proves successful, the plan is to team with Rainbow Fish and offer tourist dives to the deepest parts of the oceans.

Only three people have so far ventured to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. More people have stood on the moon. n — KEVIN McQUILLAN July – August 2016

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NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

PNG in supermodel spotlight

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apua New Guinea’s Donna Eve Tickell has been named runner-up in the ninth annual Miss World Supermodel Pageant in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

The 25-year-old model and fashion stylist stood out from 33 models from 24 countries in the international competition earlier this year.

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The pageant was created to discover up-and-coming talent. The Sydney-based World Supermodel Production Company also promotes the culture of each model’s country. The overall winner, Miss Teen Mongolia, received a 12-month contract with Trump Models. ‘‘I went over with an open mind and embraced the experience,” Tickell said

recently. “It was enough for me to go to South Africa, enjoy a safari and the whole sensational event.”

Tickell was born in Kimbe to an Australian father and a mother from PNG. Her mother, Shirley Tigat, is from the village of Vunakabi.

Tickell attended Vunapope International Primary School in Rabaul and was the dux of grade eight at the Vunadidir School before

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finishing her schooling at St Mary’s Catholic College in Cairns, Australia.

After working in retail and as a flight attendant for Jetstar for two years, Tickell was thinking of moving to Melbourne to study law but decided instead to pursue a career in fashion. She is now studying at the Australian Style Institute in Melbourne and working as a fashion stylist with the Australian label Zachary.

So how did she get involved in the Miss World Supermodel Pageant?

“Someone reached out and asked me to represent Papua New Guinea as a wild card and I accepted. I felt like I was doing my little part in giving back to my country by proudly representing them on a world stage.”

Her achievement is even more impressive given the fact that she hadn’t done much serious modelling before, besides the occasional photo shoot for local businesses as well as walking the Mercedes Benz fashion show in Cairns twice.

Tickell was particularly touched when Ropopo Plantation Resort

NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

in Rabaul became her sponsor, generously paying for her clothing for the pageant as well as flights and accommodation in South Africa.

“It was even more special because this is a company from my mother’s home in East New Britain.”

Tickell says the pageant has given her the courage and determination to take up modelling a little more seriously, so she is in the process of creating a professional portfolio. She’s also continuing to work as a stylist with the goal of building her own brand one day.

“I think pageants are a great way to learn and develop confidence. It’s a very competitive industry but my biggest advice is to be none other than yourself. You never know what the judges are looking for. There’s something in everyone that makes you different from the rest and makes you, you.

And that’s beautiful in itself.” n — SUSAN GOUGH HENLY

Beauty queens … PNG’s Donna Tickell in good company with other supermodels (opposite page, fourth from left) and in evening wear and swimsuit (this page).

Luxury hotel opens in Port Moresby

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ort Moresby’s newest hotel, The Stanley Hotel and Suites, has welcomed its first guests.

The luxurious property, on Sir John Guise Drive in Waigani, is about four kilometres from the airport and six kilometres from the main downtown area.

It has 429 rooms, including 95 long-stay apartments, a gym, a large pool area with bar and cafe, two restaurants, a lounge bar, an executive lounge with bar, and function space for 1000 people.

The general manager, Geoff Haigh, says the 18-storey hotel will open a day spa later in the year.

Owned by the Malaysian RH Group, the PGK400 million hotel is named after the Owen Stanley Range, which is visible from the property.

The Stanley is connected to the Vision City Mega Mall, with direct access to restaurants, cinemas and shops.

Room start at PGK650, plus GST. See thestanleypng.com. n

July – August 2016

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NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

T-shirt with universal appeal

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apua New Guinea is a country of more than 800 languages, so if you get stuck communicating, what better way to get your message across than with this clever T-shirt with 39 universal icons printed on it?

The symbols represent things such as food, hotels, hospitals, telephones, first aid and where to get a drink of water.

Just point to the symbol to get your message across.

The T-shirt is the invention of Swiss mates who were riding motorbikes through Vietnam in 2013 when one broke down.

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They needed help to get the bike fixed, but no one in the village could understand their English or French, so they ended up drawing icons on pieces of paper to be understood.

The icons worked and they continued to communicate this way for the remainder of their Vietnam trip, before returning home and transferring the nifty idea on to T-shirts and turning it into a business venture.

See iconspeak.world. n

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NEWS, BRIEFINGS, LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

Sydney’s ‘sweet’ hotel

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wissôtel Sydney could never be accused of flaunting itself. Once you locate the modest Market Street opening under the eaves of the Myer department store, opposite the State Theatre, you need to take the lifts to the eighth floor before finally entering the foyer and discovering all the sleek accoutrements of a city hotel.

While other Sydney hotels pride themselves on harbour views, Swissôtel offers other inducements. For instance, it could hardly be more central. Hyde Park, Sydney Opera House, and the Botanic Gardens are a stroll away in one direction; QVB, the Town Hall, Chinatown or Darling Harbour in another.

Its discreet entrance makes it a secure choice – so much so that one prime minister stayed in the hotel, for that very reason.

But beds and tables are often of more importance to potential guests, and the

management has realised this and acted, providing refurbished rooms by an Australian design firm but channelling Swiss principles of simplicity and immaculate attention to detail.

By using highly reflective surfaces, pops of vibrant colour, opulent wallpapers, textiles and bespoke contemporary furniture, rooms now match the image of a top harbour city hotel.

The artwork and decor of 14 sophisticated new Signature Skyline Rooms and Suites with views over the whole of the CBD and even further, reflect the mood of upmarket city apartments.

In the kitchen, executive chef Joshua Askew (youngest Swissôtel chef in this role worldwide) has brought fresh ideas and a sure eye for detail and innovation. Oyster leaves topped with lemon myrtle ‘caviar’ is his own take on fresh, local and indigenous food combining, and underlining his bold but restrained style.

In the afternoons, an aptly named Lavish High Tea, served on a stand or from the buffet, is something that more locals and visitors will soon get to know and make a special indulgence. Newly appointed head pastry chef Tracy Allesina is the creative spirit behind these dainties.

When you stay, please do take note of the honeycomb on the breakfast buffet. It comes from beehives on the rooftop – so you see this hotel really is a home, sweet home! n —SALLY HAMMOND ir Niugini flies from Port Moresby A to Sydney twice a week. See airniugini.com.pg.

New village huts site a boost for PNG tourism

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illage Huts, a PNG tourism operator, has launched a new website (villagehuts.com) that provides a reliable and secure way of booking accommodation and tours in the country for adventurers and backpackers.

About 95 per cent of homestays and guesthouses in PNG do not have their own

Grassroots accommodation … huts, homestays and guesthouses around PNG are featured on the revamped website, villagehuts.com.

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website, so this new site gathers many of them together.

Village Huts director Pamela Christie says: “There is a growing number of accommodation and activity providers catering to adventure tourists, yet they lack proper exposure. A platform like ours gives tourists access to the different service providers in the country.”

The new website is expected to boost tourism numbers, according to the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby.

The commission, teamed with the Market Development Facility (MDF), has backed the website initiative.

Commission spokesperson Jodie McAllister says the website will usher in “new avenues for tourists to access wonderful places and activities on offer in Papua New Guinea”.

MDF is a multi-country development program funded by the Australian Government. It has been operating in Fiji,

Timor-Leste and Pakistan for a few years, and last year expanded into Sri Lanka and PNG. MDF says it will create about 315 jobs and increase incomes for 8040 people in PNG between 2015 and 2017. To do this, MDF works with industries that have long-term growth prospects, including tourism and hospitality. n

NUMBER CRUNCH bird species live in Papua New Guinea, according to Birdlife International. Of this number, half are endemic, or unique to PNG. The largest birds are the flightless cassowaries. Only one bird, Beck’s petrel, is critically endangered, while another 35 are endangered or vulnerable.

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traveller our country, our region, our world

In the land of volcanoes

Rabaul has endured the rumblings of war, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Robert Upe reports on the town that has risen from the ashes to become one of PNG’s most intriguing tourist destinations.

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he Papua New Guinean sun is breaking through the early morning cloud and, underfoot, smoke is rising out of the ground. It is getting decidedly hot on Mount Tavurvur and already my supply of plastic-bottled water is uncomfortably low.

I’m only part way up the steaming active volcano, but in good company with guide Lawrence Esteves.

As an 11-year-old boy, Esteves remembers this mountain erupting in 1994 and wiping out his home in Rabaul.

“It was scary,” he says. “There had been earthquakes for a week before the explosion and the last one measured 8.2 (on the Richter scale).

“We evacuated from Rabaul at 3am on a Monday morning and we were in a long line of cars going into the mountains away from the volcano.

Then, at about quarter to seven, it went ‘boom’.

“Big smoke and ash went up into the air in the shape of a mushroom, just like an atomic bomb. Then, the mushroom spread out and the ash starting falling back down on to Rabaul.

“We had a good view of the volcano and could see rocks flying out and the lava flowing down. My mother was complaining that she had a headache from the impact of the explosion (reported at the time to be a sonic boom).”

The 1994 twin eruption – Mount Vulcan also went up – all but destroyed Rabaul, burying most of the town in ash and giving it the moniker of the ‘Pompeii of the Pacific’.

“After one week, it was covered in six metres of ash. It was like a desert … no trees, no buildings, nothing.

You couldn’t even find the road,” Esteves says.

Subsequently, provincial authorities and much of the population abandoned

22 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

the town and moved to Kokopo.

These days, the twin towns are among PNG’s most popular tourist destinations. Volcanoes, war relics, idyllic islands (in the nearby Duke of York archipelago), diving, dolphin watching and the famous annual Mask Festival are among the big drawcards.

Even giant cruise ships call here, anchoring in Rabaul’s Simpson Harbour, with thousands of passengers keen to take shore excursions.

Rabaul, as a town, has recovered to some extent, but its streets and buildings are less than endearing and far from their pre-1994 beauty.

Climbing up Mount Tavurvur on this day, I’m looking down on the town and the harbour where the Cunard line’s luxurious Queen Elizabeth has pulled in for a stopover.

The climb is exhausting and Esteves and I are the only ones on the mountain as the sun comes out.

OUR country

The approach to Mount Tavurvur is barren.

It’s a lunar landscape, perfect for filming of the next Martian movie.

PICTURES: DAVID KIRKLAND, ROBERT UPE

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Smoking hot ... Mount Tavarvur during one of its volatile moments (this page); Duke of York Islands children greet visitors with unbridled enthusiasm (opposite page).

July – August 2016 23

traveller In the land of volcanoes

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Bang, bang ... children playing at the Kokopo War Museum (this page); the old man who doubted we would make it to the top of Mount Tavurvur points to the mountain (right); vendors selling betel nut at the Kokopo market (far right).

A local man, collecting a modest fee of PGK5 for car parking near the base of the mountain, had earlier shaken his head at us, in a gesture suggesting we would not make it to the top because the day was going to be too hot.

And even Esteves had told me that many of the people he has guided stop half way because of the heat. I ask him to tell me when we’re half way.

It’s only a few hundred metres to the top but there are no trails or pathways. On every footstep loose

24 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

rocks slide and rattle down the mountain from under my boots.

The approach to Mount Tavurvur – before you reach the steep slopes – is barren. It’s a lunar landscape, perfect for filming of the next Martian movie.

It is dotted with craters, created by

traveller In the land of volcanoes

blackened rocks that have spewed out of the mountain and still lie where they crashed back to earth.

Mount Tavurvur’s last eruption of note was in 2014, but even accounting for that there are occasional green shoots sprouting from the ground.

OUR country

I’m beginning to think I’ll never make it to the top. My water supply and energy are dwindling and, alarmingly, Esteves hasn’t made the call yet that we are halfway up.

But then, suddenly, I’m on the lip of the crater. He has forgotten to point

out the halfway mark, or perhaps purposely hasn’t told me so that I would press on to the end.

Smoke rises out of the crater, but there is no sign of red-hot lava as you may expect. It’s silent, except for our laboured breathing.

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traveller In the land of volcanoes Reaching the top of Mount Tavurvur is just one of the rewards of touring in this region.

Going to the other extreme, we delve underground to see the caves where Japanese soldiers hid their armaments and men during World War 2.

The Japanese used prisoners of war as slave labour to create the elaborate network of caves in the soft volcanic rock around Rabaul. Some reports claim the caves stretch to 500 kilometres.

As well as secreting away men and equipment, the caves were used as hospitals for the soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army, which occupied Rabaul from 1942.

Esteves leads me to a series of caves on the property of an old man named Alois Matana.

OUR country

He is 80 now and would have been about six when World War 2 came to this part of PNG. Matana, through an interpreter, recalls the occupation as a brutal time, when the local people were stripped of their liberty, livestock and food supplies.

Getting to the caves, near his house in a coconut grove, is tough going.

The surrounding jungle is thick, steep and slippery.

But we see about eight caves and also visit a nearby waterfall, deep in a valley where hardly anyone goes.

This is great adventuring, with an enthusiastic posse of local men who cut a swathe through the jungle with their machetes and who smile at me with wide grins that show their

Lunar landscape ... the hilly and barren approach to Mount Tavurvur makes you feel like you're on another planet.

26 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

traveller In the land of volcanoes

OUR country

View from the lookout ... Rabaul, Simpson Harbour and Mount Tavurvur (the low mountain at rear).

reddened teeth from chewing betel nut.

There are easier caves to visit than those around Matana’s house.

On the road between Rabaul and Kokopo, one of the most accessible is a large tunnel that was used to hide Japanese barges. POWs had to haul them from the water at the end of each day, along 200 metres of railway track. Some of the rusting barges are still there.

The most famous of the caves is the command post of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. He had been instrumental in the attack on Pearl Harbour and then plotted to defeat the Americans and Australians from his subterranean headquarters.

Visitors today can see Yamamoto’s maps, defence plans and coordinates drawn on the bunker walls.

Yamamoto may have spent his last

28 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

night in the bunker before embarking on an ill-fated inspection tour of the South Pacific. His plane took off from Rabaul on April 18, 1943, and was shot down over Bougainville.

Across from the bunker is the New Guinea Club, built in the early 1900s.

It’s home to the Rabaul Historical Society, and has fascinating displays that cover colonialism, war and volcanoes.

traveller In the land of volcanoes

OUR country

WHAT TO SEE AND DO IN RABAUL/KOKOPO Most resorts and hotels arrange and conduct tours, among them the Rapopo Plantation Resort (rapopo.com), the Gazelle International Hotel (gazelleinternationalhotel.com), and the Rabaul Hotel (rabaulhotel. com.pg).

The Kokopo Beach Bungalow Resort (kbb.com.pg), where the author stayed, has an extensive tour program and is trailblazing new itineraries, including day trips to war caves not previously visited by

tourists, and the waterfall near the house of Alois Matana.

Other trips with Kokopo Beach Bungalow Resort include climbing Mount Turvurvur, diving, snorkelling, fishing, and a town tour that visits the local market and the Bita Paka War Cemetery.

Pre-breakfast boat trips to see spinner dolphins, often in their hundreds, are also available. The dolphins usually appear in the same location at the same time each day and put on a spectacular show as they corkscrew out of the water.

30 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Additionally, the resort has Duke of York Island boat trips that can include an overnight stay in a traditional house. Friendly villagers occupy the palm-fringed islands, and you can join in activities such as cooking fresh fish and shellfish over a fire, basket weaving and paddling a traditional canoe.

You’ll also be sure to get plenty of attention from the excited children.

The resort also opened its new dive centre in January.

Eating-out options are limited in Rabaul/Kokopo; most visitors stick to the restaurants at their hotels.

However, the Asian-themed Phoenix at the Rabaul Hotel is worth stepping out for.

One of the best times to visit the area is during the Mask Festival, starting this year on July 13.

The festival is a celebration of the region’s mask culture and includes night-time fire dances.

traveller In the land of volcanoes

OUR country

NEED TO KNOW

alow Resor t is on a hill STAY ING THERE The Kokopo Beach Bung oking Blanche overlo s room 39 the of above the sea, with some r deck over the beach, Bay and Mount Tavur vur. There’s a timbe . The restaurant /bar perfect for drinks or dinner under the stars thatched roof and with , house PNG ional tradit a of is in the style , including night a 60 PGK5 from s Room woven bamboo walls. continental break fast.

MORE INFORMATION See kbb.com.p

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Rabaul

Simpson Harbour

Duke of York Islands Mount Tavurvur Blanche Bay Kokopo

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New Britain On the verandah of the club, there’s a World War 2 machine gun, but more weaponry can be seen at the Kokopo War Museum, which has a treasuretrove of relics.

The collection includes tanks, pieces

of shot-down planes, naval guns and torpedoes that provide a glimpse of the tumultuous past of Rabaul.

Paradise visited with the assistance of Air Niugini Tours, phone 1802121 / 327 3557.

Port Moresby

A ir Niugini flies from Port Moresby to Kokopo daily. See airniugini.com.pg.

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Good vibrations Greg Clarke and family get up close to Krakatoa in Indonesia, perhaps the world’s most famous volcano.

Krakatoa first exploded in 1883. The affects of the eruption are said to have rocked ships in ports in South Africa.

