Back in Hagen after three weeks of holiday in PNG and I feel like being home. My Mum and I stayed one week in Mt. Hagen. During this first week of my mothers holiday I still worked in the hospital. After this week we set out to explore the coastal regions of PNG. I already put a fast story on the blog in Alotau and now I think I shouldn’t have done that. It sort of ruined a complete story, but what can I do, I’m an addict.
I’ll just start the story with some more pictures from Alotau. I recently got a program that allows me to merge multiple pictures and so I made some panoramic pictures from the coastline of Alotau and the most eastern point of PNG. If you click here you can download a picture of the coastline of Alotau. Here is a panoramic view of the East cape. You already saw the single shot, by the way. Pristine blue waters with my mum checking out the view on a jetty. Yes, you may become jealous. Everybody would be, so go ahead.
It was a week full of walking around town, snorkelling and a bush walk. Oh yeah, I still have a picture of that.

We went on a bush walk with a guide who explained the plants and how locals use them in daily life. Although the walk was kind of short, I now know how to survive in the bush… sort of.

After a week we took a boat to Tufi. I’ll explain Tufi later, because I want to tell you about the boat trip to Tufi first. When we booked the boat, my mother and I thought of being on it for two hours or so. Not soon after we bought the tickets we found out that it was going to be one and a half day. We also found out on the dock that the journey was going to be made in an old Japanese ferry going up and down the east coast of PNG. Not exactly sea worthy. We lined up on the dock with a heavy mind anyway and half Alotau showed up to say goodbye to their relatives. Fortunately the journey was everything but terrible. True, I slept on the floor while my mum slept comfortably on the bench, but the experience was awesome. Along the way we stopped at several little places along the coast. Sometimes the water was too shallow so the boat just lay still in the water and people in canoe’s came from everywhere up to pick up passengers, to bring some new passengers or to sell food.

It was an awesome site to see people working with their canoes in rough waters. When the canoes came closer I saw one of them was selling crabs. After discussing with Mum over the fact that you don’t need special pliers to open and eat them, I bought a crab with the size of a watermelon for 2 kina (50 eurocents).

I never had so much nice crab flesh in my life. Back home I would have paid a small fortune to eat it in a restaurant.
The end of the journey was rough, because Neptune decided to stir up the waves. But the destination was worth it. We arrived at Tufi. We decided to go to a luxuries dive resort. We climbed up the hill, belief it or not but there were fjords there, and wanted a room. Luckily there was one left. So after a copious meal we slept like nobodies business. Next morning there was snorkelling and diving in the planning. I dived and Mum snorkelled.

Again the reef was incredible. The coral was fantastic and the diversity in fish was also staggering. Afterwards we went back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and a glass of wine.

It was the most decadent place we stayed in during our holiday. Some other people took some pictures during our stay and they promised to email them to me. So hopefully I’ll post them some later time.
Tufi seen, so now we headed for Madang. A familiar place for me, so I could ask my wantoks for some entertainment. They came through, so we went to an island for some more snorkelling. The next day we had to do some more exercise, so we went for another bush walk with some friends from Madang.

It was gruelling hot again (I’m now peeling the skin of my back of all the sun I’ve had on my skin). After this big walk we sat down to have a talk with the locals and take a pmv back. Of course Mum had to cuddle a baby. And those are readily available in PNG. So here we are.

From here we went to Goroka and and I have to say I forgot to use the camera. We stayed there for a day and visited a friend. Again, like all the time during this holiday, I called her on the day to guide us around her work in Goroka. In the night I had a chat with a security guard from the hotel and he promised me land, a wife and a farm. If only I, a white man, were to come with him to his village. Sad but true, PNG people think white people know everything. I get these offers about twice a week. Good to know that if I wont succeed as a physiotherapist, I can always go to PNG and work as a farmer.
Next day we returned to Mt. Hagen.
With only one day left we climbed Mt. Kuta. This is a mountain close to Mt. Hagen. We took about two hours to get on the top. Unfortunately there was no bar there. But the next best thing is Poroman lodge. I can say I find this one of the cosiest places in PNG. Again I forgot the camera, so I have no pictures to show you. It would have been a nice contrast compared to the coast. We walked down, Mum packed, took a shower and I put her on the plane. So that is the end our holiday. I’m now back at work with full energy.