Goroka Trip – Part #1

This past weekend I headed up to Goroka for a total of 4x days. This was my 3rd trip up to the Eastern Highlands town and was to be a little different to the previous two as I was travelling with Eli and staying with some of her relatives in a small village just outside of Goroka called “Massey”. Eli’s uncle Joel was also travelling with us and he was heading back to his village “Kaubasis” near the Eastern Highlands and Simbu border.

Most things in PNG are either late or never actually happen. Eli’s family had organised a PMV to pick us up from my place on campus at 7:00am. Guess what? The PMV turned up at home at 6:15am! My eyelids were still half glued to my eyeballs and I had not yet had my 1st smoke of coffee yet. We had 10mins to shower, pack and wake up. At the 6mins mark the PMV driver kept on beeping his horn and the other passenegers were starting to give us the evil eye so a coffee was definitely out of the question!

PMV‘s have had a fare share of attention and focus in previous blog posts. A very common form of transport for most PNG’ers. Cheap, nasty and fast !! The trip up to the Highlands is something that must be experienced if you want to get a feel for the grassroots of this country. On the “Brown pants” scale of 1 to 10 this trip was up there around the 8 or 9′s. The trip back on the Monday was almost a perfect 10!! (A score of 10 – guarantees the “brown pants” syndrome for sure).

Another of the idiosynchrocies with PMV‘s (especially the ones doing longer trips) is the fact that they will not depart until a full contingent is present. After being picked up from home we headed down to the main market bus stop to find additional passengers. For some reason the PMV drivers have no concept of finding a parking spot and having their bos cru go out and haggle passengers, they just drive around and around the bus stop itself, yelling their respective destinations. Sometimes they will reverse 10 metres and then go forward 10 metres, only to do the same thing all over again. I started to get car sick and we had not even left yet.

Travelling by PMV in PNG is a must if one wishes to travel on the cheap. Young and old, kids, cargo and in some cases animals all squashed in a small space. All in the same boat.

In PNG, a good fight is never far-away and during our “wait” at the main bus stop, three fights broke out. I managed to capture two of them with my camera. When I first arrived in PNG and for the first few months, fights in public places would freak me out, the fear within was triggered something severe. Nowadays, I am a little bit more relaxed when violence erupts albeit still cautious. When a situation does “erupt” there is an inevitable movement of crowds towards the source of “entertainment”, all persons contending for front row seats to the “free show”. In the above photo there is a woman being “whisked” away, with the crowds in tow. If you check out the faces of the followers you will see the joy on their faces. PNG men and women alike seem to be partial to a good “biff”.

All photos from this trip will be posted to the Goroka Trip (17/2/06) photo album.

Story to be continued…