34 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

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Sky show … Indonesia’s Anak Krakatoa bellows smoke over the waters of Sunda Strait.

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I

n a small boat between the islands of Java and Sumatra the spread of white smoke trailing from Krakatoa is thick enough to be at first mistaken for a low-hanging cloud.

As we cruise closer to the volcano it becomes easy to trace the prodigious amount of smoke to its legendary origins. We’ve plans to walk up Krakatoa, one of the world’s most renowned volcanoes, and though no one in our boat is a vulcanologist such skills, any skills really, aren’t necessary to construct this basic hypothesis: If a volcano is emitting a giant pillar of smoke is an eruption imminent?

Even at a distance of some three kilometres, the question is unnerving; far more threatening than I had anticipated. I’ve been told that while walking on Krakatoa the earth can become shoe-meltingly hot, and I hitherto thought my only concern on this day trip was the possibility of ruining a pair of reasonably new running shoes. Now I’m not sure there

aren’t infinitely hotter issues to ponder.

Fortunately, stowed in the boat also is an admiration for David Attenborough and his keen sense of wonderment. Krakatoa might be an active volcano but it has also been described as an evolutionary laboratory.

Naturalists, botanists and geographers have been drawn to it for 130 years to study the beginnings of life on Earth.

Krakatoa first exploded in 1883. About 34,000 people are reported to have died in the subsequent tsunamis. The affects of the eruption are said to have rocked ships in ports in South Africa. The eruption of Krakatoa was so infamously prodigious that the volcano blew itself into three separate islands. The three are part of a national reserve, a world heritage area.

We are to land first on what is known locally as Baby Krakatoa (or Anak Krakatoa), a far smaller version of the original.

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traveller Good vibrations

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NEED TO KNOW

a Beach cost the COST The boat trip to Krakatoa from Carit s available Boat 60.

PGK7 t abou – h rupia author 3.5 million for charter at the beach. bed and WHERE TO STAY Reza’s Cinde Wulung a night, including 00 PGK1 from s room le break fast has doub atoa. See Krak to break fast. The B&B will arrange trips lung. dewu m/cin ix.co cindewulung.w

Port Moresby

ja Krakatoa Carita Beach

The child of Krakatoa has grown from the submerged caldera of the original volcano (it emerged from the sea in the 1920s).

We had left our hotel at Carita Beach, on Java’s west coast, about a three-hour drive from Jakarta, at 7am. My wife, two young daughters and I waded from the sand to the six-metre outboard and cruised into a blissfully calm sea.

There are horror stories from people who have been terrorised by the Sunda Strait, but we have sea-borne comforts. The boat has twin motors and a roof to keep us dry should the sea cut up. Our life jackets appear new(ish).

As we close in on Krakatoa the sea remains calm yet distant clouds are dark. Rain lurks.

Claps of thunder, mood music presumably in these parts, ring out.

Light rain is falling as we step ashore onto the black sand of the island volcano. Just beyond the beach are Krakatoa’s only dwellings, a collection of modest national park huts. One of my daughters needs the bathroom. The toilet is out of order and a local man points to the slowly establishing forest. When we return he beckons us to a well, drops a bucket tied to a short length of rope down it.

He draws water that is warm, almost hot.

While my daughter gratefully washes her hands I wonder whether our runners might yet melt.

Leaving the small settlement we follow a path through a narrow copse of casuarina trees and soon the scree-like slope of the volcano is before us. The cloud of smoke is drifting to the west, away from us.

We follow a barely discernible trail. Without the obvious signs of anything living on the slope there is an immediate eeriness to the

36 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

0 landscape. There is also an air of the miraculous.

The slope is steep, our progress slow but not because of physical exertion. Krakatoa is only 800 metres high. While there are tropically beautiful views of the other nearby islands, not far from the path we follow are the remnants of a recent eruption. The trail of cooled lava is captivating.

We get close to where the lava has, while spilling down the slope, burnt some of the new growth forest to charcoal and spilled into the water. This magma trail may be from the last eruption in 2014.

Parts of Earth are an estimated 4.5 billion years old, yet around where we stand the soil is, by comparison, seconds old and brand new.

Sprigs of new plant life – randomly growing miracles – shoot bewilderingly from the igneous volcanic rock.

This infant world is mesmerising. While staring at a newly germinated plant and wondering just how it might become a tree and then a forest, I notice the soil is warm under my feet. It’s not sole-meltingly hot like we’ve been told, so we all take off our shoes, feel the heat under our bare feet, curl our toes into the new world.

Reza is the owner of the place where we are staying at Carita. He has come along with us as an unofficial guide. He tells us that due to the poisonous sulphur coming out of the volcano’s vent (its opening), we’re not allowed to walk any further than roughly half way up the volcano.

Reza is 33, thinks that when he was a kid, around 12, Krakatoa was half the size it now is.

“It gets bigger every month,” he says.

va

Jakarta

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Denpasar

On our return to the beach we meet Christian Schulze, a professor of biology at the University of Vienna, who is on the island with some of his students. He tells me the casuarina trees lining the black sand at the base of the volcano are known as pioneer trees. Typically, these are the first tree species to grow in a forest. Some 50 bird species including bats and swallows, also live here.

I really don’t want to leave the island but our schedule includes lunch on nearby Rakata Island. On the way to it we stop to snorkel. The coral and fish are as unexpectedly prolific as the new life on Krakatoa.

Rakata is lush, jungle like. Monitor lizards sniff out the lunch we have on a trim beach. They are warned off with staffs by the ship’s captain and his mate. Apart from our troupe and the lizards there appears to be no one else on the island.

We swim again after lunch then board the boat for the two-hour cruise back to Carita.

Soon, Krakatoa’s smoke – which I’m told only appears when it rains – merges with the clouds.

The sea remains calm. We will be back in the old world in no time.

A ir Niugini flies once a week from Port Moresby to Denpasar, where you can take a local connection to Jakarta. See airniugini.com.pg.

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Aussie escape PICTURES: PENNY WATSON & QUEENSLAND TOURISM

Penny Watson finds a deserted white-sand beach on a Queensland island, goes snorkelling over colourful coral and dines out on kangaroo carpaccio.

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y green, A4-size island information sheet is at pains to point out that Nudey Beach, where I’m headed on foot, is not a nudie beach or a nudist beach. “It was named after a captain with an unfortunate last name,” it reads. And more sternly: “Public nudity is illegal in Queensland”.

I’m happy about this. When I set out at the break of dawn, shorts and T-shirt on, running shoes laced, camera on shoulder, water in bag, it didn’t occur to me that I might be removing said gear any time soon. Evidently other visitors did.

Alas, I don’t have time to dwell on it. The tangle of tropical plants that have until now formed a moody canopy around me are clearing like clouds on a rainy day, and here I am in paradise, not a soul in sight. Bravo Captain Nudey!

38 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Located on the south-east side of Fitzroy Island, tiny Nudey Beach is considered one of the most beautiful in the Great Barrier Reef, and has starred in Tourism Queensland’s marketing as the quintessential tropical island. The white beach has been formed by waves crashing and crunching the reef coral over the years, and it is bookended by boulders, polished over time by wind, rain and waves, so that they look like fat grey seals resting in the water. Just being here feels like a big bucket-list tick.

The same can be said for Fitzroy Island as a whole. This unspoiled continental island, 29 kilometres south-east of Cairns in Australia’s Far North Queensland, is covered in lush rainforest and woodlands, and surrounded by mangroves and the snorkel-tastic inner reefs of the Great Barrier Reef marine park.

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On the rocks ... the boulders at the end of Nudey Beach (main photo); scenes from Fitzroy Island in Queensland, Australia.

The pristine rainforest-meets-reef environment is listed as a national park and much of it is protected. But there are four established hikes (one of them my 45-minute round-trip walk to Nudey Beach) and plenty of snorkelling and diving.

Visitors who make the 45-minute, fast-catamaran ride from Cairns can immerse themselves in a natural world of uniquely Australian fauna and flora.

On my morning walk, I set eyes on dozens of the island’s geckos and major skinks. The latter are big, shiny lizard-like creatures, and seeing the tail end of them disappearing under a rock brings snakes to mind. I don’t come across the local pythons, non-venomous though they are, but I’m continually enchanted by an array of butterflies, birds and insects.

Echidnas, bats and flying foxes call this place home too. And that’s just on land.

Technically, you can walk from the beach straight into the coral reef, but it’s worth heading a little further out to spot more diverse marine life. At the dive centre I sign up for a glass-bottom boat tour and hire a stinger suit, as much to avoid sunscreen as to avoid the jellyfish, found here from November to May. On the boat we float over huge cauliflowers of coral known as bombies, hosts to dozens of different coral species with visually suggestive names like staghorn, brain, spaghetti and elephant ear. They’re a sign that the reef is healthy, according to our guide, and are sacred to the local Kobaburra indigenous people. At Shark’s Fin Bay – named for the fin-shaped rock on the beach, not the inhabitants of the water – I step backwards overboard and immerse myself among flitting parrotfish, clownfish, moon wrasse and damselfish.

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A blue-spotted stingray shuffles out of the sand below me and jellyfish float by in a dream-like reverie.

Heading back to shore, we stop at white rock, so-called because a yearly flock of migrating Asian terns have bleached it with their poo. This is the spot to see the local turtles, “big ones, like in the Nemo movie”, says our guide.

“Turtles like deep areas to swim, then shallow areas to eat algae, so the reef is the ideal habitat”. We drift slowly, peering through the bottom of the boat, and then, up ahead, we spot the shell of a green sea turtle, bobbing on the water.

There’s another way to get up close to these magical creatures. Fitzroy Island is home to a Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, and an afternoon visit is essential. It’s a simple set-up, a shed with above-ground, circular swimming pools, but it’s practical for treating turtles that have had propellers run over them or ingested plastic bags. Sadly, these are common occurrences, but the turtles look well cared for. Our tour guide feeds them lettuce leaves and we are warned not to put our fingers over the edge. Turtles bite!

40 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

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traveller Aussie escape

Visitors who make the 45-minute, fastcatamaran ride from Cairns can immerse themselves in a natural world of uniquely Australian fauna and flora.

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Daytrips are popular, but the resort, on the sheltered western side of the island, makes an overnighter almost essential. Close your mind to the 80s décor in the selfcontained apartments and instead look through cockatoocrowded trees to the water. There’s also a pool, cinema and massage therapist on demand.

Sitting at Foxy’s Bar & Grill in the evening, the sun going down and a cool beer in hand, it feels strangely like an Asian beach destination.

Link to British PM The first white man to spot Fitzroy Island was Captain James Cook in 1770. He named it after Augustus Fitzroy, who was the British Prime Minister when Cook’s ship, the Endeavour, set sail.

It has had various incarnations over the years as a quarantine zone (after an outbreak of smallpox in Asia), a mission for indigenous Australians, a military base during World War 2 and a lighthouse station.

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traveller Aussie escape

That is, until dinner. The resort’s fine dining Zephyr restaurant serves up dishes with ingredients even the keenest Aussie foodie (me) hasn’t come across before, including kangaroo carpaccio with quandong (a wild peach) and eye fillet beef with muntrie berry (a native cranberry) jus.

It doesn’t get much more Australian than that.

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A ir Niugini flies between Port Moresby and Cairns daily.

See airniugini.com.pg.

PNG

NEED TO KNOW STAY Fitzroy Island Resort includes beac hfront cabins, a swim-up pool bar, and dive centre. Camping also available.

COST From PGK320 a night.

TO DO Hikes, kayaking, diving (including introductory pool dives), snorkelling, glass-bottom boat.

MORE INFORMATION fitzroyislandcair ns.com

Port Moresby

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australia Fitzroy Island Cairns

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City guide:

YANGON

PICTURES: SARAH NICHOLSON & SUPPLIED BY HOTELS

The largest city in Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a place where locals smile at visitors and mass tourism hasn’t made its mark.

Sarah Nicholson reports.

44 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

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yanmar became a no-go zone for travellers in 1996 when admired democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi asked tourists to turn their back on her homeland.

“Burma will be here for many years so tell your friends to visit us later, visiting now is tantamount to condoning the regime,” was her plea, and people

obliged by virtually black-listing the destination for almost two decades.

But as Myanmar moves towards democracy – The Lady’s party is now in power after 2015’s first ‘free and fair election’ outvoted the military junta – it’s becoming the destination de jour with everyone, from backpackers to five-star tourists descending on this agreeable country.

Grand designs … Yangon’s City Hall, built between 1926 and 1936, features many Myanmar architectural features, such as the tiered roof.

It is on the Yangon City Heritage List, a registry of historically significant buildings that are protected.

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traveller City guide: Yangon

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GETTING AROUND

The neat grid of streets stretching between the railway line and river form the core of colonial-era Yangon, with walking the best way to see this part of town and the narrow lanes lined by handsome buildings constructed when Britain ruled the land.

Taxis are the other alternative for getting around, but Yangon cabs don’t have meters, so negotiate the rate before starting a journey, keep small notes to pay for the ride, which won’t cost more than a few thousand kyat for a short journey, and have the destination address written in Burmese.

SIGHTS Visit Shwedagon Pagoda in the late afternoon when the setting sun throws the most glorious light over the cluster of golden stupas at the heart of this hilltop sanctuary and locals gather to pray at significant 'birth-day corners' before lighting long lines

46 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

of oil lamps once darkness settles.

Travellers keen to see more than downtown should ride the historic Yangon Circular Railway – 49 kilometres of tracks were set by the British in 1950 to serve the city’s commuters – with the round trip

on original rolling stock stopping at 39 suburban platforms after leaving Central Station.

Those keen to do the loop with a guide should sign up for Urban Adventures’ (urbanadventures. com) Let Yangon Take You For A Ride – with a local host pointing

traveller City guide: Yangon

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CULTURE VULTURE

out significant sights during the journey, leading detours on foot after disembarking in interesting districts, and finding places to snack during the seven-hour excursion.

Yangon is a little short on museums but there is a strong art scene, with the current trend seeing local painters, now free of the restrictions enforced by the former military rulers, banding together to show work in fascinating pop-up spaces around town.

There are also a few established addresses, with River Gallery II (rivergallerymyanmar.com) displaying colourful contemporary canvases in a former law office and Pansodan Gallery (pansodan. com) a place to spy the work of emerging talents.

CHILD’S PLAY

While Yangon is a great place to take children, there aren’t many activities or destination specifically suited to junior travellers.

An outing that will appeal to younger members of the group is a daytrip across the Rangoon River to Dala, the multicultural township opposite downtown Yangon, with the commuter ferries leaving the Pansodan Terminal on Strand Road and passing cargo ships waiting to dock on the dash across the waterway.

Once in Dala, negotiate with drivers of pedal-powered trishaws to lead a rolling tour on transport that has passengers sitting back-to-back beside the driver, and visit fishing villages where nets are fixed by hand and farms where youngsters tend herds of livestock.

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traveller City guide: Yangon

RETAIL THERAPY

Bogyoke Aung San Market – called Scott Market by the British when established in 1920 – is Yangon’s top shopping spot, with the crowded sheds and alleys supporting 1600 stalls selling everything from precious gems, original art and vibrant fabric to knock-off sunglasses, plastic sandals and souvenirs.

The tables lining the north side of Anawrahta Road – between the market entrance and Sule Pagoda Road intersection – display vintage treasures with sepia photos and rusting keys examples of the simple antiques on sale.

Pomelo (pomeloyangon.com) is a not-for-profit operation selling hand-made trinkets produced by disadvantaged communities, fledgling businesses and aspiring artists, with an emphasis on combining traditional methods of production and contemporary design.

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SPORTING LIFE

Incorporate a little activity with a lot of sightseeing by joining Yangon Walk’s (freeyangonwalks. com) free, late-afternoon stroll and hear stories stretching from colonial days to modern times from the local guides, who also point out notable architecture, local characters, and great places to eat.

If a sightseeing stroll isn’t strenuous enough, visit Kandawgyi Lake for an early morning jog on the boardwalk snaking around the southern and western sides, or arrive at dusk to savour a brisk walk when the water presents a perfect reflection of Shwedagon Pagoda.

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ESCAPE

Myanmar has a fleet of domestic airlines offering regular flights to regional destinations, so jet off to regal Bagan, with the aerial journey taking 60 minutes on Mann Yadanarpon Airlines, and stay at Areindmar Hotel (areindmarhotel. com) or Aureum Palace Hotel (aureumpalacehotel.com).

Bagan was Burma’s capital between the ninth and 13th centuries, and more than 220 monasteries, palaces and pagodas still dot the parched landscape flanking the Irrawaddy River with Shwezigon Pagoda, Htilominlo Temple, Ananda Temple, Dhammayangyi Temple and sunset at ‘Claypot Mountain’ not to be missed.

There’s also a neighbourhood market at Nyaung-U, workshops where craftspeople use traditional techniques to make lacquerware and stone carvings, Irrawaddy cruises and great dining on New Bagan’s Kayay Street.

PILLOW TALK

The Sule Shangri-La Yangon (shangri-la.com) is an ideal base for exploring, with the hotel enjoying a central location between Bogyoke Aung San Market and City Hall, while The Rose Garden (theroseyangon.com) is a new property perched on a peaceful corner of the park that’s home to the Yangon Zoological Garden.

