Tips for the Jet Lagged

Below is a link to my piece in the current 50+ Fabulous e-zine. It's about jet lag. Travelers planning to cross the time zones to Papua New Guinea may find some helpful tips there.

http://www.50fabulous.com/about/expert/Mary%20Jane%20Murray/

Mayflies in August

The river connects the Blackwater Lakes with the Sepik. Aboard the flat bottomed boat used for exploring these waterways, we travel downstream towards our base, the MV Sepik Spirit with its air-conditioning, cold beer, refreshing showers.

Most are sorting through private thoughts about the day's experiences: meandering along pathways between houses on stilts, giggling with students in bush material classrooms, lingering under the soaring roof of a Spirt Haus, meeting the carver of the wooden crocodile one passenger now holds in her lap.

Attention is suddenly drawn to the present and to the whiteness ahead. Surely it isn't a snow storm? Inquiring eyes go to the guide who, with great enthusiasm, announces: "They're hatching! Mayflies! Mayflies!"

"Mayflies?"

"Yes, Mayflies!"

"Wow! Mayflies!"

"Cool! Mayflies!"

"Really? Mayflies?"

The boat driver cuts the engine. We're adrift through a blizzard of Mayflies. Thousands and thousands of Mayflies rise, fall and swirl around us.

There is something about sharing the air over the river with masses of gauzy winged insects that fills many with a genuine sense of wonder. Maybe the surprise of encountering this impressive act of nature takes us back to the first time we blew on a dandelion's fluffy seeds.

We watch fish jump from the water, plane along the surface and gather dozens of Mayflies into their open mouths. Birds swoop down for their big helpings.

Villagers, perhaps alerted by our repetition of "Mayflies!", canoe onto the river with pans and nets. In our excitement, we forget to ask how this alternative protein source, available only a few hours per year, is cooked.

We also forget to ask for the local name. There must be a name other than "Mayflies".

Mayfly recipes and local names remain questions for a future visit.

Wikipedia provides more general information including this: "The lifespan of an adult mayfly can vary from just 30 minutes to one day depending on the species. The primary function of the adult is reproduction; the mouthparts are vestigial, and the digestive system is filled with air."

So, the primary function of the Mayfly is reproduction. That means that on our way from the Blackwater Lakes to the Sepik River, we delayed a half hour amidst a Mayflowers' orgy. That's an unexpected private thought to add to the many others gathered today.

Landing in Tari

Even the most well traveled person experiences a rush when landing at Tari in Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands.

A quiet "wow" is often the first work uttered as the traveler steps off the plane onto Tari's airstrip. The air feels as fresh as Muskoka's. The sky looks as blue as Tahoe's. The rest of the scene isn't quite as familiar.

A baggage handler has a stem through his nose and ferns in his hair. Some faces are decorated with clay and paint.

Men walking along the roadway wear yarn caps in patterns that reunite colours perhaps reminiscent of the summer of '69.

An even more creative design sense has been used to create the woven bilum bags women are carrying over their foreheads, leaving hands free to carry firewood, gardening sticks and umbrellas.

And about those umbrellas, there are hundreds and hundreds of bright and over sized umbrellas opened as shelter from the sun. Where did they come from? All those colours, they are used in ways rarely encountered in visitors' regular lives.

After the initial "wow" factor is processed, there is the grope for cameras. Lens caps are removed. Electronics whirr in preparation to record. This landing marks the beginning of a very good trip.

A Head Full of Papua New Guinea

Am just back from Papua New Guinea with a head full of blog topics.

The Papua New Guinea experience resists organization and categorization so individual blog entries may be the most appropriate way to report on this trip full of wonders.

Our group of 17 well-traveled travelers visited the iconic regions of Papua New Guinea: the Southern Highlands and the Sepik River Lowlands. We attended the the Mount Hagen Sing Sing. We explored with enthusiasm and curiosity. Our minds and eyes were open to the wonderful.

We should have tried to estimate the number of photo images shot by the group. I wonder how many thousands it might have been. I hope to have the opportunity to see them all.

Knowing the trip would be well documented by generous and talented photographers, I rarely took my basic little camera out of its case. I had the luxury of letting the images make their impressions on my mind.

