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Hunting the
Papua New Guinea is touted as ‘The Land Of The Unexpected’, and as Chris Ord discovers on a hunting sojourn in the country’s remote and rugged north-east, it’s one tourism tagline that lives up to its promise.
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T’S A LONG WAY FROM HELL TO HEAVEN. OR IN this case from Port Moresby and its muck of often over-exaggerated street violence to Oro, a jungle and reef-clad province splashed across Papua New Guinea’s north-east coast. In fact the rugged Owen Stanley Range which slices down PNG’s spine ensures Oro, while only a 35 minute flight from Port Moresby, remains in every other respect a long way from anywhere. Yet it is still so tantalisingly close to filling the large, sun-drenched shoes of Paradise. It’s these whispers of an Eden-like frontier together with the intrigue of traditional village life left virtually unchanged for thousands of years which has lured me north to explore the remote jungles of our nearest neighbour. I’m also here to hunt. Call it a repulsive, primitive urge, a gross reaction to our sedentary times, but I want to chase my dinner through #22get lost! ISSUE #06
a hostile wilderness. I want to grapple in the mud and vines with a wild boar, to face the starkness of blood on my hands and rejoice with a village who will then feast. There’s no explaining the brutality of it. Papua New Guinea does that to a man; it changes him. Maybe it’s because there are so few places left in the world where you can still touch the stone-age with any degree of authenticity. Like the harsh yet hauntingly beautiful tropical island in William Golding’s classic 1954 survival tale Lord of The Flies, PNG strips back layers left by a comfortable life to reveal the soft savage within, albeit one more accustomed to tracking down a good bakery rather than a wild beast. After arriving at Oro’s ramshackle Popondetta airport, we use our backpacks as seats in the back of a battered utility for the 40 minute ride to the village outpost of Oro Bay. Speeding along,
get in the know! Papua New Guinea forms half of the second largest island in the world (after Australia) and the largest tropical island in the world.
ISLAND SPECIAL
hunted text: chris ord // images: mark chew + chris ord destination: papua new guinea
the familiar smell of adventure washes over me; a rugged mix of humidity and collective sweat peels away my comfort zone and thoughts of home are lost to a sweltering breeze. From Oro Bay it’s a wet and wild ride across the churning open sea as we track the coast in a 15 foot outboard dinghy. Two hours later and with saturated relief, we slip up the becalmed mouth of the Karaisa River and into another, beguiling world. It feels like the Lost World as a Jurassic jungle of a thousand greens enshrouds us. Leaves the size of small cars hang limp under the weight of the last tropical shower. Every tree and palm sprouts something sharp or poisonous. The jungle is at once hostile, yet hypnotic in its exoticism. Every so often a dug-out canoe glides silently by, their paddlers returning to riverbank villages after a day of fishing or tending to gardens of food upriver.
“Oro! Oro! Oro!” The chant as we glide up the Karaisa could be a war cry or a warm welcome. It’s hard to tell. After all, the region was once home to much feared tribes of cannibals. Hunters of renown, they cast black magic before attacking, killing and eating any unfortunate soul who looked good in jungle garnish. But that was a long time ago, before the missionaries arrived to sanitise local voodoo ways with religions of more civilised violence. Mind you, there were a few hearty Christian cook-ups had before human flesh completely disappeared from Papuan plates around 30 - 60 years ago (no-one is quite sure exactly when it stopped because of the inaccessibility of some tribes). But such outdated notions perpetuated by outdated history books are, along with my apprehensions, quickly quashed by a swarm of villagers crowding the riverbank. A rash of smiles
get in the know! Human remains found in PNG indicate hunter gatherer habitation for over 50,000 years.
tells me these are not people who eat people. “Oro! Oro! Oro!” The chant literally means ‘welcome’ and the welcoming party are Musa people, named for the great Musa River of which the Karaisa is one its largest tributaries. “Here is Giripude village; our village,” says Puena, one of our guides. Set far upriver, the small and isolated outpost is home to the Gauga, a clan of the Musa people. For the next four days Puena and father, village elder Jonah, are to be our hosts as we explore their backyard. As our party unloads supplies from the tin dinghy, villagers gather to watch with curiosity and caution. A few of the smaller children cry and hide behind their mothers’ legs. “They’ve never seen white men before, they’re too young,” says Puena who notes that since the missionaries left, only a handful of Westerners have ventured this far upriver. ISSUE #06 get lost! #23
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Yet it’s hard to imagine Puena’s people getting sick at all. Male villagers are all lean and extraordinarily muscled, their physique honed from years of paddling the rivers and constant physical labour. A man of 62, like Jonah, has the body of a 35 year old. A gym-going 35 with a sixpack. Aesthetic health aside, malaria is still a problem “although many here seem to have built up a natural resistance,” says Puena. It’s only guests like us who are afforded mosquito nets at night.
