Life is quickly settling into a routine, get up, go for breakfast at the cliff-side restaurant, spend the rest of the day liaising with people, running errands or generally getting things done, capped of with drinks by the pool and dinner. Yesterday however the running errands part was pretty significant, and is easily the majority of the story.
After a few days of being on my own people are starting to arrive and since I now have some backup I figured it was time to head into town. We arranged travel through Scarlet Taxi, a local taxi company that is reputed to be safe and efficient which proved to be true. The driver was a good guy by the name of Paul and his car was clean, air-conditioned and seemed to be in generally good shape. Let’s contrast that to the first car we saw as we’re leaving the hotel, it was a beat-up mid-80s sedan, gigantic rust holes on the body work, the front bumper was hanging at an angle and the driver was peering out of the enormous hole in the windshield since the rest of it had been obscured by the shattering of the safety glass on impact!
Paul was good though, our first stop was the ANZ Bank to withdrawal some cash. Most of the machines here don’t accept North American bank cards and this bank was proclaimed by more than one person to be the one to go to. Like most things here it was surrounded by a massive iron fence that is topped off with loops of razor wire and access is granted through a manually operated gate. The sentries waved us in and we parked near the door, the driver stayed with the car and we crossed the red-stained parking lot to the bank door. The red stains are from a popular chew here called beetlenut. The people chew up the beetlenut plant and tuck it into their lip like a big wad of tobacco and then the resulting red juice is expectorated out onto the pavement; stop lights and intersections are a great place to see the red-stained ground and most sidewalks are covered with the stuff.
Arriving at the bank door we find they operate an “airlock” sort of system, you enter the first door which they close behind you and then the inner door is unlocked; only one door opens at a time and I presume if one were quick enough you could trap a bank robber in the plexiglass void between the doors… I wonder if they can suck the air out of it too, that’d be nasty! Anyway, the bank is filled with people, most of them waiting in line to talk to a teller and all of them with copious amounts of paperwork in hand; like most 3rd world counties PNG thrives on paperwork, gotta keep that timber industry lively after all! I spot the lone ATM near the back wall and head over and putting my card in am very careful to shield my PIN as I enter it. Really though, if I’m gonna get robbed its more likely to involve a machete than the theft of my PIN, we saw machetes at the store later on, but I’ll get to that. My card must have offended the ATM since it rudely spit my card out and insolently displayed an “ATM CLOSED” screen. Now what? The three of us are standing there, probably looking quite lost since there is no way we’ll be able to navigate the paper trail to get cash from Canada when a security guard mentions there are more ATMs outside. Outside is a trade off, we escape the stale BO smell but sacrifice the air conditioning; fortunately someone had the foresight to place the ATM line in the shade, and we queue up with the locals. Unlike many of the lines here, this one has a distinct start and end and actually moves at a good pace. We manage to get our money and head off to the next destination.
The next destination is the Hospital, part of our safety plan mandates that we check out the hospital in town to make sure that it can accommodate us in case of minor or major health issues. The best hospital here is the PIH, Pacific International Hospital and let me ask you, have you ever evaluated a hospital? As a non-medical person would you even know what to look for? Nope, me neither however a list of things to avoid is generally a matter of common sense. The signs out front offered all sorts of services from mammograms (its been forever since my last one) to cardiology and a full operating theatre; inside it’s clean and relatively new looking which is confirmed by the plaque outside that says it was built in 2001. We wander around the waiting/admitting area and take a peek down the corridor and decide that it looks good enough but that a full tank of gas in the aircraft is an excellent secondary plan.
After the hospital our only mission is to pick up some SIM cards for our cell phones. If you don’t know, a SIM card is basically a local identity chip that you can buy and pop into your phone and then you can make calls on the local network by buying more time. It’s a very flexible system, especially in countries where you aren’t likely to get people to sign up for an extended contract. Finding SIM cards proved difficult, more difficult than you’d expect, or perhaps not if you’ve never really tried. The first place we started was at the B-mobile headquarters, provider of mobile service and the best chance for us to find some cards; unfortunately the queue there was long and ambiguous and frankly I didn’t want to bother with it. I’d bought one the day before from someone that my driver had found but I couldn’t remember the name of the place or the location and today I had a new driver. We cruised around for awhile and stopped at a lot of different shops, all of them had the same story: no SIM cards in stock and it had been weeks since they were delivered any.
One of the clerks suggested Ori Lavi Haus (they seem to like the work Haus, I find that odd…) which was just down the street. OLH was a “mall” of sorts, it looked like a run-down office building that had been converted into shops and was teeming with people. In our search we had steadily moved deeper and deeper into town and thing were getting busier, and busier generally means more dangerous. We got out of the car in front of OLH and moved through the teeming mass of locals and the still air that spoke of poor circulation. We tried the first shop we came too but the line up there was completely ambiguous and we didn’t want to anger anyone by jumping the line nor did we feel comfortable enough to stick around and wait it out. The three of us stood there in the middle of the mall looking around trying to get our bearings and a security guard came over and asked us if he could help. We told him we were looking for SIM cards and he suggested a sporting goods and trophy store that was within sight; strangely enough it wasn’t our first trophy store of the day so the three of us followed him in. The proprietor was a very pale Asian fellow and he informed us that, like the other stores, he was all out of SIM cards. As we were standing there a local came over and tapped one of the guys on the shoulder, and in a moment of genuine kindness told him to take his wallet out of his back pocket and put it into his front pocket since there were many thieves around. He thanked the guy and we left the store. By now my skin was definitely starting to crawl and things just didn’t feel right to me. It wasn’t just the warning it was the whole atmosphere of the place, we got outta there and went back to the car. One of the guys told me later that as we were leaving two men moved on him and tried to grab his wallet bu that he managed to avoid them with a deft side-step.
Outside the adventure continued, our driver was nowhere to be seen and so we were waiting patiently by the car for him to return. The car felt like a place of safety and offered a mustering point so we were hesitant to leave it. As we were waiting the same security guard came over and said
“You need SIM cards, I know where to get them. One of you come with me, just one.”
Of all the bad ideas, this was king! In one voice we all said “no thank you, we’ll stay here!” and in the next few minutes our driver returned. We eventually found SIM cards but their inevitable discover is less of a story and doesn’t bear the telling. Now, it’s entirely possible that the malicious feeling was manufactured or enhanced by my already nervous state, but as one of the guys put it, “ya gotta go with your instincts.”
The remainder of the day was fairly mundane by comparison, we talked to a few people about the operation and met the incoming crew which was followed up by drinks at the poolside bar. I don’t want to give the impression that we live in fear for our lives here, certainly the situation is dangerous but we rarely leave this Nuiguinean-themed park we call a hotel, and that’s the saving grace. Unfortunately this tour won’t be much of a cultural exchange but coming home with the same number of holes I had when I left is a pretty good way to end a trip.
I haven’t got any pictures from our trip around town, so here are some of the hotel areas again.
Lounge by the pool
If I can’t go to a bar with dirty drunk chicks in work boots and thongs, I’m not going!
View of the airport
Table where I wrote this
Business Center aka the Orchid Lounge at the hotel
Safest way to be on a plane, anchored to the ground
Bridge in the jungle
View of the street
View of the street… and the fence
Beer in my fridge!