And that's where they swirl now: children waving from the riverside, a waterfall framed by a high altitude tropical forest, groupings of fantastically carved masks, a Bird of Paradise posed on a bare branch, three women carrying bilums full of sweet potatoes, human hair wigs on men with yellow faces, circles of sing sing dancers jumping as they drum, a "conga line" of overseas visitors dancing to the music of a bamboo band...

More focused blog entries will follow once the contents of my memory have been sorted and edited.

Communities

Today I attended a "summit" on Interactive Media. It made me think beyond the parameters of the screens on my laptop and phone.

The keynote speaker started with a discussion of the power of small communities. He showed slides of thatch roofed villages to illustrate his point that the new media's social networking communities have similarities to villages that look they could be in Papua New Guinea.

He talked about tribes discussing problems and working together for the common good and drew parallels to Twitter and Facebook groups.

Of course, I thought about Papua New Guineans communicating within their own clans: fire light reflecting in the faces of men discussing customary land boundaries and bride price payments; children's laughter in the background as old women advise young women about sweet potato gardening and bilum bag patterns.

The presenter made the point that over the past several decades, we lost much of our community way of life and now, by participating in social networking, we can build and participate in new communities. It's exciting.

The light of a computer screen reflects in our faces as we discuss, advise and keyboard our way back toward a community social structure Papua New Guineans have not yet lost.

Umbrellas

Travellers to Papua New Guinea are reminded to pack a collapsible umbrella. It will be appreciated as shade from the hot sun in the Sepik and Karawari areas and from the intense rays in the Southern and Western Highlands. And of course, it will protect from the regular afternoon rains in the highlands and the occasional tropical storms in the lowlands. Sun, rain and sometimes even wind, the collapsible umbrella is handy.

My collapsible umbrella is beige. I chose it because most travellers' umbrellas are black and I don't want my umbrella to get mixed up with all the other black umbrellas leaning inside the lodge door at dinner time.

Black is the standard colour of travellers' collapsible umbrellas. Papua New Guineans' umbrellas are brilliantly multi-hued and they don't collapse. They are big and bright and strong and they decorate the lush landscape as perfectly as the flowers that embellish a Sing Sing dancer's head dress. They are much more photogenic than basic black or bland beige.

Baggage Weight - a PNG Practical Matter

A highlight of many trips to Papua New Guinea is flying in a small aircraft over green covered mountains, rocky outcroppings and meandering rivers. There are few roads in Papua New Guinea.

On most flights between the remote lodges, each passenger is allowed one duffel-type bag weighing up to 22 pounds or 10 kilograms plus one small camera bag type carry-on weighing up to 11 pounds or 5 kilograms. With a little planning and paring down this baggage weight allocation is more than adequate for most travellers.

Travellers who do not pack within the guidelines may find themselves in the embarrassing situation of needing to unpack and scale back at the side of a grassy airstrip as a pilot waits to start the plane's engine.

Leap Day

New Year's Day 2008 has passed. The arrival of the Chinese Year of the Rat has passed.

Having missed those two significant days for new beginnings, I've settled on "Leap Day" as the day to renew my commitment to this blog.

Since the last entry, I've been to Papua New Guinea with thirteen other travelers. Our itinerary was PNG Travel's 2007 Mount Hagen Cultural Show Tour. I was the escort. It was a memorable trip on many levels and is sure to be an inspiration for future blog entries.

For now, I'm struggling to find a way to thematically link Leap Day with a blog entitled "Explore Papua New Guinea".

Here's to the seductive bounces of the displaying male Birds of Paradise.

Here's to the athletic jumps of the Sing Sing dancers.

And here's to the great leap taken by travelers to Papua New Guinea as they push off from a place of Cuisinart mixing and touch screen messaging to land in a place where sago is pounded for meals and garamuts are drummed for news.

Greg Stathakis: Incident in Santa Barbara

Greg Stathakis of PNG Travel posts about an incident in Santa Barbara.


This blog contribution may be relevant to publicity regarding Papua New Guinea's crime and tribal fighting.