Blow the accommodation budget at the Belmond Governor’s Residence (belmond.com), with the opulent address in the heart of Yangon’s Embassy Quarter occupying a colonial-era estate built in 1920 (pictured above left) to lodge the chief diplomat, or The Strand (hotelthestrand. com), which is due to re-open in November after renovations (pictured above).

traveller City guide: Yangon

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EATS

The settlement offers a swag of delicious mealtime options, from fine-dining fancy at Le Planteur (leplanteur.net) – there’s a restaurant and wine bar in the colonial compound, with dinner under the stars a delightful Yangon experience – to local favourites like 34th Street’s 999 Shan Noodle House, which cooks cuisine from Myanmar’s east.

The blocks of 19th Street, between Maha Bandula and Anawrahta roads, is the place for intrepid foodies to go when the sun sets, with visitors eating budget barbecue and drinking homemade beer alongside the locals at roadside stalls.

WATERING HOLES

Lovers of history should linger in the bar (pictured) at The Strand – the historic Yangon hotel that opened in 1901 – to enjoy a G&T with the spirits of Somerset Maugham, George Orwell and Rudyard Kipling, who frequented the posh address when knocking around colonial Burma.

50th Street Cafe & Bar (50thstreetyangon.com) is a favourite with expats, serving generous cocktails and bar meals while showing sport from around the world on giant televisions, while Anawrahta Road’s Bar Boon is the destination for real coffee.

YANGON SPECIAL

Afternoon tea is one British tradition still practised in quiet corners of Yangon, with Acacia Tea Salon (acaciateasalon.com) in a restored mansion in urban Bahan – the neighbourhood between Kandawgyi and Inya lakes – serving imported teas beside English finger sandwiches and French-style pastries.

TUCK IN

aesthetic celebrating Yangon’s rumpled style – and sample traditional cuisine prepared with modem flair.

Tea-leaf salad is a Burmese favourite made from pickled tea leaves that’s on the Rangoon Tea House menu; the pork boa is delicious, the curry sets worth ordering just to appreciate presentation, and coconut coolers are some of the city’s best beverages.

It’s impossible to recommend one dish in a city boasting some of Asia’s best street food, so settle in at Rangoon Tea House – this urbane cafe occupies the upper level of 37th Street abode with the

A ir Niugini flies from Port Moresby to Singapore five times a week.

Connect from Singapore to Yangon with local carriers. See airniugini. com.pg.

myanmar Yangon

yangon POPULATION: Six million CURRENCY: Myanmar kyat MMK4000 = PGK10 TAXI FARE FROM AIRPORT: To downtown area MMK10,000 INTERNATIONAL DIALLING CODE: +95

50 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

LANGUAGE: Burmese POWER: A universal plug is needed as Myanmar uses various power outlets.

PNG 0

Km 3000

Port Moresby

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Singaporean classic Raffles Hotel is immortalised by writers. Dorian Mode checks in and explores the hotel’s rich literary history and colourful colonial past.

52 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

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A

Somerset Maugham, the man who inspired me to become a writer. s we emerge from the air-conditioned carapace of the taxi I became obsessed with Maugham 30 years ago after reading a and into the wet heat of Singapore, Raffles, this grand old collection of his short stories, titled The Trembling of a Leaf (Little Stories lady of the Far East, stands like a giant wedding cake. of the South Seas Islands). These he wrote while travelling through We enter the hotel and a doorman in a turban greets us like long-lost relatives. the Far East in the 1920s, documenting the mores and manners of the We make our way to reception and the smell of British colonial ruling class. So, for me, Raffles is a tropical orchids tickles our nostrils. Exotic. But after spiritual place. checking in all I want to do is order a Singapore Maugham’s era of Raffles began with the grand Sling at the Long Bar or – like my wife – flop in opening of the largest ballroom in South-East Asia In my mind, the pool with hers. Singapore is incredibly hot. But in 1921 and closed with the formal surrender of the I see topee hats, the bedrooms are cool at Raffles, with their grand Japanese at City Hall in 1945. (During renovations ceilings, stately verandahs and bare floors. They steamer trunks and Raffles archivists unearthed numerous artefacts feel nothing like the Toyota homogeny of a Holiday from the Japanese occupation of the hotel.) But it’s pahit parties.

Inn but everything like a vintage Rolls Royce. this juniper-soaked epoch I see in my mind’s eye as But in reality I’m now sitting in the celebrated Long Bar at tourists puncture my colonial reverie with chatter Raffles in a white-linen suit, drinking a Singapore about everything from Donald Trump’s White House I see T-shirts, Sling (invented at Raffles) and exhausting my prospects to that paragon of aspirational modernity, baggy shorts repertoire of faraway looks. I periodically dab sweat the Kardashians. from my brow with a handkerchief in the manner of In my imagination I hear the strains of the Raffles and thongs.

Peter Lorre in the movie Casablanca. In my mind, I Dance Orchestra echoing around the ballroom’s see topee hats (pith helmets), steamer trunks and high opened walls as soldiers in white mess-coats pahit parties. But in reality I see T-shirts, baggy glide their partners elegantly across the polished shorts and thongs. And my leather-cornered steamer trunks, festooned dance floor; the ladies’ flowing gowns are made from Chinese silk, with P&O labels from exotic locales, have been superseded by soulless, purchased in Chinatown after some throaty haggling by a Singaporewheeled vertical nylon suitcases. born ladies maid. (Indeed, my wife ordered a skirt in Chinatown from a Before the war, Raffles was the haunt of Hemingway, Hesse, Conrad, tailor while we were there.)

Coward and Kipling. But Raffles is most associated with William Raffles luminaries were not restricted to scribes. Actor Douglas

July – August 2016

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traveller Singaporean classic

our region

PICTURES: LYDIA THORPE & SUPPLIED BY RAFFLES

Inside Raffles ... (from left) the Long Bar where many Singapore Slings have been consumed; the doorman with turban; one of the suites; the grand lobby area filled with orchids and other plants.

Raffles stands for all the fables of the exotic East. – Somerset Maugham

Fairbanks hurdled every dining table in the ballroom between courses to win a bet, while silent screen legend Charlie Chaplin was often seen smoking between the twitching palms in the famous Palm Court.

While boasting the ‘coolest ballroom in the East’, dancing in the tropics was a sweaty affair. So guests flopped in rattan chairs to cool down

NEED TO KNOW

PGK2000 a night for STAY Rooms at Raffles start from about have a smoking, or can You fast. break ing includ two people, not . non-smoking room French, Indian and EAT There are five restaurants, including . alfresco Italian is about PGK58 TAXI Getting to Raffles from the airport . traffic good in es) (20 minut to March.

BEST TIME TO GO Cooler from November pore/ MORE INFORMATION raffles.com /singa

54 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

with a whiskey, or a cocktail, or the aforementioned Singapore Sling, all served by Chinese waiters in crisp white uniforms. At midnight guests sang ‘God Save The King’ with a tear at the corner of the eye.

Pre-war Raffles was a cashless society. Of the famous chit system one Raffles guest wrote, “many a man would have pulled out of town ages ago had it not been for his chits. At the end of the month he finds he has an enormous bill. By the time he collects enough money to pay it he has also had time to sign more chits, and so it goes on year after year.”

Raffles was founded in 1887 by the Sarkies: four Armenian brothers.

They named Raffles after British colonial administrator, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, who founded Singapore 60 years previously.

Built for the East India Company on a swampy harbour on the tip of the Malay Peninsula, it’s now arguably the busiest port in the world.

The Sarkies added two wings to their original hotel and, in 1899, opened the famous Palm Court wing. In 1905 electric lights and a generator were installed and Raffles boasted ‘800 16-candle-power incandescent lights in addition to five arc lights of 2000 candles each and electric fans’. Moreover, a London newspaper referred to Raffles as ‘The Savoy of Singapore’, although the Savoy of London never offered guests a darkroom, a government post office, a slaughterhouse and its own rubber-tyred rickshaws.

While things have changed in 100 years, staying at Raffles is still special. Do read Maugham while staying there. It’s as compulsory as a Singapore Sling.

A ir Niugini flies from Port Moresby to Singapore five times a week. See airniugini.com.pg.

traveller Singaporean classic

our region

Singapore Sling Ingredients 30 to 35 ml gin, such as Tanqueray 15 ml Cherry Heering 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine 7.5 ml Cointreau or triple sec 120 ml unsweetened pineapple juice, such as Trader Joe’s 15 to 18 ml fresh lime juice 5 to 10 ml grenadine (use less if you don’t like it sweet) A forceful dash of Angostura Bitters Ice cubes Pineapple and maraschino cherry (optional, for garnish) Method Pour ingredients, from the gin down to the grenadine, into a cocktail shaker. Add the bitters. Drop in enough ice cubes to fill about 2/3 of the shaker. Cover and shake hard and fast, until the container feels cold, about 30 seconds.

Fill a tall glass with ice, then strain the cocktail over the ice. If you want, garnish with the pineapple and cherry.

Drink up.

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our COUNTRY

UA LODGE B AM

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urrounded by jungle in the Tari Valley, Ambua Lodge is in the heart of Huli Wigmen country in the mountainous interior of PNG’s Hela Province.

The Huli, PNG’s largest indigenous group, are famously known for painting their faces yellow, red and white, and for wearing elaborate wigs.

If you’re a guest at Ambua Lodge, chances are that you’re there to get up close with the Huli, as well as for some of the best bird watching in the country.

The lodge arranges excursions to nearby Huli villages, where visitors can observe everyday life, are entertained at a sing-sing, and see how the Huli decorate themselves and grow their hair to make their wigs.

Guided bird-watching tours, by vehicle and foot, are also on the agenda.

The bird of paradise is among more than 200 bird species identified in this area. The walking tours include some trails with traditional vine bridges over crystal-clear streams, and secluded waterfalls.

Ambua Lodge accommodation is in 32 round houses set in landscaped gardens. These en suite rooms resemble native huts, with the feeling of traditional authenticity enhanced with the use of local materials such as bamboo and kunai grass. Since being built in 1985, they have been refurbished. There’s also a two-storey building with 18 hotel-style rooms with en-suites and verandahs.

The main lodge area has a sunken lounge with

56 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

a wood stove (at 2000 metres it can be cool in the mornings and evenings) and a TV for watching documentaries about PNG. There’s also a bar and dining area.

PICTURE: DAVID KIRKLAND

HEL

The chefs utilise local fruits and vegetables such as pineapple, papaya, passionfruit, sweet potato, pit-pit shoots, choko, carrots, cauliflower and watercress.

The watercress soup, with ginger and coconut cream, is a house favourite, or you’ll find the likes of barramundi on the menu, done with steamed pit-pit shoots and hollandaise sauce with rice pilaf.

Ambua (meaning ‘yellow clay’ in the Huli language) is one of a collection of

wilderness lodges owned and managed by Trans Niugini Tours.

Guests usually visit several lodges, packaged together in itineraries that include day tours.

The 10-day ‘New Guinea Village Experience’, for example, includes Ambua Lodge, Rondon Lodge and Karawari Lodge. The cost for this tour is $US5691 a person, twin share, for accommodation, meals, transfers, tours and local guides. Flights are extra.

If you want to visit Ambua Lodge only, the cost for meals and accommodation is $US378 a night. Tours, transfers and flights are extra.

One of the easiest ways to get to Ambua Lodge is the direct Air Niugini flight from Port Moresby to nearby Tari.

Trans Niugini Tours also provides air services to its lodges from Mount Hagen.

Mount Hagen Ambua Lodge Tari

Port Moresby

PNG

0 100 Km

For more information see pngtours.com, or contact service@pngtours.com.

– ROBERT UPE

traveller

OUR COUNTRY

REVIEW: GRAND PAPUA HOTEL, PORT MORESBY grandpapuahotel.com.pg +675 304 0000 WHO STAYS? Business people HOW BIG? 161 keys COST From PGK650 for a standard room (corporate rate) CHECK OUT TIME 11am HIGHLIGHTS L ocated in the centre of Port Moresby CBD Great views S pa and beauty treatment NEARBY Check out the new Harbourside development (see our story on page 64); the National Museum and Art Gallery is a short taxi ride away in Waigani.

Wi-Fi in all areas Fee for Wi-Fi

Gym Room service

TV

Swimming pool

Air conditioning in room

Airport transfers

Ceiling fan in room

Hotel arranges tours

Business centre

Breakfast included

58 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

LOCATION

The deluxe Grand Papua Hotel, built in 2011, sits on a ridge at the top of Port Moresby’s business district where guests are treated to good views of the sea.

The owner, the Steamships Trading Company, has bestowed the superlative moniker of ‘grand’ on the hotel to distinguish it from previous incarnations of the Papua hotel that have existed in almost the same location during the past 100 years.

Most people see the hotel from Hunter Street, its rear entrance; but the main entrance porte cochere is accessed from the narrow Mary Street.

THE PLACE

General manager Alex Wilson says: “We are a boutique, top-end hotel with 161 luxury rooms and suites with an overall stylistic theme of colonial meets contemporary PNG. We have all the facilities that government or private-sector executives require.”

The previous two hotels of the same name also strived to be the most luxurious in the country at the time. Black-and-white photos of the original Papua Hotel can be seen in the hallways of the current hotel.

The original, built in 1909, boasted ‘modern novelties’ such as electric lighting and

refrigeration, along with good stabling for horses.

It was demolished in 1941 and replaced by a new building in the same year, on the adjacent block on the corner of Musgrave and Douglas streets. It was immediately commandeered until 1947 by the Australian Army as headquarters for the Eighth Military District. General Douglas McArthur was one of the first ‘guests’.

traveller

OUR COUNTRY

The Grand Papua ... the hotel as it is today (far left); the luxurious Grand Bar (left); the hotel in 1942 (right).

The second hotel had 44 rooms and a dining room, seating 120. Queen Elizabeth dined there.

The hotel was the height of colonial pampering, advertised as 'an oasis of luxury in the ramshackle wastes of New Guinea'. Until the 1960s, the waiters were bare-chested Hanuabadan villagers in starched white ramis.

The hotel burnt down in 1991 and the site is still undeveloped, with the Grand Papua on an adjacent block.

IN THE ROOMS

While not huge, the rooms are well appointed with flat-screen TVs, fridges, lounge chairs, coffee and tea-making facilities, safes and ironing boards. The hotel has four one-bedroom apartments on each floor, for longer-stay guests. The apartments all have large balconies.

On the top 15th-floor there is a gymnasium with views and an executive lounge for afternoon drinks or private meetings. On the lower floors, there is a spa, a number of function rooms and three levels of parking.

FOOD AND DRINK

Food in the main dining room is excellent, whether you choose the buffet or a la carte. The hotel has regular changes of themes, including Asian and Mediterranean nights. Starters are PGK17–35, mains PGK30–75, and burgers and pizzas from about PGK30 each.

There are Saturday cooking master classes with executive chef Kupsami Gounder. The classes include complimentary canapes and champagne on arrival.

The executive lounge also hosts ‘High Societea’ gatherings for long lunches, as well as ‘Wine meets Food’ sessions with expert sommeliers The Grand Bar truly is that, with comfortable furniture, knowledgeable staff and enough flat screen TVs to cover all sports. Happy hour is 5–6pm and 9–10pm daily, with specialities being Heineken buckets for PGK60 and Mojito cocktail specials for PGK20.

For those who just need a snack to keep them going, there is a cafe on the basement-four level (importantly this is where the ATM is as well), which also provides an exit on to Hunter Street.

– JOHN BROOKSBANK

WHAT GUESTS LIKE “The executive centre and 15th-floor gym are excellent."

– Tripadvisor “Great for business meetings. In the heart of PNG, easy to get around. Convenient, affordable, nice pool and relaxing atmosphere.”

– Tripadvisor “Rooms are well built and nicely decorated.

The customer service when checking in was very fast and efficient. Basically everything you want from a business hotel.”

– Tripadvisor

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BY TIM CORONEL

Three of a kind … a good night out

GOLD CLUB, LAMANA HOTEL, PORT MORESBY

THE ROCK BAR, AYANA RESORT, BALI

Some visitors may think there isn’t much to do after dark in Port Moresby, but those in the know have long been heading to the Lamana Hotel’s Gold Club. It’s well established and it is considered a safe venue for locals, expats and visitors to meet and mingle.

Bali’s famous rock bar is actually on a rock, at the base of a cliff, jutting out into the ocean.

The DJ booth is in a cave cut into the cliff face.

There’s even a gondola ride down the cliff to get there. It’s the perfect spot to watch the sun set over a cocktail.

DRINK If you can’t find something to slake your thirst at the Gold Club’s five bars, you’re not trying.

Ice-cold local beer? Refreshing cocktail? Glass of wine from an international selection?

DRINK Japanese designer Yasuhiro Koichi of Studio SPIN exploited the natural formation and character of the rock on which the bar sits, with the 360-degree vantage point putting nothing between you and the horizon but shimmering ocean waves. As you sip your cocktail, wine or beer, contemplate the bar, created by Japanese glass artist Seiki Torige using thousands of layers of recycled glass canes.

