{"id":988,"date":"2012-08-18T06:16:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-18T06:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/?p=988"},"modified":"2012-08-20T07:53:16","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T07:53:16","slug":"bats-and-coconuts-welcome-to-papua-new-guinea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/08\/bats-and-coconuts-welcome-to-papua-new-guinea\/","title":{"rendered":"Bats and Coconuts \u2013 Welcome to Papua New Guinea"},"content":{"rendered":"<script type='text\/javascript'>_wpaudio.enc['wpaudio-6a3785bee48fa'] = '\\u0068\\u0074\\u0074\\u0070\\u003a\\u002f\\u002f\\u0077\\u0077\\u0077\\u002e\\u0076\\u0069\\u0067\\u0067\\u0065\\u0072\\u0073\\u002e\\u0063\\u006f\\u006d\\u002f\\u0072\\u006f\\u0075\\u006e\\u0064\\u0074\\u0068\\u0065\\u0077\\u006f\\u0072\\u006c\\u0064\\u002f\\u0073\\u006f\\u0075\\u006e\\u0064\\u0074\\u0072\\u0061\\u0063\\u006b\\u002f\\u0070\\u0061\\u0070\\u0075\\u0061\\u006e\\u0065\\u0077\\u0067\\u0075\\u0069\\u006e\\u0065\\u0061\\u002e\\u006d\\u0070\\u0033';<\/script><a id='wpaudio-6a3785bee48fa' class='wpaudio wpaudio-nodl wpaudio-enc' href='#'>This song is actually called 'Papua New Guinea', although I have absolutely no idea why. It sounds exactly like nothing you hear in PNG<\/a>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When we set off from NYC back at the end of May, one of our observations was that there was no hard start to our trip. We drifted away from the very familiar surroundings of the East Coast into gradually more unusual places. Regular subscribers (all 27 of you! Hurray!) may remember <a title=\"this post\" href=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/06\/time-flies\/\" target=\"_blank\">this post<\/a>\u00a0from back then describing how it felt. Had we started in PNG, all of that pseudo-intellectual musing would have been moot. PNG is different \u2013 very different. We are actually writing these posts in the Solomon Islands, having left PNG (we always stagger our posts a little behind time to allow a buffer for inevitable internet blackouts) and we have now had at least some time and distance to digest the trip. What will follow is a mix of the usual frivolous nonsense and at least a couple of relatively thoughtful notes on our impressions of the country. PNG certainly makes you think. We had an amazing time there, and would recommend it whole-heartedly to <em>some<\/em> of our friends.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, back to the good stuff:<\/p>\n<p>We arrived in Port Moresby on a flight from Cairns and (following good advice from people we trust) immediately left town without setting foot outside the airport. The best hotel in Port Moresby is actually situated just beside the airport, and is designed to allow travelers to pay a hefty premium have <em>absolutely nothing<\/em> to do with the capital city of PNG (we will post on our return journey another time). We had selected the sleepy seaside town of Madang as our first stop, based on which flights had the shortest connection in Port Moresby, and arrived later that afternoon wide eyed.<\/p>\n<p>Bats, sir. Thaasands of them. Where you might normally expect gulls in a town by the sea, Madang has bloody great fruit bats. They roost hundreds at a time in bloody great trees when they aren&#8217;t flocking around in dark, ominous-looking, bloody great clouds. (Interesting Galapagos-type factoid: there seemed to be no bat poop under the roosting trees, perhaps because they roost upside down?). Apparently they taste pretty good, but we didn&#8217;t find anywhere which served them. Instead we ate at one of the best-rated restaurants in PNG (no joke) \u2013 a walled-off part of corrugated iron shed called &#8220;Eden&#8221;, which couldn&#8217;t have looked less pre-possessing if it tried but which served a mighty fine rendang.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-988 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Bats-sir-The-view-from-our-hotel-room.jpg'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/01.-Bats-sir-The-view-from-our-hotel-room-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Bats, sir. The view from our hotel room.\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-997\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-997'>\n\t\t\t\tBats, sir. The view from our hotel room.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/02.-Zoomy-zoom-on-a-bat-roost.-We-STILL-love-our-camera.jpg'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/02.-Zoomy-zoom-on-a-bat-roost.-We-STILL-love-our-camera-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Zoomy zoom on a bat roost. We STILL love our camera\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-998\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-998'>\n\t\t\t\tZoomy zoom on a bat roost. We STILL love our camera\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/03.-James-gets-a-boyfriend-point-for-bashing-open-Lucys-first-coconut.-Also-does-cockroaches.jpg'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/03.-James-gets-a-boyfriend-point-for-bashing-open-Lucys-first-coconut.-Also-does-cockroaches-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"James gets a boyfriend point for bashing open Lucy&#039;s first coconut. Also does cockroaches\" loading=\"lazy\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-999\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-999'>\n\t\t\t\tJames gets a boyfriend point for bashing open Lucy&#8217;s first coconut. Also does cockroaches\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>We are trying hard to avoid &#8220;been-there-done-that-itis&#8221; where our blog is simply a teenage diary-style list of things we have done. It is going to be hard for PNG, given the amazing s*** we got up to. Let&#8217;s just say, after a day of walking around town, sipping beer and eating coconut flesh, we decided that Madang wasn&#8217;t sufficiently intrepid. Next stop the Sepik River!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; When we set off from NYC back at the end of May, one of our observations was that there was no hard start to our trip. We drifted away from the very familiar surroundings of the East Coast into &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/2012\/08\/bats-and-coconuts-welcome-to-papua-new-guinea\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions\/1015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.viggers.com\/roundtheworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}