Crimes against tourists are rare in P.N.G., especially on an escorted trip with a reputable trip operator. We are forthright about discussing this in our pre-trip information.

This week I took my Mom for a leisurely lunch in downtown Santa Barbara. Afterwards, driving from the restaurant area , I noted an unusual number of teenagers and pre-teens in the streets. A van in front of us was moving slowly through the neighborhood and people were going up to it to shake hands with its occupants.

That day during lunchtime, in front of Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Santa Barbara, a 15 year old boy was bludgeoned and fatally stabbed. Later in the day the van was identified as a vehicle possibly connected with the crime .

What made the impression especially disturbing is what followed that tragic event - the jubilation of the kids around the van in front of us.

I have watched documentaries depicting tribal battles and I have traveled through PNG almost 30 times. in as many years. Yet, I was sickened to witness, in "civilized" Santa Barbara, where I reside , a place never described as "primitive," - here in front of us was this most jubilant demonstration of an exalted state that follows tribal warfare.

Mary Jane, please post preceding on blog. Thanks, Greg
www.pngtravel.com

Yes, More about Electricity

The lights stay on most of the time.

Considering the general lack of infrastructure and public services in Papua New Guinea, there are impressively few power outages and the ones that happen are relatively short. Many visitors say they have traveled in countries where the electricity is far less reliable.

Ambua Lodge in the Southern Highlands has its own hydro system. It generates all the power for the lodge. Surplus power heats water which is circulated under a section of the main lodge's tile floor to help heat the dining area.

Like many hydro set-ups, audible signals are used to monitor changes in Ambua's system. Guests socializing in the dining room before dinner, may hear a bell sounding from the kitchen. No, it's not the dinner bell, dinner at Ambua is announced by a drum beat. The bell is a signal that the hydro system is properly adapting to fluctuations at this time of high demand.

Down in the the East Sepik Province, the Sepik Spirit generates its own electricity to run everything on board. That includes the greatly appreciated air-conditioning system and bar coolers.

At the Highlander Hotel in Mount Hagen and at the Airways Hotel in Port Moresby, the electricity is supplied by the municipal power grids. Both of these hotels have generators to produce their own electricity if there is a local power failure.

Of course, travelers carry their own sources of light in case of a power outage or the opportunity for a night time stroll. Many are switching from flashlights to LED headlamps. The headlamps throw a bright light, are compact and those taking one AAA battery are remarkably lightweight. While LED lamps tend not to need frequent battery changes, you should bring one or two extras. Availability in parts of PNG is limited.

One more note about these headlamps, they are the ideal compromise for reading in bed when your room mate wants the lights off.

240 Volts at 50 Hz and Type I Plugs

If you are planning to take a camera battery charger or anything else powered by electricity to Papua New Guinea, you may need some, if not all, of the following information:

1. The voltage is 240v
2. The frequency is 50hz
3. The wall plugs are Type I, the ones with diagonal pins, same as Australia's

To get a North Amercian plug into a Type I wall socket, you need a plug adaptor. The plug adaptor does not change the voltage. It merely allows you to plug your piece of equipment into the wall outlet and that can be a dangerous thing to do.

To avoid the snap, crackle and expletive of 120v gear, being "cooked" by 240v of electricity, you need either a step-down converter or step-down transformer. If you want to power something electronic, you will need a transformer. Transformers are usually more expensive than converters.

When not in use, transformers and converters should be unplugged from the socket to avoid risk of damage to them from unstable current.

If you are not completely confident about what you need and how to use it, I strongly recommend that you check with the shop where you purchased your equipment. They can advise about your specific needs. You may be pleasantly surprised to discover that your gear can operate on both North American 110V and 240v and that all you need is the plug adaptor.

When thinking about the equipment you will use, consider that there is a strict baggage weight limit of 22 pounds on flights within PNG. There will be more information on baggage limits in a future posting.

A Photographer's Paradise

Papua New Guinea is paradise for a photographer. Surrounded by the photogenic, there is constant temptation to frame, focus and shoot.

The list of subjects is endless: painted faces, proud families, thatch-roofed villages, super-sized moths, morning mists, waterfalls, orchids, children....