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These children of the jungle are of different stock than those back home. They wield machetes and axes at an age when most children are wielding Ken and Barbie and they carry responsibility with much more confidence; infantile yet wisened through the early lessons of a harsh environment. Everyone here has scars, be they from nature’s wrath or purposeful tribal markings. Before and after the war, missionaries sent envoys up the Karaisa to convert what they considered heathen tribes. Despite the barrier of a wild and remote land and a hostile reception, they were successful: Jonah – whose grandfather was a renowned warrior who once returned from a hunt with numerous heads – is now a pastor of the Adventists’ Church and spent most of his life travelling the far reaches of PNG as a missionary. The remainder of the village are now also strong believers, attending a church made of bamboo and palm leaves at one of the downriver villages every other Sunday. Yet traditional beliefs still permeate the village, especially when it comes to talk of tribes living deeper in the jungle. “The Mimi people live four days’ trek away. We call them Bonebreakers,” says Puena. “They killed people using black magic to weaken them. They come down in the dry season when it’s easier to travel through the jungle, and they travel with the wind, so they won’t be heard. That’s why we never go to our jungle gardens alone, because they might attack.” “It is said they will break your bones, take your heart out and wrap it in palm leaf. Tradition says that they then keep you alive by magic, make you eat your heart and then tell you what day you will die.” I’m told Jonah has made several trips to visit the Mimi, his peace-pact sojourns apparently guaranteeing our and the village’s safety. “They can also use black magic to make people sick,” says Puena. “They do it in revenge, because of jealousy or because of a dispute over land.”
It’s these imperceptible tracks that we find ourselves on the following day, accompanied by what seems like a full role-call of village men, all brandishing an assortment of spears, knives and sling-shots. After some primitive good luck rituals including stepping through a hastily made ring of palm leaf, we head deep into the singoide siko - the Gauga people’s sacred hunting grounds. Our guides step through thigh-deep swamps, over fallen trees and on sharp jungle undergrowth
It is said they will break your bones, take your heart out and wrap it in palm leaf. Tradition says that they then keep you alive by magic, make you eat your heart and then tell you what day you will die.
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Giripude is like all villages perched along Karaisa’s banks: small, extremely basic but still paradisiacal in its simplicity. Eight or so bamboo huts are spread around a central grass patch the size of a soccer pitch. They sit high on wooden poles over the flood waters below. Puena explains that their village used to be located further upstream, nearer ancestral lands. “But there were too many people living there and kids started forming gangs, so the village elders decided to spread the community out along the river.” “Because we moved downstream, we were also closer to the market towns, which made trade easier,” says Puena. Closer is a relative term: Jonah still paddles his dug-out a full day to get to the nearest market to sell or trade vegetables or the crocodiles that they catch and harvest for 80 – 100 Kina (AUD$40 - $100). There are no roads or airfields here; rivers and jungle tracks provide the only means of access.
with only their bare feet. I attempt to go native but my feet are not as flat and wide, nor as leathery as theirs. Without warning, three adolescents wielding axes and machetes appear from the shrouds of jungle. Once again their smiles give them away as they take us to a nearby yam field carved from the dense bush. One jumps onto the trunk of a palm tree, shimmies his way to the top and begins cutting down large green coconuts for us to crack open with machetes and drink. As the jungle gets darker, thicker and pricklier, I ask Puena about the hunt. “We usually capture three to five pigs, some fowl and maybe a cassowary or two,” he says. “But not today. Too wet.” And too noisy I note, as our party of at least ten crunches through the foliage. Hunting by stealth we are not. It’s only when we reach the Bareji River and a small village that I realise my hunting mission
get in the know! PNG still has over 800 distinct languages, over one third of the world’s recognised total.