EAT The hotel’s adjoining Palazzo restaurant is, perhaps somewhat confusingly, renowned for its Indian curries. But the menu also runs to ‘international’ offerings with a Mediterranean twist. The restaurant is open until 10.30pm during the week and until midnight on Friday and Saturday nights.

DANCE With two dance floors, pool tables and poker machines, the Gold Club has all the entertainment options cornered. The bars feature extravagant lighting, excellent sound systems and visual projections. In-house bands and DJs supply music, and once a month international DJs and MCs are flown in for a weekend of entertainment. The Gold Bar also hosts major events such as the PNG Idol talent quest and the annual PNG Musik Awards.

WEBSITE lamanahotel.com.pg/index.php/gold-club

60 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

EAT Unsurprisingly, the Rock Bar’s menu is also drawn largely from the sea. The bar’s chefs hand-select the freshest fish and shellfish to create mouth-watering dishes that include king prawns, sardines, calamari, swordfish and lobster.

DANCE The Rock Bar always features local bands and DJs, and welcomes international touring acts on a regular basis.

WEBSITE ayanaresort.com/en/dining/restaurants-cafes

ELEVEN, FORTITUDE VALLEY, BRISBANE Perched 11 storeys above Brisbane’s Ann Street, Eleven rooftop bar offers unrivalled 270-degree views of Fortitude Valley, the CBD and surrounding suburbs. The rooftop bars of Istanbul, Bali and Ibiza inspire Eleven’s look – open-air yet cosy and intimate. Remember to dress to impress – Eleven has a strict door policy – and for a really exclusive experience you can ring ahead to book a booth with a guaranteed view.

DRINK Eleven’s cocktail list draws on the classics, using top-shelf ingredients (over 20 different gins are on the list, for a start) and fresh twists. The wine and beer offerings are extensive, ranging from Australian staples to interesting (and not outrageously expensive) imports.

EAT From bar snacks to shared tapas plates to a wide range of main meals, the food offerings at Eleven combine Asian and European influences, with the emphasis on tasty bites in a sophisticated setting.

DANCE Later of an evening, Eleven describes itself as having ‘a cultured party vibe’; so expect the soundtrack to be grown-up but not fuddy-duddy.

WEBSITE elevenrooftopbar.com.au

traveller

time traveller Port Moresby, May 1983 Marketing of its products by the South Pacific Brewery has traditionally involved glitz and glamour, as well as showcasing the international awards that the brewer has won.

Pictured here, at the official launch of the Special Export Lager, more commonly referred to as ‘long necks’, are SP hostesses June Lee, Ligori Gorogo and Judith Kuschell, resplendent in flower leis and collectible lap-laps.

This launch, at the ‘old’ brewery on Scratchley Road in Badili, was around the time of the brewery taking over its rival San Miguel (PNG) Limited, thus ending a price war and rationalising beer production and distribution in the country.

— JOHN BROOKSBANK If you have a photo that may be suitable for Time Traveller, email paradise@businessadvantageinternational.com.

62 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

TIME TRAVELLER

Living lifestyle, culture, sport, entertainment

Port Moresby plate

The food scene in PNG’s capital is undergoing a transformation.

David James reports on the Harbourside development, where a host of new restaurants, cafes and bars are opening.

64 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

on a

food

Hotels are having to do something better now because there are options out there, whereas before there were no options.

E

ating options in Port Moresby have, until recent years, tended to be limited. But all that is changing. A burgeoning middle class, an increase in expatriate workers and some entrepreneurial initiative is transforming local cuisine.

One of the more progressive developments is the opening of Harbourside, which will host up to six restaurants in downtown Port Moresby.

The development is by Pacific Palm Properties, and general manager Andrew Potter says it started out as a commercial development, but the strategy was altered.

“At first it was only going to be one restaurant and some boutique retail outlets,” he says.

Cafe culture ... the Duffy cafe is already open at Harbourside, where another five restaurants are scheduled to open.

PICTURES: STEPHEN RAE & iSTOCK

living

July – August 2016

65

living Port Moresby on a plate “But as we got into the project we decided to turn it into a food and beverage destination – and that is what we are trying to achieve at this point in time.

“It was about bringing people back to the harbour and the centre of the city. That is what all cities have done around the world. The town is quite quiet after a Saturday 12pm.

We felt with our business zone we needed something to bring people back to the CBD.” Several new restaurants are planned. Potter says there will be an Indian restaurant, Tandoor on the Harbour, and an Italian restaurant, Soga.

“We have got Asian Aromas, who are existing tenants in one of our buildings doing their re-launch there,” he says. “We have got Duffy as a coffee shop; they are already open and operating.

food

Then we have Graham Osborne’s the Naked Fish, which is steak and seafood. Next to them we will have a sports bar.”

Travers Chue, co-founder of the Duffy cafe, says it takes time for an appreciation of higher quality to develop. “When it comes to coffee, it is about educating people here about the difference between specialty coffee and just ordinary run of the mill (coffee). All the good coffees that are grown in PNG go to Europe, Australia and the United States. We are the first ones who are buying specialty grade coffee and keeping it here. We are also selling it at the airport and the supermarket and places like that.”

He says the company also does its own roasting.

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living Port Moresby on a plate “(People who appreciate) specialty coffee do their homework in regard to all the scientific processes involved in how to make coffee better, all the way from roasting through to the barista.

What we are trying to do is follow that in PNG as well – people are now starting to realise.

“Traditionally, the hotels and other places would have coffee and there are a few other outlets as well. But they weren’t really focused on what they were doing because they are doing so many other things. We have come along with a business that is specifically focused on coffee. For that reason people are starting to gravitate to us.

“Also, the other hotels are having to do something better now because there are options out there, whereas before there were no options. We started off with just a little

68 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

food

hole in the wall and we have continued to expand.”

The owners of the proposed Harbourside restaurants, although mostly not Papua New Guineans, nevertheless have long experience in the country, says Potter.

“Asian Aromas is a Chinese company that has been here for 25 years. Tandoor is an Indian group; some of their directors have been here a long time.

“The Italian restaurant, they are new but they are in partnership with a Michelin star Italian chef who has restaurants in the Philippines – the pastas are all hand made. Graham Osborne has been here for a lot of years. They are all people who have been in business for a long time.”

Chue says he has just hired his 100th Papua New Guinean, but acknowledges there is quite a process to train staff

living Port Moresby on a plate

food

who initially have no knowledge of what is required.

“It is not just my industry, it goes across the whole board,” he says.

“There is no training platform here for local business. It is an ongoing process …

“The way to go about it is to look after staff, give them accommodation, pay them well, and also acknowledge them when they do something good, then you tend to retain them. I can’t complain with my staff, I am very happy with all of them.”

Potter says the range of choice in Port Moresby cuisine has increased sharply. “There is a huge middle class

happening in PNG and people have more disposable income. They want what is happening everywhere else around the world.”

Chue says Steamships, which owns Pacific Palm Properties, has shown ‘great foresight’ in establishing the dining precinct.

“What they have done with the new Harbourside will really reshape Port Moresby. It is such a beautiful area that people can go to on a weekend, or during the week. They can really enjoy the beautiful things we have in Port Moresby, such as the ocean. There is nothing else like it in Moresby.”

TUCK IN Harbourside eateries Tandoor on the Harbour, Indian

Soga, Italian

70 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Asian Aromas, Chinese and Thai

Duffy Cafe*, good coffee, crepes, deli-style sandwiches

Naked Fish, seafood and steak

Sports Bar, beers by the water *Already open

d in te

HUMANITARIAN AID

… athen s

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On the front line

PNG’s Gabby Markus is on a mission in Greece to help refugees pouring in from Syria.

Kevin McQuillan reports.

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living

HUMANITARIAN AID

Seeing the smiles and gratitude of the refugees because they are being helped and provided for – by someone they don’t know – is rewarding.

“T

he refugee crisis in Europe is quite overwhelming,” says aid worker Gabby Markus.

PNG-born Markus is based in Athens, in Greece, which is the first point of entry into Europe for millions of the Syrian refugees fleeing civil war.

As the country director for the international aid organisation Operation Mobilisation (OM), Markus is heavily involved in the exodus.

OM is co-managing a refugee camp, with EuroRelief, on the island of Lesbos. The organisation is also implementing relief projects in Athens, where thousands of refugees arrive daily.

“The sight of weary and disoriented refugees is overwhelming at times,” Markus says. Many of them have made long and treacherous journeys, across mountains and dusty roads to Turkey, and then the sea to Greece.

“Seeing the smiles and gratitude of the refugees because they are being helped and provided for – by someone they don’t know – is rewarding.

“Some of them have seen their loved ones killed by terrorist groups and are traumatised. But seeing them laugh and smile again is encouraging.”

OM is a Christian aid organisation, not as well known as Oxfam or Save the Children, but it’s been going since 1957.

Taking bibles, by ship, to its mission stations was OM’s initial priority.

Like many people in PNG, Markus was familiar with the MV Doulos, one of three OM book ships that travelled around the world.

“It used to be the world’s largest floating book shop, built in 1914, two years after the Titanic was built,” he says.

As a child, Markus remembers his church group in Kerevat often welcoming the ship into Simpson Harbour, Rabaul.

The lead up to his now senior role with OM has meant a lot of academic study and a steady progression of increasing responsibilities in the field.

Born in Kerevat, East New Britain Province, Markus’s mother is from Susenduon and his father from Marabanza in Yangoru, East Sepik Province.

Primary school was at Kerevat and then Vunairima, where he attended George Brown High School and then Malabunga.

After completing a mechanic’s course at Madang Technical College in 1992, he moved back to Rabaul until Mount Tavurvur erupted in 1994.

“The town, including my workplace, was buried under the volcanic ashes and I left for Lae,” he says. There, he studied marketing and sales, before joining OM in 1997.

He says OM works in about 110 countries, providing relief and development aid, helping people living with AIDS, and campaigning against human trafficking.

His first job for OM in Nepal saw him as part of a trekking team.

“We would walk up and down mountains of Nepal (the highest he climbed was about 5000 metres) to distribute literature. In Myanmar, I taught English in an English institution and worked in orphanages.

“I moved to Sri Lanka to help start the work of OM there.

I started off as the team leader of our international multicultural team,” he says.

In 2005, Markus studied management in Sri Lanka, which helped him manage post-tsunami refugee projects in the

Beached … Gabby Markus with one of the ships used by refugees to get to the Greek island of Lesbos. The people who arrived on this ship were taken to a camp about two kilometres away, where Operation Mobilisation gave them food and shelter.

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living On the front line eastern region of the country, most of it then under the control of the Tamil Tigers.

“We reconstructed over 1000 houses, started over 2000 micro enterprises, set up water purification plants, installed over 100 tube and bore wells, and set up community centres.

“During the Tsunami in 2004, tens of thousands lost their homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Everyone I met had a sad story to tell, most often with tears.

“But when their (new) homes were completed and handed over to them with the keys, the smile and the gratitude was a sight to behold.”

In 2006, Markus took on the role of national program manager of the post-tsunami refugee project in Sri Lanka.

He met his Greek wife there and in 2008 moved to Greece to marry her. A year later they moved to England and he studied for an MA in development and cross-cultural missions, graduating in 2011.

“Someone told me that all the studies and courses taken do not mean a thing, but the great teacher is life itself,” Markus says. “I read somewhere else, ‘a moment with someone who has walked the road is more rewarding than consulting a

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HUMANITARIAN AID

thousand pages’. I suppose both are helpful.”

Markus says the work he does is continually motivating and that he wants to empower people to break out of poverty.

“This doesn’t have to be many (people),” he says. “I am inspired by Mother Theresa, who once said ‘if you cannot feed a hundred people, then just feed one’.”

Gabby Markus … “I am inspired by Mother Theresa, who once said ‘if you cannot feed a hundred people, then just feed one’.”

living

art

Pacific works on show

A

rare collection of Pacific shields, figurative sculptures and masks feature among works by Pacific artists on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. The exhibition features body ornaments, including Polynesian lei, headdresses and jewellery, barkcloths and photographs of Samoan tatau (tattoos).

A display of shields comes from PNG, West Papua and the Solomon Islands. Shields are cultural objects of war and ceremony, used as defensive and offensive weapons, to extend, maintain or defend the bearers and territory. They are said to have magical qualities to protect the bearer.

76 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Another highlight of the exhibition is the collection of sculptures from Vanuatu. The sculptures have been created as memorials to ancestor spirits.

Art of the Pacific includes the work of a number of prominent contemporary Pacific Island artists, including Bouganville’s Taloi Havini.

Others featured are Fiona Pardington, Reuben Patterson, Brett Graham, Peter Robinson, Greg Semu, Chris Charteris, Graham Fletcher, Daniel Boyd, Francis Upritchard, Yvonne Todd and Angela Tiatia, alongside artists working in PNG’S Oro Province and the Highlands, West Papua, Vanuatu, Samoa, Tonga and the Torres Strait.

living Pacific works on show

art

Pacific collection ... sculptures, shields, headdresses, jewellery and carvings are among the works on show at the National Gallery of Victoria.

The collection is on display until July 24. See ngv.vic.gov.au.

– KEVIN McQUILLAN

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The visionary girl Richard Andrews meets the Papua New Guinean child ambassador to the UN who has released a book and wants to improve the world.

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CHILD CAMPAIGNER

living

CHILD CAMPAIGNER

T

yronah Sioni (pictured) is an award-winning writer on human rights and an ambassador to the United Nations. She was invited to New York last year to launch her first book and participate in a summit.

Not bad for a nine-year-old.

Born in Port Moresby, Tyra, as she’s called, now lives in Singapore and “loves singing and dancing,” like most girls her age. But she also wants to “make people aware of what’s happening in the world, so they can be alert and ready’’.

Tyra wrote a children’s storybook in fourth grade, called The Visible Girls. It tells the story of Sine, a fierce and independent yet friendly girl, who lives on a small island, “a bit far from Port Moresby” with her invisible friend, Kaimon. They stand up to a selfish and arrogant man who is bullying a woman outside a shop.

Shocked by the indifference of passersby, the girls decide to start an equality movement for women and girls, which involves the local school, villagers and radio station, as well as the prime minister.

As the movement grows, Kaimon becomes literally and symbolically less ‘invisible’ as the girls realise “there is strength in all of us”.

Couched in the seemingly simple tale is a young person’s guide to campaigning for human rights, awareness-raising and empowerment. Tyra’s work was one of the winning children’s stories published by the Voices of Future Generations, a UN partner organisation.

“My family was very surprised by the book and with the research and effort that I had put into the writing,” says Tyra.

They were further surprised when she was invited to represent PNG in the Pacific Region category at the Children’s Summit of the UN General Assembly’s 70th Anniversary in New York, where The Visible Girls was launched.

Appointed as a child ambassador, Tyra helped finalise a statement dealing with children’s rights for the 2015 UN Children’s Declaration. “I enjoy being an ambassador very much,” she says.

She also enjoyed being taken around to see the sights of New York. “It was really fun and educational. I learnt so much as well as making some new friends along the way.”

“Illustrating Tyra’s book was a moving experience,”

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living The visionary girl

CHILD CAMPAIGNER

From the book ... some of the Charlene Morris illustrations in The Visible Girls.

says painter, Charleen Morris. “It took me back to the days of my childhood on Bougainville and dealt with issues close to my heart.”

Based in Australia, the popular Gold Coast artist supports community groups on the island and donates work to environmental charities. “I hope I can illustrate future books like The Visible Girls,” she says.

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“In fact, I am writing another book, this time about corruption,” responds Tyra, who’s not resting on her laurels. As a child ambassador, she dreams of starting her own worldwide organisation that will help people “who can’t afford food and homes, decrease pollution, and fight discrimination’’.

The UN better watch out.

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ILLUSTRATION: SIMON SCHNEIDER

living

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Pirate treasure Chips Mackellar tells the story of bullion and coins hidden in a cave, somewhere on an island in the Solomon Sea.

The pirate leaders decided to put the treasure ashore and come back for it later. But they never came back.

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living Pirate treasure

M

y first posting as a cadet patrol officer in Papua New Guinea was to the island of Daru in 1953, at the northern extremities of the Torres Strait. From this colonial backwater, the Australian administration presided over the vast but sparsely populated swamplands of the Fly and Strickland River basins.

Life at Daru in those days was measured and slow. We wore starched tropical white suits and pith helmets, and we were very pukka.

But there were also some people on Daru who were not so pukka. One

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was a beachcomber who lived at the far end of the island. His name was Old Harry. If he had any other name then, nobody seemed to know what it was, and in any case, it doesn’t matter now.

Old Harry lived in a thatched hut with a harem of island girls and a brood of children. He was forthright, down-to-earth, and honest, but he was not pukka. He was never invited to garden parties.

Nevertheless, Old Harry had been in the islands for so long that he was an authority on everything.

He had a repertoire of island stories, which could fill an encyclopaedia, and in those days before television, he was a wonderful

living Pirate treasure source of after-dinner entertainment.

Together with other young officers, I would sit on his verandah and look out across the Torres Strait at night while Old Harry enthralled us with tales of derring-do. It was on his verandah that we learned the legends of the South Pacific, and of the exploits of its most famous characters like Queen Emma, His Majesty O’Keefe, Bully Hayes, and King Cameron of Kitava.