Sing Sing dancers in their bilas are the most obvious and possibly the most exciting subject matter for photographers. Proud of their appearance and traditions, and pleased that visitors are interested, the dancers invariably and graciously agree to photographers' requests for one more shot.

In addition to the Sing Sing groups, a traveler's PNG album could include: bright green landscapes taken through aircraft windows, shadowy Spirit Haus interiors taken by invitation, hands weaving bush string bilums, villagers enjoying the Sing Sing. I'll stop this list here as I think I've made the point that PNG is seductive paradise for photographers.

Only those seeking a shot of a Bird of Paradise in the wild risk disappointment. Professional nature photographers spend weeks crouched behind blinds waiting to get shots for their natural history programs and publications. These professionals report that certain Birds of Paradise are among the world's most difficult wildlife to photograph.

Pack more film, memory cards and batteries than you think you will need. It would be a fluke to find those items in PNG.

If you use equipment that needs recharging, be sure you have the correct conversion equipment. I recall a traveler whose spouse forgot the transformer. His face looked like he'd bitten into a sour apple.

More information about electricity in PNG will be in a future posting.

Greg Stathakis: International Air

Greg Stathakis of PNG Travel posts about arranging air from USA to PNG:

People ask about how many clients I have escorted through PNG since 1978. Many hundreds of clients have bought our Highlands Festival trips and recently the only potentially frustrating part of the trip for travelers is arranging the international flights to and from PNG.

It's a long trip and there are travelers' options and preferences and brand allegiances to consider. Over the years, with the rise of online booking and the general decline in customer service, organizing the air to PNG has become a daunting task for some travelers.

After twenty-seven years, I've learned what kind of assistance is usually most helpful. Travelers' international air needs vary but here are some general approaches I take to easing the process:

Provide personalized advice for travelers, based on current direct booking and website specials.

Place conference calls with a chosen airline and traveler and, together, ask questions to help the traveler secure a good price and routing.

Recommend an airline ticket consolidator with proven experience in PNG arrangements.

Hold travelers' reservation on the highlands trips until their air travel is secured.

Advocate for travelers and respect their needs to use the airline which best serves them.

It should be noted that we do not sell or profit from international air tickets. We are without hidden loyalties. Our loyalty is to the travelers on our highland show trips.

Mary Jane, please post the preceding for me. Thanks, Greg
www.pngtravel.com

At the Show Grounds

There's a grassy area about the size of a football field and it will soon be pounded with more gusto than three NFL teams muster in five quarters of play.

The field's perimeter is lined with the curious, the excited, the anticipatory. Spectators have traveled along pathways, across rivers and over oceans. Most are there to celebrate their culture. We're there to marvel at the celebration.

One by one, the Sing Sing groups enter the field. They drum, chant and jump in a display of finery and athleticism. Rhythms, colours, vibrations...is it too far over the top to say, " a Super Bowl half time show on steroids"?

And we have the Hagen Show equivalent of box seats.

Heading to the Sing Sing

The organizing committee calls it The Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Tour operators call it the Highlands Show or the Cultural Festival. The highlanders call it The Sing Sing.

Beyond the major centres, few homes have electricity. Televisions, DVD players, satellite receivers and cable service are rare. The Hagen Sing Sing is a popular entertainment event as well as a traditional gathering.

Highlanders hike the trails from their villages to the road and catch a PMV to Mount Hagen for the show. PMVs are the not so rapid public transit of PNG. The vehicles used are customized trucks with benches bolted into the floor and a canvas awning lashed overhead.

Many of the highland roads are unpaved. Most are in poor repair. The PMVs are crowded. The journey may be bumpy and uncomfortable, but spirits are obviously high. Passengers join in chanting and singing as they travel towards Mount Hagen for Show Weekend.

Once in Hagen, out-of-towners usually stay in the homes of wantoks. Days are spent at The Sing Sing. Evenings are spent with family, telling stories and catching up on news.

While we will arrive by airplane and be accommodated in a hotel, we will share the exciting experience of The Sing Sing with the Highlanders.

PNG = Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is often called PNG.