ISLAND SPECIAL
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They can also use black magic to make people sick,” says Puena. “They do it in revenge, because of jealousy or because of a dispute over land.
is step by shoeless step being aborted. The spears, the sling shots, the trap ropes are for show. “We usually only hunt in the dry season. In the wet season, which is now, we fish,” Puena notes. My disappointment fades quickly as we trudge further into the foothills towards the isolated village of Gombara and an unexpected tribal gathering. Drumbeats and chanting echoes through the jungle. An “Oro!” rings out: we’re being welcomed. At the village courtyard, we’re greeted by Chief Yuviki and his clan, who put on a traditional drum and dance display before inviting us to sit with them in an open longhouse. Bedecked in wild boar tusks, shells, flowers and traditional finery, the Chief and his Medicine Man chew beetle nut, the local stimulant regarded as a huge health problem in PNG. They dip their carved wooden prongs into a cache of lime powder and mustard, before spitting the orange mix between the floorboards. The aura is very much one of a powerful clan leader and his lieutenant. The clan gathers around, silent in respect, waiting for their chief to speak. Above me, lodged in the palm leaf roof, I notice hunting spears and two types of clubs. Through an interpreter, the Chief tells me they are used for fighting other villages and while they haven’t been used for some time they have in the past been used to kill men. At one end of the village courtyard, I notice a large patch of sunflowers. Under their roots lie the village dead. “Not war,” says Puena reading my mind. “Old age.” As the village communes around us, a young man appears from the jungle (they have a habit of doing that in these parts). Slung over his shoulder is a large pole with a wild creature tied to the end. It seems the hunt hasn’t been a failure after all. But the animal destined for tonight’s
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Moo Moo – or ground oven – is still is alive. It’s a Cuscus, a large furry mammal that looks like a peroxided possum on steroids. But it’s bright yellow adolescent fur and large, cartoon eyes have disarming effect, draining any hunter blood from me. Lucky it’s wet season and there are plenty of fish to be caught.
Get Informed: For more information on travelling in Papua New Guinea, contact the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority. Tel: (675) 320 0211 Email: info@pngtourism.org.pg www.pngtourism.org.pg
Get There: Air Niugini flies to PNG 15 times a week departing from either Sydney, Brisbane or Cairns. Airfares start at AUD$827 from Cairns, AUD$1086 from Brisbane and AUD$1191 from Sydney; all are fairly flexible Explorer fares, taxes included. Holiday package are also available on request. Tel: (675) 327 3444 www.airniugini.com.pg Airline bookings can be made through Air Niugini Australian Travel Centres in Cairns (07) 4031 1611, Brisbane (07) 3221 1544 or Sydney (02) 9290 1544. Holiday package bookings can be made with Niugini Holidays 1300 850 020; World Surfaris 1800 611 163; Peregrine (07) 3854 1022; Journey’s Worldwide 1300 73478 or ask your local travel agent.
Accommodation: Arriving back at Giripude, we watch as a hearty meal of yam, sago, rice steamed in palm leaves, fried plantains and coconut is prepared. A few of the village hunters disappear upriver in dugouts with fishing nets, returning soon after with a respectable haul which is quickly added to the feast. Though the Giripude ancestors seemingly frowned on our hunting expedition, they looked down upon us with favour come the fishing. After dinner, the hunters gather in Papuan tradition to tell stories of mythical legends of magic, black and otherwise. Listening in, I can’t help but muse that this country and its people flow into your blood like a severe dose of Malaria. They call it ‘Jungle Fever’, and once it’s in you, I dare say it never leaves.
get in the know! Papua New Guinea and Oro Province in particular is home to the world’s largest butterfly, the Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing.
A layover night in Port Moresby is often required when waiting for connecting flights to the provinces. The best bet is the Gateway Hotel located near the airport. Tel: (675) 327 8141 Email: sales@coralseahotels.com.pg www.coralseahotels.com.pg In Popondetta, the capital of Oro Province, stay at the Lamington Hotel. Tel: (675) 329 7222 Email: lamington@coralseahotels.com.pg www.coralseahotels.com.pg Village stays are easily arranged throughout PNG, some at villages set up to facilitate tourists, or for a rougher, more authentic experience, talk to locals upon arrival who can arrange stays in more remote villages. Note that travelling overland to villages unannounced and without a local guide is not advised. ISSUE #06 get lost! #25
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SRILANKAN text + images: stephen khan destination: sri lanka
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serendipity get in the know! Sri Lankans love to drink – especially Arak, a spirit made from the sap of local yellow-skinned King Coconuts.
ISLAND SPECIAL
They waft around in white linen. The gay Italian graphic designer. The blue-rinsed, batty English lady on crutches. And the German. It’s like a chapter from a colonial novel.
