Coordinating tours in the far remote of East Sepik and Simbai

It was the busiest time of the year with traffic at the airport and lots of passengers rushing in for check-in. We pushed our way through and finally made to the counter. Not long, we had our boarding call. It was about 15minutes into our boarding time as Jane and I dashed our way through the security checkpoint and out to gate number 10 to board our Air Niugini flight. We were the last passengers to board the aircraft and took off at around 5am. It was the coldest morning of Saturday 4^th December 2010.

We landed safely at Wewak's Boram Airport at 6 and the sky gave a clear dawn in the east with a spectacular sunrise view over the horizon. The hotel-shuttle bus was in time to pick us up to Boutique Hotel where we were accommodated for three nights.

Theo - arriving at East Sepik's Boram Airport

 



Sunrise at Boram Airport





We refreshed ourselves for an hour before going for an exploration into Wewak town as first-timers. We scanned through the shops in town without interest and wandered down to Dagua Market. It took us about half an hour walk from town through compounds before finally discovering the market.

It was a good morning stroll before arriving at Dagua fresh food market, an open air-market with installed canopies that sellers used to shade themselves from the sun-ray. A lot of fresh fruits and vegetables including sagos and nearly most of the protein sold were dried and smoked fish. There were other store goods as well as local artifacts sold at the roadside. Jane and I bought a couple of pig’s tusk for our tourists as their souvenirs. We then moved on buying fresh pineapples, banana, cucumbers, pawpaw and other tropical fruits for our following days’ tours: the Muschu-Kairiru Islands tours and Middle-Sepik River expedition.

At 3:30pm, we drove on the hotel-shuttle bus to the airport to receive our clients: a father and son, respectively Jonathan and Yahaley Saar from the holy land of Israel. The tourists arrived on time but unfortunately without their luggage. We were informed that most of the passengers with our clients who travelled on PX126 flight via Madang also came without their luggage. We were very disappointed and contacted Air Niugini office in Port Moresby to locate and priorities the tourists’ luggage on the next flight to Wewak (which was on Sunday afternoon), in which Air Niugini cargo services was genuine enough to solve our problem.

Muschu-Kairiru Islands: DAY 1 - Sunday 5^th

On Sunday 5^th December I woke up early in the morning at 6:20am before my set alarm went off at 6:30am to get ourselves organized for the first day's tour with the tourists. I got the esky, umbrellas; two bunches of ripe bananas and two large pineapples from my room to the verandah. Jane filled the esky with bottled water while I went to the reception to arrange for the kitchen staff to peel our pineapples and arranged for the party ice. The pineapples were peeled, chopped and packed neatly in three take-away lunch boxes. I took the packed pineapples upstairs and topped them into the esky on the water bottles with the ripe bananas. By then, it was 7am when we met with one of our local guides, Wolfy Kalem.

We loaded all our cargos onto the hotel's 15-seater bus and got on with our tourists. It was the first day of the whole tour and the clients were excited to begin their first ever experience in Papua New Guinea!

Muschu Island

The speed boat, powered by 40Horse-power Endura motor left the wharf at 8:30am and arrived on Muschu Island at Sup village in the eastern side of the isle at around 9am.

A lonely village at Muschu Island

It was raining shower when the speed boat dashed over the crashing waves and against the northern winds as we soared over the waves, taking heed of ourselves from the pouring shower. We took out umbrellas and gave to our clients who sheltered themselves and gazed excitingly at the breaking waves through the journey before reaching Muschu Island.

The people on that side of the island make up the small portion that speaks Tau language together with the Kairiru islanders, while the majority of the population on Muschu are Yangoru speakers. Like the Kairiru islanders, the Muschu islanders often eat sago and taro as their main staple food.

An exotic glimpse of Muschu Island beach

The place was quiet and peaceful when we arrived at Sup village consisting of about four scattered village houses. The villagers were all gone for church service and only a couple of locals where there to receive us for the sight-seeing to the amazing white sandy and coral beaches that was very romantic and peaceful on that lonely part of the island.