Old Harry had other stories, which reached further back into history.

He would tell of the early explorations of the Pacific; of Spanish galleons lost on their way back to Spain from Peru; of mutiny, shipwreck and Inca gold.

Most of these stories related to the eastern end of Papua, in and around the islands administered from Samarai. And one night, when I was alone with him on his verandah, Old Harry told me that if I ever went there, I would see remnants of long-lost civilisations, stone artefacts, and megaliths like Stonehenge, and relics of a by-gone sailing era. And if I were lucky, he told me confidentially, I might even find pirates’ treasure.

“What treasure?” I asked.

“There’s pirates’ treasure out there,” he told me. “It’s on an island out from Samarai … a king’s ransom, in royals, doubloons, and pieces-of eight.”

“How did it get there?” I asked in disbelief. He told me of a Spanish galleon blown off course when crossing the Pacific from Peru to Manila, laden with bullion for the Spanish government in the Philippines.

Frightened, lost and far from home, the crew mutinied and murdered the officers.

They tried to head back to Spain with the treasure, but became more lost in the tangle of islands strung across the Solomon Sea and, eventually, they anchored to take on water off a small island out from Samarai.

Fearful of another mutiny from their fellow mutineers, the pirate leaders decided to put the treasure ashore on this island and come back for it later.

“But they never came back,” Old Harry said. “It is still there in a cave in a cliff face.” He told me the name of the island.

“The island people must have known about it,” I said. “How

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come they didn’t take it?”

“They won’t go near it,” Old Harry said. “They think the cave is haunted by the spirits of the dead pirates.”

When I questioned him further, he told me it took 15 pirates to drag the treasure chest to the cave. To safeguard the secret of the treasure’s exact location, the pirate leaders then murdered the 15 crew and left their bodies in the cave, tied around the treasure chest with the rope they used to haul it there.

The leaders celebrated this foul deed with a bottle of rum, which they left there, and they then returned to their ship.

To cover the absence of the 15 men, the leaders claimed natives had attacked their shore party.

According to Old Harry, after the ship had departed the curious islanders peeked into the cave to see what had been left there. But stunned by the gruesome sight of 15 dead men roped together, they fled in horror, never to return.

Exaggerated stories of sailor’s ghosts and evil cave spirits, passed on from one generation to the next, have ensured that the islanders still shun the cave. And to make sure that the pirates’ ghosts would not molest them, Old Harry said, the islanders have kept their haunted cave a secret.

Very few outsiders know about it, Old Harry told me. But he was one, and now that he had told me, I was another.

“How do you know about all this?” I remember asking.

“It’s only a story I picked up,” Old Harry said. “It might not even be true. But to the natives of this island, it is a sacred legend, and if you ever go there they might talk to you about it. But you should always keep the identity of the island secret, so that you do not betray their confidence.”

Years went by and Old Harry passed away, taking stories like these with him to his grave.

It was 15 years later that routine transfers saw me posted to Samarai.

By this time, we (the administrators) were less pukka and more practical, and instead of white suits and pith helmets, we wore shorts, long socks and slouch hats. We got on with the job of bringing the country to independence, and in the course of my duties I visited many islands throughout the Milne Bay district, and slowly, very slowly, some of Old Harry’s stories began to ring true.

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I saw, lying discarded in some villages, the stone mortars and pestles of a long extinct grain-fed race, totally unknown to the present inhabitants.

I saw the megaliths of the Trobriand Islands, incomprehensible to the current population there, and I even met the colonial character King Cameron of Kitava, the year before he died.

I saw a rusty old cannons, and anchors from a bygone sailing era and I wondered if I would ever find Old Harry’s pirate treasure.

Then one year, a cyclone struck the Solomon Sea. It devastated some

island communities, and there was widespread loss of life and shipping. After the cyclone had passed, I was ordered to lead a patrol by government trawler through the islands of the Milne Bay district to assess the damage and to arrange for whatever help the government might give.

The patrol included medical and agricultural personnel for the purposes of supplying emergency, on-the-spot assistance.

We passed from one small island to another, each looking somewhat the worse for wear as a result of the cyclone and, two weeks out of Samarai and many islands later, we anchored at the island Old Harry had

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living Pirate treasure told me about.

Locals who paddled their canoes out to meet our trawler told me that the cyclone had left them relatively unscathed and that there was no damage assessment for me to do here.

But since visits by professional people were rare to these remote islands, the doctor and the didiman (agricultural officer) decided to go ashore to conduct routine inspections. I went with the shore party to stretch my legs on the beach.

The doctor and the didiman walked off into the interior of the island, accompanied by a gaggle of children and the village elders. I was left alone on the beach, but for one old man who was looking at our vessel

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riding at anchor in the lagoon.

With nothing else to do, I began talking to him. We talked about the cyclone and things that interest isolated island communities most – seafood, spring tides, and the comings and goings of visiting vessels. Out of idle curiosity and thinking of the early Spanish explorers, I drew the likeness of a Spanish galleon in the sand.

“Old man,” I asked in Motu, “are there any stories of ships like this visiting this island?”

There was a long silence while he looked at my drawing. Then he said: “Not in my time, but I remember my grandfather telling me of visits by ships like that. But then, that was before his time, too. In fact it was his grandfather who told him.”

“Are there any stories about ships like that ever leaving anything behind here?” I asked.

There was another long silence and I thought that the old man might not have heard my question.

“No,” he said at last, “except for the ship which left the box.”

“What box?” I asked, trying not to appear excited. Could it be that Old Harry’s story of the pirate treasure was true?

“There is a story that sailors from a ship like that left a box in a cave in the cliff up there,” he said pointing. I could hardly believe my ears.

“What is in the box?” I asked, trying to contain my excitement.

“Nobody has ever looked,” the old man said, “and nobody would ever want to, because that cave is haunted.”

It was almost unbelievable.

“According to the story, the box contained useless coins,” the old man said. “The box was re-packed here on the beach before they took it up there. Some of the coins spilled on to the sand and were later found by the island people after the ship had left. But nobody kept the coins, because they were no good.”

“Why were they no good?” I asked.

“Seems like they had gone rusty,” the old

living Pirate treasure When I bent down to reach the object with my hand, my man said, “they were yellow.” nose came so close to the surface of the squelching bat Yellow coins? Could they have been gold coins? Royals? manure that I nearly passed out from the smell. As Doubloons? At this stage I was so excited that I I struggled to stay upright in the stench, I could not resist the temptation to look. could only use my toes to explore the “Can you take me to the cave?” object. It was round, a few inches I asked. “I can take you to the in diameter, and about one foot entrance, but I cannot go long. Could it have been a inside because that cave is bottle? The rum bottle the haunted,” he said. pirates had left behind?

It took about half an hour Suddenly, from the real to scramble up the cliff world outside the cave, face to the cave. It was I heard successive blast just as Old Harry had from the trawler’s siren. described it 15 years “Your ship wants earlier. to leave,” the old man At the entrance, the called from outside the old man stopped and cave. I quickly left the would go no further. But cave, covered in bat manure he remained there while I and smelling like a sewer. went inside.

The other members of the As I entered the cave, my shore party had returned on board foot slipped in bat manure and and the trawler’s dinghy and two crew immediately a million bats flew out, were waiting for me on the beach. But I stank squeaking and flying around in circles outside. so much I was too embarrassed to go with them, They re-entered the cave, then flew out again, so they rowed the dinghy back to the trawler and repeated this flight pattern all the time I was without me, while I swam beside them, Port there. The cave floor sloped downwards from Moresby letting the sea wash the bat manure from my the entrance, and was covered in bat manure, PNG skin and clothes.

And it did, but the putrid but to what depth I did not know. I took off my smell remained on me for days afterwards, shoes and socks.

Milne Bay and for the remainder of the patrol, the other “How long have the bats lived here?” officers complained about the stink, I asked. and kept asking me how I got to “We don’t know, we never come smell so bad. here,” he replied from outside.

“I was exploring a bat cave,” I went further into the I told them truthfully. cave, the manure becoming 0 100 Km Like the pirates of Old deeper and the smell Harry’s story, I always overpowering. The bats intended to return to that were swarming around island, and like them, I me, but with their radar never had an opportunity working perfectly, not one to do so.

I am too old to 0 Km 20 touched me. But when go back there now, but I was up to my waist in in memory of Old Harry, bat manure I could go no I have kept the faith of the further because the smell island people. I have never was so sickening. revealed the identity of their Then suddenly, in the cesspit treasure island, and I never will. beneath me, my foot touched Chips Mackellar was an Australian something solid and round. I tried to pick patrol officer (kiap) in PNG, serving for it up, but to do so I had to plunge my arm into 28 years between 1953 and 1981. the stinking slime.

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Living

headphones

BY NINA KARNIKOWSKI

Ear gear Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 The updated Momentum 2.0 headphones are among the hottest available. They come with a more comfortable fit, thanks to more spacious and softer ear cups, a new folding design that makes them easier to store, and better sound than the original. The sleek leather headband means they look great, too. About PGK 949; sennheiser.com.

Monster iSport Victory

These sports headphones have a robust, durable design and are water-resistant. They’re more expensive than most sports headphones, but their superior sound quality makes them worth it. Available in black and a fun, sporty lime green. About PGK539; monsterproducts.com.

you see on almost every head in business class – have to take the cake. They are foldable to fit inside a portable carry case, they have superb fit and finish, and their noisecancelling capabilities are first class.

About PGK 949; bose.com.

In the noise-cancelling stakes, the Bose QuietComfort 25s – the ones

NHT Superbuds

Sony MDR-1A

Here Active Listening

Wailing babies, traffic noise and tiffs in foreign languages can be tough to block out. But thanks to Doppler Labs, you can filter the sounds, frequencies and tones of life by using these comfortable ear buds and partnering smartphone app.

They don’t play music, but allow you to remix how the world sounds.

About PGK790; hereplus.me.

These over-ear headphones feel luxurious and extremely comfortable because of great cushioning on the ear pads and headband, and they do an excellent job of balancing fullbodied bass with lots of crispness and clarity in the higher ranges.

Available in black with red metallic highlights, or in silver with brown leather. About PGK949; sony.com.

If you’re on the lookout for a luxurious set of wireless headphones, these are the pick.

They’re not noise cancelling, but the soft lambskin ear pads give great sound isolation. They’ll connect to any Bluetooth-capable device to pair with your phone or PC, and one

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These in-ear headphones sound much better than their price suggests, and look better, too.

They’re mostly aluminium and have a non-tangling woven cable that looks rather chic. They come with five pairs of latex tips, three pairs of foam tips, and a small carrying case.

About PGK313; nhthifi.com.

Beats Solo 2 by Dr Dre

V-Moda Crossfade M-100

Bang & Olufsen BeoPlay H7

Bose QuietComfort 25

charge of the battery will keep them going for about 20 hours. About PGK1423; bang-olufsen.com.

If it’s good looks you’re after, Italian headphone maker V-Moda’s handsome cans are the pick of the bunch. They’re customisable with 3D printed over-ear shields available in nine colours and materials, including stainless steel and precious metals. But don’t let their stylish design deceive you, they’re also high-performing in the audio stakes, with well-sculpted highs and intense bass that will leave you thinking someone slipped a subwoofer into your headphones.

About PGK854; v-moda.com.

When one of the world’s hottest music producers designs a pair of headphones, you imagine they’re going to be good, right?

Well they are. They’re exceptionally comfortable, and have great wide-ranging sound with a lot of bass that almost makes you feel like you’re in the studio. The sleek, curvy design comes in an array of colours, including burgundy, and with a colour-matched RemoteTalk cable that lets you change songs, adjust the volume and take calls without ever having to pick up your device. About PGK616; beatsbydrdre.com.

Living

gadgets

BY NINA KARNIKOWSKI

Gadgets and travel accessories Duffel bag

As comfortable on a fashion runway as it is on an airport runway, Filson’s 48-Hour duffel is perfect for a weekend away or a short business trip.

Use the outside zipper pockets to stash travel documents, mobile phone and wallet. Made from a scuff-resistant, rugged twill and saddlegrade leather, with two carrying options.

About PGK1250; filson.com.

Travel humidifier

If you find some hotel rooms stuffy and dry, you may want to pick up one of Travel Smith’s travel humidifiers, the smallest in the world at this power level. Just upend a plastic water bottle into the back and you can, quite literally, breathe easy – especially since it’s also super quiet, and works globally without a converter.

About PGK186; travelsmith.com.

Multi-purpose shoes

A shoe that folds flat in your suitcase and is completely customisable? Yep, that definitely qualifies as a must-have travel item. Using the waterproof zip, you can change the tops or soles of your pair of Shooz, so you can wear the same pair for a morning run, or a night out on the town. Shooz are even more genius when you consider that they’re made using Italian leather and non-GMO cotton grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides, and have an anti-shock insole. From about PGK316; shoozmadeinitaly.com.

98 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Toiletries kit

The luggage experts at Tumi have partnered with the award-winning designers at Public School to craft a luxury line of limited-edition travel gear, including this durable, sleek, leather-trimmed travel kit to keep your toiletries in order. Includes a leather grab handle. About PGK458; tumi.com.

Living

gadgets

Flat booties

Patagonia’s neoprene booties provide protection from sharp rocks, broken bottles and shells.. You’ll feel almost as though you’re barefoot thanks to the soft, stretchy and super comfortable 2.5 mm neoprene, yet the sole is impenetrable and you even get a bit of extra side protection and support from the tough vulcanised rubber reinforcement panels. About PGK281; Patagonia.com.

Tiny expandable towels

Straight shooter

When you haven’t got time to get back to the hotel to freshen up after your flight, or between meetings, these Prospector Co. compressed towels might be just the thing. Simply add water and the little tablet of cotton will expand to the size of a face towel, bringing the comfort of home to you no matter where you are. Especially luxe if you add a few drops of essential oil. About PGK16 for a six-piece jar; prospectorco.com.

The Nikon D5500 DSLR camera is incredibly lightweight, at only 450 grams, has a tilting LCD touch screen, and continuous shooting capabilities. The deep grip means you’re less likely to drop it, and it looks good when you’re toting it about on your travels, too. From about PGK1597; Nikon.com.

Portable keyboard

Logitech’s Keys-To-Go ultra-portable wireless keyboard, which connects with all of your iOS devices, is lightweight and can easily fit into a briefcase or backpack. It has a three-month battery life and comes in an array of fun colours, including red and blue. About PGK185; logitech.com.

Chic currency case

If you find yourself constantly giving out the wrong currency, thanks to your jet-setting lifestyle and inability to remember to transfer foreign currencies back out of your regular wallet, give this calf leather currency case by Smythson a whirl. Not only does its perforated world atlas design look great, but it’s super functional too, with four separate zippers for different currencies.

Available in classic black, as well as shades like plum and dawn blue. About PGK1354; smythson.com.

Cord organiser

You arrive at an important meeting and see everyone frantically trying to untangle their chargers and cords before the meeting begins. With a smug smile, you casually pull out your Cord Tacos, made by leather accessories company This Is Ground.

Inside, your chargers, wires and headphone cables are neat and tidy, and you place them on the table with no fuss or knots. The perfect business travel moment. Available in a variety of shades, prints and sizes. From about PGK63; thisisground.com.

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Books

BY GREG CLARKE

Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel (Simon & Schuster), by Nicolaia Rips Andy Warhol, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith are just some of the artistic residents who called New York’s Chelsea Hotel home. The Rips family moved in there in 1994.

Nicolaia’s father Michael, a lawyer turned writer, has a penchant for fine tailoring; mother Sheila, is a former model and renowned artist who matches her welding outfits with couture; while Nicolaia is an outsider who struggles to find her place in public schools.

But at the Chelsea, Nicolaia gets all manner of tutoring in the lessons of life. Neighbour Storme keeps a pink handgun strapped to her ankle; her babysitter, Paris, may or may not have a second career as an escort; her friend Artie is a former proprietor of some of New York’s most famous nightclubs.

As Nicolaia endeavours to fit in, she begins to understand that the Chelsea’s diverse crew could hold the key to surviving the perils of a Manhattan childhood.

The book has been described as droll, touching, elegant and wise – “a coming-ofage story from someone who possibly came of age before her parents”.

100 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Black British (Simon & Schuster),

by Hebe de Souza Hebe de Souza’s first novel is based on her experiences growing up in an affluent family in post-independence India.

In 1958, as India is coming alive in the turbulent years that follow the exit of the dispatched British, Lucy de Souza, the youngest of three daughters, is born into a family that once prospered under the Raj. But having forsaken their roots to adopt English culture, the De Souza’s live isolated from hostile locals, who see them as black British, remnants of an oppressive regime, with no place in modern India.

As Lucy grows up, she finds refuge within her family’s crumbling mansion, surrounded by her loving parents and mischievous older sisters. But as time draws the rebellious and inquisitive Lucy toward adulthood, she struggles to find her place in this country, ravaged by poverty and hardship, and discovers why the search for home can sometimes take a lifetime.

Black British has been described as an unflinching and beautiful narrative about feminism, family and the importance of identity.

