Papua New Guinea Pictures

Papua New Guinea Pictures
PNG Photos

A Sing Sing festival participant, Mt Hagen, PNG.

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Papua New Guinea is a fascinating, brilliantly colourful country offering thick green landscapes and a fistful of unique cultures - with Huli wigmen in the Highlands, Sepik River Crocodile cultists and sensual Trobriand islanders offshore for starters. All these folk dress to kill [sometimes literally], and welcome PNG travellers taking pictures - after all if you had spent several years in wig school or hours getting made up in war paint you'd want someone to take home photos of your style too.

Rascals and Razorbarb: Security, or lack of it, is one reason why there are relatively few tourists in Papua New Guinea, whereas across the border in Indonesia they are overrun by big spenders. Mental pictures of large, muscular men wielding little axes can be discouraging. Some think the problem has arisen from a combination of over-education and inebriation. Young men are educated to have high expectations, become dissatisfied with the simple rustic life and leave their villages — and tribal law — for the town. In place of the pot of gold they find gangs of lost souls in the same jobless boat, and cans of golden brew for consolation. Thus a rascal is born.
The problem is acute in two or three large towns, with the scattered capital of Port Moresby as #1 on the hit list, leading to the popularity of security guards, dogs and razorbarb — hi-tech barbed wire that is effectively an endless, coiled razor blade and looks sensational when entwined with and perfumed by the omnipresent Hibiscus or Frangipani blossoms.
Budget travellers are a rare sight in PNG because locals stay and eat with wantoks, so inexpensive hotels and restaurants are few and far between, and not particularly safe. The only really secure way to travel is first class. Excellent, secure hotels can be found in all locations of interest, but at a price. So go lukluk, yu klia gut wantok?

Main activities in Papua New Guinea, apart from people watching involve hiking - including the famous Kokoda Trail or climbing around or up 4,000 metre Mt Wilhelm, bird watching - especially Birds of Paradise, boating down the Sepik River or around the Trobriand Islands and scuba diving.

Crocodile Cults: The Sepik river is the PNG's answer to the Amazon. A long, lazy stretch of muddy water patrolled by mosquitoes the size of golf balls, the Sepik drifts by scattered villages on stilts that hold more of Papua New Guinea's unique contributions to el mundo loco. Curly roofed Haus Tambarans house the local spirits, as well as superbly grotesque shell masks, penis gourds and other vital bric-a-brac on offer to passing travellers.
Crocodile symbolism is a recurring theme here, though the overhunted reptiles are rarely seen these days. House stilts, canoe prows and masks bear toothy carvings that remind locals of the days not long gone when young men hunted crocs by wading and stamping through chest deep water. When they trod on a dozing croc it was a race to see who grabbed who first. Macho times.
These days some men carry croc scars, but they get them from a tribal elder during a rite of manhood, not from an outraged reptile. After spending several months closeted in the exclusively male Haus Tambaran, being educated in the ways of the tribe, the young man's back and chest are deeply cut with razor blades in a pattern that imitates crocodile scales. Tree oil is rubbed in to disinfect the gashes, followed by mud to ensure the cuts heal as raised keloid scars.
Thus in one painful day the youth excises his mother's blood, and aquires the power and cunning of the crocodile. Physically the end result is both grotesque and appealing. Could this be a future fad in European body design?

Getting Wrecked: Very few people ever dive in Papua New Guinea, yet Tony Wheeler of the Lonely Planet Guide says that 'going to PNG without looking under the water would be like going to Nepal and not looking at the mountains,' and many professional divers claim that Papua New Guinea dives are second only to the Red Sea.
There are hundreds of kilometers of coral reef, much of it immediately offshore and untouched by human fin. The waters are warm and fertile, but the fishing industry is undeveloped, so large schools of large fish such as Sharks, Rays, Sailfish, Killer Whales and Dolphin are frequently sighted.
But the best reason to dive in PNG is the wrecks. The waters are littered with coral tufted ships and planes, mostly dating from the Japanese invasion of 1942. These reminders that imperialism doesn't pay can be as little as six metres down, with excellent visibility, and vary from armed merchant ships to a more-or-less intact B-25 Bomber.
The Bomber is magic. It rests at 15 meters, fully loaded with bombs, machine-gun bullets, diverse corals and fish. A huge barrel sponge balances on one wingtip, and purple fan corals stroke the undercarriage. The cockpit, from where you can see the bombs still in their racks, is home to a couple of kilos of understandably nervous minnows, while the bomb bay houses a clan of monster crayfish. The twin 50 cal. machine-guns of the upper gun turret are neatly delineated by cute pink coral. Here lies a sophisticated and costly killing machine gradually metamorphosing into a blue-tinted piece of surreal, animated, marine sculpture. All credit to Mother Nature, the supreme artist.

Best time to travel in Papua New Guinea: May-October. Worst: Dec-April [the wet season].

Papua New Guinea Pictures PNG Photos

Click on the face to see sixteen pages of PNG Photos or go below to choose pictures from a particular area:

Papua New Guinea Pictures © Julian Loader

Papua New Guinea Pictures
PNG Photos