If we started a list of other countries named with too many syllables to efficiently pronounce, we'd have USA, DR, BVI, RSA, UK. There must be more.

Port Moresby, the capital of PNG, is often called POM.

Well Traveled

"Well Traveled", I used that term in the post below. Mike, my husband, asked me to define it.

Well now, what did I mean by "well traveled"?

Mike reminds me that an impressive number of travelers we met in Papua New Guinea had been to both Antarctica and the Amazon before exploring Papua New Guinea. They were obviously well traveled.

We met an equally impressive number of travelers who had been to more than 100 countries and were members the Century Club of Travelers. And yes, they were obviously well traveled.

And there was that solo traveler, a flight attendant with a major American airline, who told us she and colleagues were competing to see who could travel to the most countries within a set period of time. Their criteria for being able to say they had "been" somewhere was to do two of the following three: drink a beer, spend US$100, have sex.

The charming flight attendant told us she had drunk a lot of beer and spent a lot of money in her quest to win the competition. And yes, she was obviously well traveled.

Am I well traveled? I've done my share of traveling but I haven't yet been to Antarctica or the Amazon. Membership in the Century Club will surely remain beyond my reach in part because I tend to go back to places I like. And I'd never do well in that flight attendant's competition as I like to travel slowly enough to savour a place.

So I'm not sure if I'm well traveled but I certainly know I like to travel well. And that doesn't answer Mike's request to define "well traveled". Comments would be helpful here.

Three of the 1000 Places

Visitors to Papua New Guinea tend to be well-traveled. One of the genuine pleasures of living there was meeting people who had been to the world's most exotic and exciting destinations. They almost always placed Papua New Guinea at or near the top of their best travel experiences.

Many of those travelers seemed to have enough experience to write a book like the New York Times best seller: 1,000 Places to See Before You Die--A Traveler's Life List by Patricia Schultz. Widely available in bookshops, gift shops and travel supply stores, this book sits on the shelves of countless active and armchair travelers.

As you probably know, the popular book lists and briefly describes a wide range of not-to-be-missed places from around the world. I count 189 places in the United States, forty-eight in France, twenty-two in Australia, eight in Fiji and an impressive three in Papua New Guinea.

Those three places in Papua New Guinea are: Ambua Lodge, Sepik Spirit and The Highland Sing-Sing Festival in Mount Hagen..all are on the classic Mount Hagen Cultural Show itineraries.

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Night Skies

There's a full moon tonight, reminding me to check and see if there might be one during our Mount Hagen Highlands Show itinerary.

It looks like we'll be ahead of it. The itinerary ends on August 21 and the full moon is on August 28. So, we won't have moonlit nights but we will have starry ones.

I'm looking forward to those black velvet and diamond night skies. I'm not an astronomer, not even an amateur one, but I do enjoy a night sky unpolluted by artificial lights from cities, highways and ski slopes.

By the way, I saw on the Internet that there will be a lunar eclipse visible in the Southern Hemisphere on August 28. Travelers who plan to spend time in Australia after Papua New Guinea may see it.

Mount Hagen Highlands Show Tour -- August, 2007

A new year brings a new project. I have been asked to escort a group of travelers to Papua New Guinea and the itinerary is la creme de la creme of Papua New Guinea itineraries: The Mount Hagen Highlands Show Tour--August 9 to 21.

Yes, we're going to the Mount Hagen Sing Sing and the land of the Huli and the Sepik area and, and, and.... Yes, it's going to be a trip, a memorable trip.

This blog is intended to inform travelers about travel in Papua New Guinea with emphasis on The Highlands Show Tour. I will write it from the perspective of the escort, a different perspective than most travel blogs.

Thanks to Greg Stathakis for tapping me on the shoulder and suggesting the time is right for me to escort this group. Greg has been taking travelers to Papua New Guinea for twenty-seven years. He is escorting a group to Papua New Guinea in May and I am honoured to escort his August Mount Hagen Highlands Show Tour.

On with this blog. I'm new to this form of communication. I thank Susan, my friend and fellow adventurer, for nudging me along on another learning curve.

The itinerary for The Mount Hagen Highlands Show Tour, images and bilums full of comments and observations will follow.