Diggin’ The Dancing Queen: An Adventure in the Land of the Unexpected (Lulu Publishing), by Paul Richardson Paul Richardson lives in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. He has been working in Lae for some five years at the International School (TISOL). He travels frequently and has visited much of PNG. The country, its peoples and diverse lifestyles have been the inspiration for his novel.

Diggin’ The Dancing Queen connects – and perhaps only someone who lives in PNG could conjure such a suitably diverse plot – a lost tribe in the mountains outside of Madang, a Swedish girl who anyone who has ever heard of the pop group ABBA thinks is Agnetha (the blonde from the band), an Australian would-be school teacher who goes to all lengths to rescue her, as well as PNG’s fanaticism with rugby league, a French private investigator and a fraudulent businessman.

Not surprisingly, then, the novel is filled with unexpected turns and uniquely Papua New Guinean happenings.

Diggin’ The Dancing Queen is available as an e-book.

Living

movies

By GREG CLARKE

Mustang

Ben-Hur

Love & Friendship

Mustang is the result of an international collaboration. France, Turkey and Germany all share country-of-origin credits for this foreignlanguage film.

In a northern Turkish village, five orphaned sisters’ lives change suddenly when on the way home from school one summer they innocently play with a troupe of boys at a beach.

Despite the innocence of the act, their action causes a scandal.

The home where they stay slowly turns into a prison, classes on housework and cooking replace school and marriages begin to be arranged.

Brilliantly, the five sisters – driven by desires for choice and ultimately freedom – fight back against the limits imposed on them.

The film was released in the US last year and one critic described it as a straight forward story of female empowerment – “but it’s the way it tells that story that makes it deserving of all the accolades, including an Oscar nod for best foreign-language film”.

Another critic wrote, “I can’t wait for the rest of the world to discover it”.

Lew Wallace’s 1880 historical novel, BenHur: A Tale of the Christ, was first made into a movie in 1959. In the 21st-century version of this biblical tale, English actor Jack Huston (Hustle) plays Judah Ben-Hur, a prince from one of the most respected families in Jerusalem who is falsely accused of treason by his adopted brother (played by Toby Kebbell), an officer in the Roman army.

Ben-Hur’s life of privilege comes to a ruthlessly swift end when he is stripped of his title and separated from his family. The fall is complete when he also loses Esther, played by Iranian-born actor Nazanin Boniadi from Homeland, the woman he loves.

Ben-Hur is forced into slavery and after years at sea returns to his homeland to seek revenge, but instead finds redemption.

Morgan Freeman, who plays Sheik Ilderim, an Arab who agrees to let Ben-Hur race his chariot, lends a hand to the atonement cause.

Ultimately, Ben-Hur goes wheel-to-wheel against his brother in a blood sport where the first to finish is the last to die. Rodrigo Santoro, one of Brazil’s most lauded actors, plays Jesus.

Kate Beckinsale, Chloe Sevigny, Xavier Samuel and Stephen Fry star in this comedy based on the writings of a young but often hilariously insightful Jane Austen.

Set in the 1790s of Georgian England, Love & Friendship plots the various courses set by the scheming and manipulative Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale). The film mines the comedic veins that can be so richly found in the matchmaking, and heart break, of the idle rich (or those chasing such a life).

The widowed Lady Susan – “that woman is a fiend,” is one description of her – is consumed by the quest to find a husband for her daughter and herself. Her friend Alicia Johnson (Chloe Sevigny) helps in this regard, though two young men – the handsome Reginald DeCourcy (played by Xavier Samuel) and wealthy Sir James Martin (played by Tom Bennett) – seriously complicate their plans.

Love & Friendship is directed by Whit Stillman, still perhaps best known for his 1990 film Metropolitan. The movie was selected to screen at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

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Port Moresby’s Paradise Cinema screens many of our reviewed movies.

For screening dates and session times see paradisecinemaspng.com.

MADE IN PNG SPECIAL feature

Original

The face of PNG manufacturing ... locally produced beer, rice, kit homes, biscuits and kitchen products.

104 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

made in png

special feature

Products of all sorts ... (from left) whiskey, rum, coconut oil, tuna, coconut soap and water tanks are all produced of PNG. The logo (right) is reproduced with permission of the Manufacturers Council of PNG.

and local Richard Andrews explores the wide array of products being made in Papua New Guinea, from handicrafts to palm oil, beer, coconut soap, coffee and the country’s coveted chocolate.

F

rom baskets to biscuits, and from coffee to kit homes, Papua New Guinea manufactures a wide range of products. And many are products with a purpose beyond off-the-shelf consumption: their sales support local communities and reflect the nation’s diverse culture and colourful history.

It may sound strange, but an excellent introduction to the array of PNG products is available when you leave the country from Port Moresby’s Jacksons International Airport. Located in the departure terminal, A Little Something From PNG is an excellent store carrying traditional handicrafts and themed items that represent village life and culture, from the highlands to the islands.

Carved fish, turtles and crocodiles sit among baskets, coffee, vanilla beans, wildlife books and other souvenirs. And if you want to be the life of the party at home, why not return with a kundu drum, the pillar of

sing-sings? More than just a musical instrument, the sound of the kundu is said to represent the voice of ancestors.

“We’re proud to represent PNG and give travellers a positive, lasting impression when departing from this beautiful country,” says retailer Aaron Chin. “We support grassroots communities and have been buying from them for more than two decades.”

Another enterprise with village links, Tropic Frond Oils, arose from fiery ashes – literally.

Coconut oil runs in the blood of owner Debra Hill, who grew up harvesting the fruit with her family on the remote northern island of Emirau. She went on to set up a coconut processing plant in Rabaul with her husband, Dennis. Just nine months later, in 1994, the Hills had to escape by boat when the twin volcanic eruptions of Mount Tavurvur and Mount Vulcan all but destroyed the town.

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Coconut enterprise ... Niugini Organics produces cosmetics, soaps and coconut oil and provides the main source of income for 200 families at Keravat.

PICTUREs: JODY CLEAVER

If the munchies strike while trekking the Kokoda Trail, try one of the products from the Lae Biscuit Company. Under its distinctive Big Pela Na Strong Pela logo, the company’s classic snacks have been flavoured for local tastes to become a national favourite.

Undeterred, the Hills returned shortly afterwards and started again at Keravat, a safer 35 kilometres from the still-active volcanoes. Today, the company’s organic cosmetics provide the main income for 200 local families who harvest the coconuts sustainably from their own land.

The Curls range of products is a household name in PNG, while the virgin coconut oil and soaps are exported under the Niugini Organics brand.

“Pacific Islanders have always used coconut and flowers in their hair and on their skin,” says Hill. “The rationale then is the same as now; take a centuries-old tradition and make it relevant to the 21st century.”

As a means of livelihood for more than 1200 people, Morobe-based PNG Forest Products is also proud of its heritage and ‘socially responsible’ operations.

The company was born as Bulolo Gold Dredging during the heady days of the 1930s, when the area was one of the world’s largest gold fields.

As mining was scaled down, gold mining was replaced with a plywood factory, sawmill and pine plantations.

PNG Forest Products now uses renewable plantation pine for many timber products, including prefabricated commercial and domestic buildings, as well as affordable village homes. Adapted for local conditions, the modern designs acknowledge traditional Pacific housing styles.

Instant noodles is another product with a community role in PNG. Global food giant Nestle began importing noodles during the late 1970s, and is now one of the country’s largest manufacturers.

Apart from convenience and taste, the national popularity of Maggi Noodles is associated with the company’s outreach initiatives. These include a travelling road show that visits hundreds of rural

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communities, teaching the basics of healthy eating habits, nutrition and hygiene.

To add nutritional value, Nestle fortifies its instant noodles with vitamins and minerals, including iron, zinc, iodised salt and vitamins B1, B2 and B3. And if the munchies strike while trekking the Kokoda Trail, try one of the products from the Lae Biscuit Company. Under its distinctive Big Pela Na Strong Pela logo, the company’s classic snacks have been flavoured for local tastes, to become another national favourite.

Chocolate aficionados know that PNG is a major exporter of cocoa used in the confectionary of the world’s leading producers.

Paradise Foods took this export one step further in 2011 by building a Port Moresby plant to process PNG’s rich beans into the country’s own world-class chocolate.

In what must be one of the best jobs around, the company’s chocolatiers have developed (and taste-tested) fine covertures, using cocoa beans from a single source.

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PNG at work … on the factory floor at Paradise Foods (right); Akso Nobel paint on a ship (below right); Queen Emma chocolate (opposite page).

made in png Original and local

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“This means we are able to use the whole bean without any additional cocoa butter, which has resulted in a very pure, rich taste,” says David Peate, managing director of Paradise Foods.

The company produces gourmet chocolate under the Queen Emma brand, named after a 19th-century businesswoman of Samoan royal lineage, who owned cocoa and coconut plantations around Kokopo, in East New Britain.

Emma Coe, popularly known as Queen Emma, had a reputation as a beautiful and seductive lover of the good life – an appropriate name for a chocolate.

In fact, leading PNG chef, Gavin Wilcock, once described the Queen Emma dark coverture as having “a biting, beautiful flavour that makes the palate beg for red wine’’.

But if you want a great coffee first, the PNG Highlands are blessed with the perfect blend of fertile land, temperatures, dedicated growers and expert roasters to produce some of the world’s best brews.

Try Patrick Killoran’s Banz Kofi, a signature blend of freshly roasted Arabica beans. The Mount Hagen company selects top-quality beans from villagers who cultivate crops according to traditional methods.

It’s all part of Killoran’s mission to provide “a divine coffee experience”.

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“We take a lot of pride in producing our coffee and are passionate about growing the local industry,” he says. “The focus is always on maintaining quality and showing we can make unique premium products here, which in turn, support the many people who help to create them.”

Kongo Coffee founder, Jerry Sapka, shares this commitment to his product and community.

His Simbu company also buys organically grown beans from local smallholders and enjoys a growing demand for its distinctive Elimbari Coffee.

“I began my working life as a teacher and never anticipated one day I’d own one of PNG’s leading coffee companies,” he says.

In many ways, Kapka continues his role as a teacher, to maintain product quality and income for local growers. He’s provided guidelines and training for farmers on which beans to pick, as well as appropriate techniques for pulping, washing, drying and fermentation.

So if you’re beating a drum, washing your face, eating chocolate, or sipping coffee in PNG, it’s not just an everyday activity. You could say it’s also nation building.

The perfect blend ... PNG coffee makers are blessed with the right mix of fertile land, temperatures and dedicated growers.

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Proudly PNG

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A

Little Something from PNG, the shop that exclusively sells things made in Papua New Guinea, opened its doors at Port Moresby’s Jacksons International Airport last year.

The Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, was gracious enough to do the official cutting of the ribbon for the grand opening.

The design of the store captures the essence of travelling through all corners of PNG. Raymond Chin, the managing director of CHM, which owns the shop, says that he wanted visitors to see the beauty of the country – through sight, sound and touch – when they enter the store.

“All the carvings you see featured on the pillars were custom built, which depict the bird of paradise, crocodile and other traditional icons. The huge copper beating found hanging above the ceiling is of a PNG bilum, also made here in PNG. The music you hear is all recorded locally so the experience will be a special one for travellers.”

Grace Chin, the director of CHM, has been supporting the local market by providing a retail platform for creative talents and offerings since 1992.

She says: “A Little Something from PNG is exactly that, it offers many genuine local goods and produce that is unique to PNG, such as handmade bilums and

copper beatings, ground coffee from the Highlands, to chocolates from Bouganville, its all here.”

The photos surrounding the store come exclusively from renowned photographer and Paradise contributor David Kirkland. Kirkland’s pictorial books are also sold in store.

“We are very proud to represent PNG with our store, we have many travellers wanting to take photos (of the merchandise),” says Grace Chin.

“We want visitors to leave the country with a positive perception of PNG, and even take a piece of PNG with them, wherever their home is overseas, and remember how amazing this country is. I think we have achieved that goal.”

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strictly business from www.businessadvantagepng.com

Manufacturers respond to tougher times David James talks to some of the key figures in PNG’s manufacturing sector to see how they are dealing with current economic circumstances.

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T

he strategies business leaders adopt in difficult economic circumstances determine the company’s capacity to survive and its ability to benefit when the economy improves. Many of Papua New Guinea’s manufacturers are facing just such a period in which they have to make difficult choices. Some are employing highly defensive strategies; others are more prospective.

“You are just more conservative,” says Stan Joyce, managing director of SP Brewery, PNG’s largest brewer. “You protect what you have got, which is still a lot more than what we had before we started out on this wonderful journey.

We will wait for the next wave to come through.”

Manufacturing accounts for about 7 per cent of PNG’s GDP, according to the International

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Monetary Fund. The economy’s heavy dependence on resources industries means that the fate of manufacturers is heavily affected by what happens in the global commodity markets.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the availability of foreign exchange. Chey Scovell, the chief executive of the Manufacturers Council of PNG, says many PNG manufacturers are struggling.

“A number of manufacturers have wound back their operations simply due to the fact they can’t source their inputs,” he says.

Michael Kingston, the chief executive of KK Kingston, says it is the number one issue. “The biggest challenge on everyone’s lips, and we are no different, is foreign exchange — obtaining sufficient foreign currency to pay our raw materials suppliers,” he says.

“We are a fairly diverse company so there is quite a long list. It includes things like palm oil, plastics, chemicals, paper.

We are not just grinning and bearing it, we are trying to find solutions to make the situation a bit more bearable.”

Pete Celso, the managing director of RD Tuna Canners in Madang, says the company does not have a problem sourcing goods “but sometimes we have to wait and line up for foreign currency”.

MANUFACTURING

A second problem, related to the shortage of foreign exchange, is the level of the kina. Mikael Ruben, the managing director at AkzoNobel PNG, says it affects his company’s profitability. “We pay in US dollars, so of course that means that everything will become much more expensive,” he says.

“We have to follow the kina down and it has affected the margins, although so far not dramatically. But if it continues it will be difficult. We have several expats working in the company

Manufacturers should batten down the hatches and not expect a turnaround until the end of 2018.

who get paid in foreign currency, so of course if the kina weakens that is also an additional operational cost. If we have to pay in Australian dollars or other currencies it affects the cost situation.’’

The stories in our ‘Strictly Business’ section were first published in PNG’s online business magazine, businessadvantagepng.com and are re-published by arrangement with Business Advantage International.

Men at work … PNG manufacturing accounts for about 7 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Joyce says one response is to move to local suppliers when possible. “There is no doubt we are doing that, you can do those things to mitigate it. But the authorities need to solve what is causing the problem.”

The quality of infrastructure is an area of great concern to manufacturers, although Scovell says there have been many advances, especially with the roads. He says the government has invested in infrastructure “really for the first time since independence”.

Ruben says the problems are nevertheless ongoing.

“We have all the infrastructure matters: power cuts, water

shortages, and high operational costs, shipping around the country to our customers,” he says. “That impacts on all the operational challenges of the company.”

Joyce agrees, pointing especially to the high cost of the internet and the lack of consistent power. “There are always logistical challenges.

The Highlands Highway is another one.”

Celso says RD Tuna Canners has to take on the cost of its own infrastructure needs, due to a dearth of local competitors. This includes power plant, ice-making plant and refrigeration plant. “We have the number one cold-storage facility in PNG.” The approaches of PNG’s manufacturers differ, depending on the nature of their business and their position in the market.

Jean-Michel Lejeune, general manager, Papua New Guinea, for Goodman Fielder International, says the company is in catch-up mode and is committed to ➤ July – August 2016

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MANUFACTURING

On the front line … Goodman Fielder producing bread (left); SP Brewery managing director Stan Joyce (above); bleach and cleaning products on the floor at KK Kingston (right); AkzoNobel workers (below right).

major investments. Construction will begin shortly on a large, modern Bula designed flour mill in Lae, which will increase capacity and produce 600 tonnes a day of high-quality flour.

The company will also build a stock feed mill built at the same

market share that it lost during the construction of the PNG LNG project, when other competitors entered the market.

Celso says RD Tuna Canners is expanding in an effort to achieve greater scale and efficiency. “The only way we

The Prime Minister and a lot of analysts are quite correct when they say the underlying fundamentals remain very strong. It is really about trying to navigate through the next 24 months.

site, to be completed in under three years. “As a company we really believe in PNG,” says Lejeune.

Ruben says AkzoNobel, which makes paint, is looking to regain

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can survive is to reduce our costs,” he says.

Kingston says KK Kingston’s mix of offerings provides a useful hedge. “When mining is down,

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fortunately our exposure to the more general consumer market and the general commercial industrial markets acts as a nice buffer against the downturn in the mining sector. That said, when there is a downturn in the mining sector it eventually flows through to the consumer sector and the commercial and industrial sectors as well.”

Scovell says many manufacturers developed inefficiencies during the boom, which they are now addressing.

“It revved up so fast and was so big a lot of companies just threw money and people at problems. This downturn has put them in a position where they have had to maximise all their efficiencies — invest a little bit more in up-skilling some of their people so they can improve their productivity a little bit.”

Scovell says manufacturers should “batten down the hatches” and not expect a turnaround until the end of 2018.