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ANS WHIRR. MORE GUESTS ARRIVE. THE YOUNG couple from Hong Kong. The local politician and his family. An Australian journalist. It’s an eclectic mix. Few have met before, yet they are drawn together here. To Iluketia, Sri Lanka, after the tsunami. This is an island that has long held a mystical power over those it attracts. For centuries, they have come to discover, to profit and to help. Many decide to stay. The current crop are no different. Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone a tear to shed. And yet they are looking to the future. And so is the island that binds them. As Sri Lanka approaches the start of the first tourist season since the shocking events of December 26, islanders wonder if people will come again. In Iluketia, near devastated Galle, on a steaming tropical night there is confidence. We are gathered in the delightful Apa Villa boutique hotel, the property of Hans Hoefer, Germany’s godfather of independent travel who set up the Insight series of guidebooks in the 1960s and now dabbles in small-scale ‘organic’ tourism across South Asia. Yet tonight, goblets of red wine in hand, they discuss how the island can recover. Hoefer, an old mate of Tony ‘Lonely Planet’ Wheeler’s, is planning affordable housing for locals. The Member of Parliament for Galle listens intently. Other guests espouse their own proposals while enjoying a range of phenomenal food prepared using ingredients grown in the Apa Villa garden. For me, it is a very different side to the island. From December 27, I spent four weeks tearing up, down and around Sri Lanka’s battered coastline covering the cataclysm for London’s Independent newspaper group. I slept in cars, washed occasionally and moved from town to town, watching parents bury children and listening to pleas for help. ISSUE #06 get lost! #33
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Now, luxury. After the evening of debate and laughter with those and such as those, a deep bed swaddled in mosquito netting welcomes me and I sleep off the excess. For all the niggling feeling that somehow it’s not quite right to indulge while down the road the tented villages remain, it is clear that Sri Lanka needs tourists and their cash. And tourists need Sri Lanka. Because there is nowhere quite like this. We take a long breakfast on the terrace of Apa Villa, built by Dutch settlers who preceded the Brits in southern Sri Lanka. Overlooking the swimming pool and outhouse that contains two
of the six rooms, we are served eggs, platters of fresh fruit and warm flatbread. All washed down with fresh papaya juice. Such pampering comes at a price. Yet, in the post-tsunami climate a unique evening in sumptuous Apa can be had for less than US $200. It is one of those rare places where a moment of extravagance provides an eternal experience. And you never know who you might meet. The evening before we arrived, Sting dropped by to dine. After the fantasy, a dose of reality as we head for the coast. Car hire, at around US $25-a-day with a driver, is not as cheap as in some other
South Asian countries. But there are alternatives. The infamous train line that was the scene of the world’s worst rail disaster when washed away on Boxing Day was, incredibly, rebuilt within two months of the disaster. It is again a lifeline for Sri Lankans, carrying people to work along the west coast. And for tourists it offers a glimpse of the sub-Continent’s love affair with rail travel without much of the associated hassle. Along the route from Galle to capital Colombo temporary housing is a constant reminder of the fate that befell so many. On faces though, the smiles are ubiquitous. “We need the people to come back,” they cry. “Thank you.
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jewels”. From that came the word serendipity – the art of making joyous discoveries. The trail of discovery leads up the beaches and through forests to plains and jungles, and it is the people who lay it. People such as Vijay, a 43year-old driver who proudly proclaims he drove
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We thought nobody would want to come to Sri Lanka again.” Almost half-way to Colombo lies the resort of Bentota, which bead-wearing travellers will tell you is commercialised and does not offer the visitor a taste of the ‘real’ Sri Lanka. Ignore them. Who cares if the odd beach bar and speedboat disturbs a gap-year student’s sense of zen? Bentota sits on an idyllic palm-fringed seeping bay that was left relatively unscathed by the raging sea last year. The large Taj Hotel dominates yet a number of smaller, locally-run operations pepper the sea-front. Almost all are up and running again with rooms at less than $30-a-night. Fishermen wade into the waters. Fruit sellers still totter along the beach wondering when their customers will return. We enjoy deserted sands and warm tropical waters lap at our feet as locals regale us with tales of the angry ocean. But Sri Lanka is about so much more than beaches. Inland is a country rich in history, wildlife and warm welcomes. It is the interior, as much as the coastline, that prompted Muslim traders to dub the island “serendib – island of
many Sri Lankan visitors, it being a centre for the island’s Sinhalese culture and history. Despite the delights of elephant orphanages and a sacred Buddhist tooth, we plough on towards the cultural triangle and the huge, stunning modernist masterpiece hotel that is the Kandalama.
Sigirya more than lives up to its billing. It has a grip on Sri Lanka’s popular consciousness, prompting tens-ofthousands tomake the pilgrimage every year. Once, a lion wascarvedintothestone,nowonlyitsgiantpawsremain. Paul McCartney, then designer daughter Stella, around the sights. Ever smiling, he took them shopping in Colombo for batiks and handicrafts, he whisked them to plush villas, and he took them in search of cultural gems. The focal point for exploring this side of Sri Lanka is Kandy, the capital of the hill country which comes complete with bustling markets and chintzy souvenir shops. Set on a lake, the town is replete with attractions and draws
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There are 162 rooms and three pools in this work of local architectural legend Geoffrey Bawa. Jungle leaves flutter into the corridors, bats swoop at night. If you fancy being Tarzan or Jane for a night but like your air con, check in here. It is one of the world’s great big hotels and a room can be had for less than US$90 a night. For us the Kandalama also provides the perfect base to explore two of Sri Lanka’s most celebrated sites. Dambulla is famed for its caves and statues
get in the know! The colonial legacy runs deep. Some Colombo nightspots maintain a ‘foreigners only’ policy. However some locals are treated as honorary foreigners.
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The infamous train line that was the scene of the world’s worst rail disaster when washed away on Boxing Day was, incredibly, rebuilt within two months of the disaster.
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of Buddha, while Sigirya is an awesome 180-metre-high fortress atop a rock created by a murderous monarch 1500 years ago. Fornicating monkeys. That’s the first thing we notice at Dambulla. Yes, sexed-up simians are everywhere. Pointing, eight-year-old children are as amused as us. Their parents look away. Sigirya, though, more than lives up to its billing. It has a grip on Sri Lanka’s popular consciousness, prompting tens-of-thousands to make the pilgrimage every year. Once, a lion was carved into the stone, now only its giant paws remain. We grab a drink and perch on them half-way up the climb, before returning to the steps. It’s worth every effort. The views are amazing and the remains of King Kassapa’s splendid fortress palace on top have us cooing out loud as we wonder how many slaves took the short route down. And then it is time to go. Home. However, one final night of luxury is required to soften the blow. Despite having an early flight, we decide to avoid the capital and make instead for the phenomenal fish curries friends have promised us are served at the Coconut Estate guest house in Horathapola. It is the perfect send-off, just an hour’s drive from the airport. There is an inviting pool, fresh fruit in the garden, and a big, cool bedroom. Like Sri Lanka as a whole, it is the people here that make it so hard to leave. After dinner, we chat with the staff about cricket and coconuts, ethnic divisions and, inevitably, the tsunami. And never, do their smiles waver. #36 get lost! ISSUE #06
Get Going:
For the most direct flights from Australia check out Singapore Airlines and their latest deals on www.singaporeair.com
Best Time To Go:
This depends on which bit of the island you fancy seeing. The weather is excellent between December to March for the west and south coast, as it is dry during this period, and May to September is the a lovely time to travel along the stunning tropical east coast. Travel is very difficult during the monsoon season. However not every day is wet and you will get some of the amazing bargains during this period.
Best AccommodationTip:
Apa Villa Iluketia Tel +94 914-381411 Fax +94 914 381410 Ellukkatiya Watta Wanchawela, Galle Sri Lanka Directions of APA villas from Galle City Located 800m from the 4km post on the Akuressa Road from the Galle-Matara main road. Turn left into a lane opposite Walkers Building, 600 m down stand two white dagobas. Enter the red gates of Iluketia. The are other beautiful properties at affordable prices check out hoefernet.com for more information on prices and a bit of a look at his sumptuous range of properties.
Paperwork:
Australians do currently need a visa to go to Sri Lanka for 30 days, which can be extended at the main passport office for up to six months in the capital Colombo.
For More Information:
For the latest on what is happening check out the Thorn Tree on the Lonely Planet web site. Grab a copy of Lonely Planet’s Sri Lanka guide both on-line (updated weekly on tsunami related issues) and in printed guidebook form. For something more pictorial check out Insight’s fabulous Sri Lanka guide.
Getting There:
Singapore Airlines flies regularly to Colombo. Return Economy airfares for travel in the low season (1 Aug to 30 Sept) are AUD$1,269 plus taxes (AUD$1,335 ex Perth). They are currently offering a package deal including return flights from Sydney, airport transfer and 4 nights at the Galle Face Hotel with breakfast for AUD$1,742 plus AUD$292 tax per person. Valid for travel in August 2005.
get in the know! For years the Tamil areas of the north and east were off-limits as civil-war raged. But hidden gems such as Jaffna are now opening up.