“What most businesses are really interested in now is how

MANUFACTURING

they are going to manage out of the bottom. The Prime Minister and a lot of analysts are quite correct when they say the underlying fundamentals remain very strong. It is really about trying to navigate through the next 24 months.” n

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banking

Top banker’s plan to fix foreign exchange crisis David James speaks to the Governor of the Bank of PNG about the country’s foreign exchange woes.

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etting foreign exchange is a challenge for Papua New Guinea business, and all eyes are on what the central bank is going to do.

The Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, Loi Bakani, says the bank is determined to obtain more foreign currency to address the backlog.

But he has also criticised claims that PNG’s foreign exchange problem can be solved by allowing a free float of the kina.

“Once we free the backlog, that will free up the market to operate smoothly, both for the in-flows that are coming from the exports and of course to meet the normal demand for imports and service payments,” Bakani says.

“It is the backlog that is creating this issue for us and I think we all appreciate that we have to find a way to look at it.”

Bakani has confirmed the strong fundamentals of the PNG economy.

He says PNG had experienced 14 years of positive GDP growth, adding that between 2010 and 2015 GDP grew by over 69 per cent.

He rejects the suggestions of ‘some commentators’ that the increase in GDP is inflation-driven, saying that, over that period, real GDP (after inflation is taken into account) has grown by 59 per cent.

He says that, because of the growth in the economy, “there is a lot of space for government” to “stay within the limit of 35 per cent or 30 per cent (debt-to-GDP ratio)”.

Bakani is critical of commentators who argue that a free float of the kina will solve PNG’s foreign exchange problem. He points out that the kina has depreciated significantly since 2012.

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“A depreciation of such magnitude is a clear reflection of the supply–demand situation.

“Given the fact that PNG is an importdependent country, the kina has depreciated significantly. We know that the supply-anddemand responses to the depreciation of the kina are very, very low. It is therefore very difficult to know what exchange rate will clear the market.

“It is really an issue that the inflows are lower than the outflows. Basically the supply of foreign currency is lower than the demand.

“The central bank’s role is very difficult. It has to tread a fine line between movements in the kina exchange rate, and it also has to maintain its objective of price stability (for the national currency). That is a dual objective of managing an exchange rate.”

The fundamentals of the economy are strong.

Sentiment is driving the short-term issues that we have now.

Bakani notes that PNG’s foreign debt burden is negligible and what foreign debt there is has “low interest rates and long grace periods, on both the interest and principle repayments”.

Loi Bakani … critical of commentators who argue that a free float of the kina will solve PNG’s foreign exchange problem.

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong,” he says. “Sentiment is driving the short-term issues that we have now.

“That is why central bank governors have to take time out to try to explain it. These are very complex issues.”

Bakani adds that the PNG LNG project is not producing tax revenue for the PNG Government at the moment because of tax deductions due to accelerated depreciation.

“There is a time period when the accelerated depreciation will go down, and a time when the revenue will go up, and at that point the tax comes on. After the debt servicing and accelerated appreciation are over, there will be more foreign exchange inflows from the LNG project.” n

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gas

Total commitment to new LNG project France’s Total SA has confirmed plans to start construction for Papua LNG, the country’s next big liquefied natural gas project. Paradise speaks with Philippe Blanchard, managing director of its PNG subsidiary, Total E&P PNG, to learn more about the project.

Q

: Earlier this year, your CEO Patrick Pouyanne paid a lightning visit to Papua New Guinea. He outlined Papua LNG as a $US10 billion project that would employ 10,000 workers. What is required to get the project to a green light from here?

A: As mentioned by our CEO, first we have to be able to tell the size of the reserves, which is why we are finalising the appraisal program. The plan is to complete the appraisal work by end of 2016 and be able to size the facilities immediately afterwards.

We have already started the social and environmental impact assessment studies. We have to perform surveys all over the project’s footprint.

That will take place between now and 2017. There are plenty of activities running in parallel.

It is a good project and the most important thing is to ensure that the project is costcompetitive and comes at the right time on the market.

The idea is to progress and be ready to launch the project in 2018 in order to take advantage

of the current market by securing the best gas prices and by lowering the expenditures of the project. It will benefit both the developers and also all the stakeholders in Papua New Guinea and the people of Papua New Guinea.

In addition we think that a better window for gas marketing and monetisation will be present in the early 2020s. So, the timeline of this project should also be aligned with that.

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Q: Can you see any obvious obstacles that could prevent that from happening? For example, if the gas price keeps going lower, does that affect the project?

A: The most important thing is to ensure that the project is cost-competitive and comes at the right time on the market. We believe in the price improvement in a long term because there will be a need for gas, and LNG in particular.

Q: Given that the source of

the gas is closer to the shore, is Papua LNG going to be a less complicated, less capitalintensive project than the ExxonMobil PNG LNG project?

A: These are two different projects with different challenges. Papua LNG is a good project and potentially it is a lowcost project.

It is an important project for Papua New Guinea.

We will leverage all the advantages of the logistics ➤

strictly business Total commitment to new LNG project and cost environment to make it a competitive project.

For Papua LNG, distance between the field and the proposed LNG plant is shorter; there is only one field involved but some impurities in the gas have to be treated.

Q: Does that mean there will be more onshore processing of the gas before it is exported?

A: It is still under study and we have not yet firmed up our decision on where to treat and sweeten the gas before liquefaction and export. A decision would be made before the end of the year.

Q: The PNG Government has the right to join the project. What signs have you received from the government so far about its interest in doing this?

A: From our discussions, they are interested. I believe that Kumul Petroleum Holdings, which is anticipated to hold this interest, is really keen.

Q: Gulf Province is in one of the less developed areas of Papua New Guinea. At this stage, what key infrastructure do you think needs to be in place?

A: I think it is important that medical and educational facilities are developed with the project going forward, for the benefit of those people from the surrounding areas and the local communities

GAS

Location of Papua LNG’s key infrastructure sites

ElkAntelope

Central Processing Facility (Gulf Province) Kerema

PNG PNG LNG

Pipeline Corridor

Papua LNG (Caution Bay)

Port Moresby 0

who will be employed by the project contractors.

In addition, in terms of other infrastructure, our preferred option today is to use the Purari River to send all the equipment and material we need.

There will be phases in the project when we will need a large amount of skilled labour, at

The idea is to be ready to launch the project in 2018 in order to take advantage of the current market by securing the best gas prices and by lowering the expenditures of the project.

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other periods we will need more unskilled labour.

We will also perform a full assessment on roads as well, as we would probably develop an airstrip for transportation of personnel.

Q: A figure of 10,000 jobs has been mentioned. Of those jobs, how many are likely to be skilled jobs and how many unskilled?

A: It is too early to give a figure today. The ratio will evolve over time.

Q: Do you expect it to sell to similar markets to the PNG LNG gas?

A: We will start discussing gas marketing very soon with our JV partners and potential gas off-takers. We will take into account an evolving market and new players.

We are committed to making it happen. It is a key project for Total, in line with its LNG strategy.

We will look to provide gas mainly to the Asian market. It is clear that Japan, China, Korea, for instance, could be potential buyers. But other countries may be interested to buy gas from Papua LNG project.

Q: How important is it to have the gas supply contracts in place before you start production?

A: It is really important because it gives you the confidence to incur all the expenses that are required. For such a project, you will look at financing by external lenders.

These will lend you money only if you show them that you will reimburse your loans. It is why you need to secure gas off-taking contracts early in your development process.

Q: One issue is the political need to employ as many local people as possible in the project. That required ExxonMobil to build its Enterprise Centre to help locals skill up.

Do you see a similar initiative being required?

A: There are universities, colleges, training centres (for example the Kumul Academy) that are already operating in Papua New Guinea.

We think that it is more efficient for everybody and less costly to build partnerships with the existing institutions, rather than building new centres.

Q: So, is the project definitely going ahead?

A: Yes, definitively. We are committed to making it happen.

It is a key project for Total, in line with its LNG strategy. It allows us to pursue our growth in the Asia Pacific region. n

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MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

The amazing app man Kevin McQuillan reports on Shadrach Jaungere, the struggling university student who has found his niche in creating apps.

S

hadrach Jaungere is on a roll. Despite a long and abiding interest in computer programming, he struggled through his university work and it wasn’t until he created his first app, two years ago, that he got the bug. The mobile phone app bug, that is. And now he’s working on his 35th.

“It’s amazing that when I was learning coding at university, I didn’t do so well. Twice, I failed my programming units, even though I always had an interest in programming. I found it fascinating.

I am motivated by the possibilities that smartphones have for people.

Smartphones have greatly empowered people.

“And I’ve always had a curiosity about mechanical things.

“When I was young, I used to love visiting dump sites to collect old discarded electronic appliances. I used to remove

Shadrach Jaungere … working on an app that he says will rival WhatsApp and is designed especially for remote PNG communities.

their electrical parts and then re-assemble them to create new electronic devices,” he says.

Born in 1984 in Morobe Province, he went to school in Lae, finishing his high school years at Bumayong Lutheran Secondary School.

He enrolled at the University of PNG in 2004, where a lack of motivation meant he had to repeat his third year of a bachelor of science degree.

“I finally completed fourth year and graduated in 2010.’’

Jaungere joined Telikom in 2013 after teaching computer programming as a part-time support tutor.

And that’s when his abilities came to the fore. He was given the job to develop a new app for Telikom customers, which would allow users to log in and check their accounts, top up credit, and purchase bundles.

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It was the first android app created by Telikom PNG’s ICT division.

“What was unique about this app was that it was designed to accommodate Tok Pisin users.

So customers could choose to run the app in either Tok Pisin or English. It was very successful.”

Since then, Jaungere has developed 20 fully completed apps, 10 in research and development, and five that are still unpublished. Ten of the apps are used by Telikom staff in-house.

His work on developing a mobile phone-based business directory app and related apps that support ecommerce and b2b trade saw him make the finals of the Kumul Gamechangers competition last year.

“It’s called ‘LookMeUp’, which will allow visitors and locals to contact businesses, service providers and suppliers directly.

“And it will have a social media

interface so people can chat and share information as well.”

Another app – again still in the developmental phase – will have huge benefits for people living in remote areas of PNG. “It’s a chat platform and will be a real competitor to WhatsApp, but it will have a specific usage in PNG: disaster control and information.

“One problem we are trying to solve is to quickly notify people whenever there is a disaster pending. We cannot do that with any existing platform because of the costs involved. It will be free, because we are using the internet as the way to transmit the alerts.”

Jaungere is also developing three ‘anti-corruption’ apps for Transparency International.

“There will actually be three apps for use in schools, and they’ll teach people about PNG, ethics and corruption.”

Jaungere is motivated by a desire to give something back.

“And I don’t give up easily,” he says. “Professionally, I am motivated by the possibilities that smartphones have for people. Smartphones have greatly empowered people.

“The potential of mobile phones and social media is huge. The smartphone user rate is going up all the time in PNG. Rate of communication and getting information across to the masses is faster and that’s where the opportunities lie.” n

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HUMAN RESOURCES

12 things to know about employing expats in PNG As its economy has grown, the number of foreign workers coming to PNG has increased. Scott Roberts, of recruitment consultant Cadden Crowe, gives the dos and don’ts of bringing expats into the country.

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ike any other independent nation, Papua New Guinea has its work permit and visa regulations for non-nationals, and if you do not abide by the rules both the employer and the employee are legally liable.

It is important to know the requirements and your role as an employee and employer.

All expats looking to work in PNG, whether it be for the short term or the long term, require a visa. The options range from a business visa to cover short trips for meetings through to a threeyear residential work permit.

There is a myth that it is all right to come into PNG and work on a business visa until told otherwise, or until a regular visa is ‘worked out’. Do not fall into this trap.

If you are coming to work in PNG, or are employing expats, then they must have a valid work permit and visa aligned to a specific employer and specific job.

The business visa only allows you to travel to the country

to attend meetings, check on progress, carry out functions necessary to the operation of your business. It is for those people whose role is based outside PNG. The system to obtain the relevant visa is straightforward but requires you to understand the system and to cooperate with the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations and PNG’s Immigration and Citizenship Service.

Using a registered employment agent in PNG can be a shrewd investment – they understand the systems, know the departments, will check all the necessary paperwork before anything is lodged and will follow up until processing is complete.

There are many stories, but the system is not complicated.

It runs relatively smoothly and many of the delays and ‘war stories’ often relate to poor planning, not allowing enough time and incomplete documentation.

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Scott Roberts ... says that if you are coming to work in PNG, you must have a valid work permit and visa aligned to a specific employer and specific job.

Some simple dos and don’ts are worth considering.

Do 1. Follow all instructions – doing so will save time in the long term.

2. Ensure all documentation is completed correctly and supporting documents are authenticated.

3. Allow enough time.

Timeframes are given for each

type of visa and these are adhered to by the departments.

Plan your business around these time frames and not vice versa.

4. Cooperate with the Department of Labour and Industrial Relations, the PNG Immigration and Citizenship Service and the relevant consulate.

5. Know the requirements of the home country you are employing out of because some,

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such as the Philippines, will require additional focus in PNG. 6. Ensure that the role for which you wish to obtain a visa is on the list of roles for expats.

Don’ts 1. Do not take short cuts.

The systems, timeframes and instructions are there for a reason. Taking short cuts will only delay the application.

2. Do not assume they will let you in. PNG is an independent nation. Like Australia: no visa, no entry.

3. Do not assume a business visa will be approved. If you are residing and working in PNG, it won’t.

4. Do not break the law – get the required work permit

and visa. If your employer says it is okay, then request written confirmation from the Department of Immigration.

5. Do not expect the departments to fit into your timetable. They are very open with the timeframes and they stick to them. They are not there to work around your company’s timetable. (At the same time, some industries or companies will get fast tracked.)

6. Do not assume that because someone is employed by one company that they can work for you. All work permits and visas are fixed to a specific job and specific employer. If either your job title or employer changes, then you will need a new work permit and visa to match. n

HUMAN RESOURCES

Where expats come from China 3,930 Indian sub-continent 3,991

Malaysia 2,516

6% 4%

6% Other developing 6,957

11% 36%

Other developed 8,175

Australia 22,466

13%

24%

Philipines 15,067

Source: Carmen Voigt-Graf, National Research Institute.

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Brain gym quiz, puzzles, crossword

DoubleTake Tackle either set of these clues – you can even mix and match them, because the solutions are the same for both sets

CRYPTIC CLUES ACROSS 1. Sun protection for Paris souls, apparently (8) 6. Display no slip for 24 hours (3) 7. Type of blanket used by bouncers? (8) 8. Pasture in mid-Orleans (3) 10. Vera enters ages for typical scores (8) 13. Tongue that can be foreign or foul (8) 16. Drain juice from plant (3) 18. Waterfall makes lens go cloudy (8) 19. Loud ad for current craze (3) 20. Tell her Vi’s heard broadcast (8)

DOWN 1. Pieces of writing displayed in hallways (8) 2. Illegal enterprise makes a din (6) 3. Poor Ray is Jordan’s neighbour (5) 4. Turner writes same article in French and English (5) 5. Fast runner in Bucharest (4) 9. You won’t get a present from this person (8) 11. Spirit seen in imagination (3) 12. Hunting expedition is a far-out experience (6) 14. Silver monkey with mouth open (5) 15. Dying to end up in this place (5) 17. A path somewhere else (4)

126 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Red Herrings Fill in the gaps with letters to find the names of eight sports. Only eight? Yes, two of the examples are red herrings and won’t produce anything but frustration.

All the answers have eight letters.

STRAIGHT CLUES

11. Drink, ... & tonic (3) 12. 70s men’s outfit, ... suit (6) 14. In state of wonder (5) 15. Very serious (5) 17. Not at home (4)

ACROSS 1. Umbrellas (8) 6. Night & ... (3) 7. Fixed tenure, job ... (8) 8. Poetic term for field (3) 10.

Norms (8) Red Herrings 032 13.

Latin or (8) © LovattsChinese Puzzles 16. Tree secretion (3) 18.

Eye disease (8) SOLUTION: 19.

Passing (3) Baseball,fashion swimming, canoeing, ping pong, shooting, 20.

Show on screen (8) trotting, RED HERRING, marathon, high jump, RED HERRING. DOWN 1. Sea crossings (8) 2. Commotion (6) 3. Middle Eastern country (5) 4. Wood-shaping machine (5) 5. The ... & The Tortoise (4) 9. One that is not in residence (8)

brain gym

puzzles

The Paradise Quiz HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW THE REGION? 1. Which sea is north of mainland PNG?

9. On which island is Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta?

2. When is the wet season in PNG?

10. What is the Japanese custom of inemuri?

3. What is the opening line of the PNG national anthem?

11. Where is the temple city of Angkor Wat?

4. Where was Australian actress and soprano Marina Prior born?

12. In which country is Kingfisher the largest-selling beer?

5. What are drunken prawns?

13. If you are welcomed with the word bula, where are you likely to be?

6. Which two near neighbours of PNG are among the world’s biggest producers of coconuts?

14. PNG is hosting APEC in 2018. What does APEC stand for?

7. Which South Pacific island nation is last (204th) on the FIFA world soccer rankings?

15. The Eastern and Oriental Express is often cited as one of the world’s great train trips. Which countries does it pass through?

8. In the Solomon Islands, what does it mean when people raise their eyebrows in response to a question?

Sudoku

July – August 2016

127

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solutions

Solutions Red Herrings 032 © Lovatts Puzzles

Red Herrings SOLUTION: Baseball, swimming, canoeing, ping pong, shooting, trotting, RED HERRING, marathon, high jump, RED HERRING.

The Paradise Quiz 1. Bismarck Sea. 2. December to March. 3. O arise all you sons of this land. 4. Port Moresby. (Her father worked there in the shipping industry). 5. Prawns cooked in Chinese rice wine, a favourite dish in Singapore. 6. Indonesia and Philippines. 7. Tonga. 8. Yes. 9. Java.

10. Falling asleep on the job. 11.

Cambodia. 12. India. 13. Fiji. 14. AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation. 15.

Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

128 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Arrivals Lounge Papua New Guinea visitor guide

Out and about

A quick guide to Papua New Guinea, from catching a taxi to making a phone call.

CLIMATE With the exception of the Highlands, PNG has a warm tropical climate.

The wet season in Port Moresby is from December to April.

COMMUNICATIONS Internet: Web access in Port Moresby has improved immensely in recent years. Although it remains costly, all the Port Moresby hotels listed in this guide provide a fastspeed internet service. In other urban centres, you may still be relying on dial-up. For those staying longer, wireless internet, via a USB modem is available, although download speeds can vary.

Phone: International mobile phone roaming is possible in PNG but it is costly. A cheaper option is to buy a local SIM card and prepaid credit (including data packs for smartphones).

PICTURES: PNG TOURISM PROMOTION AUTHORITY, DAVID KIRKLAND

It is much cheaper to make international calls from PNG than vice versa.

130 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

Complimentary Wi-Fi is becoming more common at hotels, and is also available at Jacksons International Airport.

ELECTRICITY The current in PNG is 240V AC 50Hz, using Australian-style plugs.

GETTING AROUND As a general rule in PNG, you need to plan your travel carefully.

Taxis: Recommended firms are Comfort (325 3046) and Scarlet (7220 7000). ➤

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Visitor GUIDE

located around Port Moresby, Lae and other urban centres.

SAFETY While the situation is not as bad as portrayed by some international media, you should always take precautions, especially at night.

TIME ZONE PNG has a single time zone, 10 hours ahead of UTC/GMT.

EATING, DRINKING, SOCIALISING IN PORT MORESBY Car hire: Deal with one of the international names and ask them to provide a driver (around PGK400 per day). With the poor state of roads, especially in Lae, 4WDs/ SUVs are recommended.

Airport transfers: For arrival/ departure in Port Moresby, any of the hotels listed in this guide will provide a complimentary transfer.

Domestic flights: Travelling within PNG often means taking an internal flight (for instance, you cannot drive between Port Moresby and Lae). Air Niugini offers passengers the chance to book (and check in) online but make sure you print out a copy of your receipt to show at the checkin counter. Aircraft and helicopter

MONEY

Airways Hotel: Port Moresby’s ritziest hotel has several places to eat. If you’re after fine dining, Bacchus is the place to go. For something more casual, go poolside, where Deli KC’s serves antipasto, salads, sandwiches, milkshakes, espresso and a limited Italian menu for dinner.

The Poolside Bar should not be missed for its garlic prawns. The Vue Restaurant, which has a buffet each morning and evening, as well as an a la carte menu, has stunning views. This is also the place for traditional rectangular, wood-fired Italian pizza. See airways.com.pg.

PNG’s currency is the kina (PGK).

ANZ and Bank of South Pacific (BSP) have branches at Port Moresby’s international airport. ATMs are

Aviat Club: The club is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Home-style meals include stirfries, toasted sandwiches and

charter services are available for travel to remote locations.

HEALTH Serious medical conditions typically require treatment outside the country. Travellers should ensure they have adequate health cover (the cost of medical evacuation alone can reach $US30,000). Visitors should also note that malaria is prevalent in PNG and there have been cases of measles and tuberculosis in some parts of the country.

132 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

salt-and-pepper prawns. The burgers and the fish and chips are spectacular. This is a great spot to sit at lunchtime under the shady mango trees, or in the airconditioned bar. See aviat.com.pg.

Cafe on the Edge: There are good hamburgers here and breakfast options such as eggs benedict, avocado and the best crispy bacon. The servings are generous. It is one of the few cafes in town that opens early; you can grab your first cuppa from 6.45am. Located under the residential buildings on the new Harbour City development, down behind the ANZ and BSP bank. See facebook.com/ CafeOnTheEdge.

Crowne Plaza Hotel: There are multiple eating options at Crowne.

The in-house restaurant includes a buffet for breakfast (eggs cooked to order), as well as lunch and dinner. It’s one of the few restaurants in Port Moresby with gluten-free choices. The hotel also has fine dining at the Rapala restaurant, where the steaks and garlic prawns are impressive. Oldfashioned crepes Suzette makes an appearance here, too, and is cooked at your table.

Daikoku: The extensive Japanese menu has teppanyaki, donburi ➤

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Visitor GUIDE

are popular venues for business meetings in town. Centrally located. See grandpapuahotel. com.pg. Tel. +675 304 0000.

bowls and a large range of sushi.

Tucked away above the SVS shopping centre in Harbour City, chefs will whip up your meal at your table. The teppanyaki menu includes several courses, so come with an empty stomach. See ourportmoresby.co/things-to-do/ archives/daikoku.

Holiday Inn: Located in the government district of Waigani. Large grounds with walking track, in a tropical garden setting. Outdoor restaurant dining and bar area, business centre and gym.

Recently expanded to include a three-star Holiday Inn Express hotel. See ing.com. Tel +675 303 2000.

Duffy Cafe, Gabaka Street: This has rapidly become popular among the expat community, with excellent coffee and homemade cafe-style food. See facebook. com/duffypng.

Dynasty at Vision City: This may be the biggest restaurant in Port Moresby. Its size, its chandeliers and its gold decor make it a favourite for balls, dinners and parties. The menu is huge, too, with pages of Asian dishes. Don’t miss yum cha on Sunday mornings. See ourportmoresby.co/things-to-do/ archives/dynasty.

Fusion: This is one of the newer restaurants in the city and always seems to be doing great business.

It’s Asian with a fusion of flavours from China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Takeaway available.

Grand Papuan Brasserie: The funky Grand Papua Hotel bar serves up cocktails and has a decent wine list, along with some tasty tapas-style bar food.

Grab a seat in one of the huge, black leather chairs or head to the Brasserie, which has a nightly buffet. The a la carte menu is good and the steaks are delicious.

See grandpapuahotel.com.pg.

Lamana Hotel: The hotel’s restaurant has a daily soup and salad buffet lunch, with your choice of main and a drink. There is an Indian buffet night on Thursdays.

See lamanahotel.com.pg.

Royal Papua Yacht Club: Relaxed, spacious and open to non-members. Comfort food, draught beer and an open-plan bar area showing sport on large screens. If it’s too busy, try the Aviat Club in nearby Konedobu.

See rpyc.com.pg.

Seoul House: This restaurant specialises in Korean and Thai food, cooked on the hot plate right in front of you. Seoul House is tucked away in a garden oasis compound in Five Mile.

Tel +675 325 2231.

Tasty Bites: An Indian restaurant tucked away in the town centre in Hunter Street near Crowne Plaza. You won’t get a table unless you book. Tel +675 321 2222.

Vision City: PNG’s first major shopping mall houses an increasing array of eateries. The cavernous Dynasty (Chinese) and the Ten (Japanese) are standouts.See ourportmoresby.co/ things-to-do/archives/dynasty.

HOTELS Airways Hotel: Airways is located within a large, secure

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compound next to Jacksons International Airport. An inspiring setting, luxurious rooms, excellent service and very good food options. See airways.com.pg. Tel. +675 324 5200.

Crowne Plaza: Upmarket rooms and suites in the heart of the CBD. Decent gym, business centre, undercover parking, thriving café and Mediterranean restaurant.

Tel +675 309 3329.

Ela Beach Hotel and Apartments: On the fringe of the CDB, this constantly expanding hotel/apartment complex is part of the Coral Sea Hotels group. Its main eatery is popular at lunchtime.

See coralseahotels.com.pg.

Gateway Hotel: Another member of Coral Sea Hotels, this time located next to the airport. A range of amenities include Port Moresby’s largest dedicated meeting space.

See coralseahotels.com.pg.

Grand Papua: This premium hotel opened in late 2011 and features 156 suite rooms (short and long stay), an executive floor, gym and conference facilities. The separate restaurant and bar areas

Laguna Hotel: The Laguna is the latest hotel to open in Port Moresby, providing high-end facilities. The 60-room property is a five-minute drive from the heart of Port Moresby and features a lagoon-style pool, free airport transfers, free Wi-Fi and free buffet breakfast. Tel +675 323 9333.

Lamana Hotel: Also in Waigani, this modern hotel’s facilities include the popular Palazzo restaurant (steaks, pizzas and Indian cuisine), business centre, conference facilities and fashionable nightspot, the Gold Club. Tel +675 323 2333.

Stanley Hotel and Suites: Port Moresby’s newest hotel (opened in July, 2016) is a luxurious 429room property in Waigani, close to government offices and embassies.

It has 95 long-stay apartments, gym, pool, cafe, restaurants and an executive lounge. Connected to Vision City Mega Mall. See thestanleypng.com. Tel. + 675 302 8888.

EATING, DRINKING, SOCIALISING IN LAE Bunga Raya Restaurant: A local favourite, serving

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Malaysian-style Chinese. Located next door to the Lae Golf Club.

Make sure to try the stuffed lettuce cups, laksa and claypot tofu. Tel. +675 472 7177 Chigi’s Cafe: A delightful place inside the temporary Brian Bell store near the Lae main markets.

Serves good coffee, milkshakes, sandwiches, cakes and salads.

Tel. +675 7217 1966.

Golden Aviat: A good option for Chinese, located on Huon Road in Eriku. Open for lunch and dinner and yum cha on Sundays.

Tel. +675 472 0486.

Huon Club: A private members’ club, offering air-conditioned facilities, comfortable lounge chairs, an expansive deck overlooking the Lae Golf Club, a fully stocked bar and Foxtel connection to preview all the racing and sporting events.

Tel. +675 7347 1058.

Lae International Hotel: Home to three restaurants – Luluai’s Italian Pizza, Vanda, and Kokomo, which all serve an array of international and Western cuisine, including Indian and seafood buffets. The Sportsman’s Bar (aka Jack’s Bar) is also a good place for a nightcap, or two. See laeinterhotel.com. Tel. +675 472 7000.

Lae Golf Club: Whether it’s after a challenging round of golf or just an excuse to catch up with friends, the club is excellent for a few sundowners as you overlook the stunning green.

Tel. +675 472 1363.

Lae Yacht Club: The perfect place for late-afternoon beers, or just as nice for a relaxing lunch. Serves pub-style food including burgers, steaks and pizza, which goes down a treat with the surrounding views of the Huon Gulf. See laeyachtclub.com.

Tel. +675 472 4091.

Mountain View Restaurant: One of Lae’s newest restaurants is at the Crossroads Hotel at Nine Mile. Open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, make sure to try the Japanese fusion menu – it’s the only place in town where you can get good sushi. See hornibrook. com.pg/crossroads/. Tel. +675 475 1124.

HOTELS Crossroads Hotel: A 45-room facility at 9 Mile. The hotel has a Japanese-themed teppanyaki restaurant with Asian/Western fusion menus, full bar service, a well-equipped gym, WiFi and complimentary transport transfers both to Lae City and Nadzab Airport. See hornibrook.com.pg/ crossroads/. Tel. +675 475 1124.

Visitor GUIDE

nice rooms with harbour views.

A gift store and hairdresser is available on site, as well as a contemporary restaurant offering everything from pizza and steak to Asian and roast buffets.

See coralseahotels.com.pg.

Tel. +675 472 3744.

For general information about Lae, see lcci.org.pg and rainylae.com.

Free Wi-Fi at airport Domestic and international passengers at Port Moresby’s airport can now connect to free Wi-Fi. The National Airports Corporation (NAC) announced the development recently.

To connect, users need to present a boarding pass and ID, or passport, at the NAC information desk in the departure lounge where they will receive a username and password.

HELPFUL WEBSITES Air Niugini, airniugini.com.pg Business Advantage PNG, businessadvantagepng.com PNG Tourism Promotion Authority, papuanewguinea.travel Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce and Industry, www.pomcci.com n

Lae City Hotel: One of the newest hotels in town, offering a 24-hour concierge service.

Located in the main Top Town area, it also has an excellent cafe and restaurant with western and Asian cuisine. See laecityhotel. com. Tel: +675 472 0138.

Lae International: The city’s premier hotel has newly renovated rooms, full bar service, conference and banquet halls, a gym and pool.

See laeinterhotel.com. Tel: +675 472 2000.

Lae Travellers Inn: An affordable option, offering clean and comfortable rooms. Just a few minutes from the centre of town, the inn also has conference facilities and a small restaurant serving western and Indian cuisine. Tel. +675 479 0411.

Melanesian Hotel: An iconic property located in the heart of Lae. The city centre is easily accessible and the hotel has July – August 2016

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Visitor GUIDE

TWO-MINUTE GUIDE TO TOK PISIN WORDS/PHRASES Papua New Guinea has more than 800 languages, but the three official languages are Tok Pisin, English and Motu. Here, we outline some Tok Pisin, which is the largest lingua franca of PNG. W here do I find a taxi?

Bai mi painim taxi long wea?

O ne coffee with milk, please.

Wanpela kap kopi wantaim milk plis.

W here is the toilet?

Toilet istap wea?

H ow much is this?

Dispela em haumas?

O ne beer, please.

Wanpela bia plis.

Restaurant Ples bilong kai kai

T hank you very much.

Tenkyu tumas.

W hy? Long wanem?

G oodbye Gudbai

H ow many children do you have? Yu gat haumas pikinini?

H ello Halo

Y ou understand English?

Yu save long tok Inglis?

W here is my bag?

Bag bilong mi istap we?

W here are you from?

Yu bilong wanem hap?

here can I change my W money?

Wanem hap bai mi senisim moni bilong mi?

I don’t know. Mi no save.

P lace Ples

W hat do you want?

Yu laikim wanem samting?

F ish Pis

W ater Wara B aggage Kago Airport Ples balus

Numbers

1

Wan

2 Tu

3 Tri

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4 Foa

5

Faiv

6

Sikis

7

Seven

8 Et

9 10

Nain

Ten

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Visitor GUIDE

Gerehu University of Papua New Guinea

To Bomana War Cemetery

iga

Stanley Hotel

Vision City

Holiday Inn

aig

an

Konedobu

Town

Walter Bay 0

en

Rd

Hohola W

Hu

Sir Hubert Murray Stadium

Harbourside Crowne Plaza Grand Papua Hotel Ela Beach Hotel

r

ard

b

er

ard

s

Gordons

Six Mile Airways Hotel Saraga

Four Mile

Rd

Taurama Aquatic Mur r ay Hw Centre er t y

Jacksons International Airport

Air Niugini Haus Gateway Hotel

r iD

Royal Papua Yacht Club

Sp

G ing

ay

Erima

City Hall W

Harbour City

ur r

Sir John Guise Stadium

Lamana Hotel

0 100 Km Hanuabada

M Kumul F l yov

PNG

Port Moresby Harbour

y

Dr

National Museum Parliament

Laguna Hotel

Port Moresby

Hw

ni

Royal Port Moresby Golf Club rt

Ensisi

Eight Mile

Waigani

Wa

To Motukea Island, the PNG LNG plant and Napa Napa Refinery

Morata

be

Port Moresby Nature Park

Hu

Port Moresby

Tau

r am

a

Boroko Rd

Port Moresby

Badili Korobosea General Hospital Koki Two Mile Sabama

Km 1

Gabutu

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Visitor GUIDE

Papua New Guinea University of Technology

LAE

Taraka To Nadzab Airport, 42 kilometres

Omili

Crossroads Hotel Hi

ghl

Bu

an

ds

mb

d uR

Hw

Malahang Industrial Centre

y Dr nce

de en

Hw y

ve r

ep

ds

u Ri

Hou

Ind

lan

Bumb

Botanical Gardens

n Rd

War Cemetery Showgrounds

Km 1

m

d en R

H av

ord

Lae City Hotel

Rd

PNG ndp

ipe

rR

Melanesian Hotel

t ia S

138 Paradise – Air Niugini’s in-flight magazine

China Town

Bu tiba

Lae Yacht Club Lae Port

d

Lae

Lae International Hotel

k

Mil f

ha

ar

l

M

Lae International Hospital gno

Sa

Lae City

Lae Angau Hospital Markets

Ma

Butibum

Hotel Morobe

Huon Gul f

mR

d

Dowsett 0

Dr

gh

Huon Club

nce

Hi

Eriku

Golf Course

Bumneng

Milford Haven Rd

Rd

nde

Bugandi

un

Indepe

Ho

Voco Point

0 100 Km