We departed Mushcu Island from Sup village at 11am for Kairiru Island.

Kairiru Island

It took us 50minutes before arriving on Kairiru Island at Shagur village at around 11:50am.

On our way, we went past Namasi, Krakur and Pou Primary School before reaching Shagur village. We were told that the Wewak Open MP, Moses Manuau originates from Krakur village in which his village people were given turn to offer us a traditional welcome at Shagur. Jane and I became part of the tourists and were given a warm welcome with flower laces around our neck with the clients upon arrival. The cultural dance and the chant from the traditional sing-sing was marvelous and very welcoming to us as first time visitors to that part of the world!

Tourist taking shots with cultural dancers

The cultural dance went on for 15minutes before lunch at noon. During the lunch, the villagers kept on entertaining the tourists by performing different cultural dances with a comedy drama portraying the first European visit to that island during the colonial times.

Waterfall on Kairiru Island

After lunch at 1:30pm I escorted the tourists with local guides up to a mountain-side to discover a spectacular waterfall while Jane stayed at the village giving awareness to the locals the concept and importance of ecotourism. It was a 20minute walk to the magnificent waterfall, about 10meters high from the cliff. The waterfall was chilling cold that the tourists enjoyed the delight of its naturally untouched surroundings as they cool themselves having a shower from the non-stop pouring of the natural water.

We arrived back at the village at 2pm and continued our tour to a hot-spring at 2:25pm via Pruan village. It was a 15minutes speed boat trip from Shagur to Pruan Village. We then left at 2:45pm for a 1hr-trek to the hot-spring.

The sea-side trek from Pruan to the hot-spring passes through Kililu village and a couple of hot streams that run down to the beachside with the sulfuric smell in the atmosphere. Final one-quarter of the trek passes through a couple of steep climb over the ridge and into the beautiful forest vines and overlooking the Victoria Bay back to the start (Pruan village) of the one-hour trek.

As soon as we arrived at the host-spring at 3:50pm, Jane and the motor crew arrived as well to pick us up in time. We spent 10minutes taking shots at the hot-spring and threw some green bananas on the hot-spring and left cooked in no time! The clients had a bit of taste of the naturally cooked bananas and enjoyed the amazement of the simmering, spouting spring before departing to Wewak at 4pm for an hour’s travel.

Middle-Sepik River Expedition: Day 2 - Monday 6^th December

We left the hotel at 6:35am and arrived at the MAF airport gate at 6:45am. We waited for 20minutes before the gate was opened. While waiting we made several calls to Timbunke to confirm our travel to the Middle-Sepik River expedition. We got on the small aircraft (MAF, GA8 7-Seater) and departed at 8am for 25minutes flight before arriving at Timbunke airstrip.



Aerial view of Timbumke airstrip



Tourist trying out mask

 On arrival, we met our local guide; Albert Lumut who took us for the Sepik River expedition. We left Timbunke by motor canoe at 8:45am and traveled upstream. Our first stop was at Kaminabit, sounded like 'come in a bit' yes that's right we went in a bit to rest our canoe at the riverside. It was about an hour's trip. After 15minutes of brief artifact tour, we departed for the second village known as Simbuluman within Kaminabit further 10 minutes upstream. Upon arrival, the villagers gave us a warm welcome with a traditional dance. It was very exciting to see the villagers fully dressed up with their exalted traditional costumes engaging most of the youths.

There were villagers who spread mats and sold their most unique and prestigious traditional artifacts. We had a good glance through all the artifacts and praised the villagers for displaying their unique products.

At 11:15am, we departed for Palimbei. It was a 45minutes trip when we arrived. However, we decided to turn back to Kanganaman just 5minutes across the riverside considering our clients didn't have breakfast. We arrived at Kanganaman at noon and walked to the guest house to have our lunch before proceeding to the House Tambaran (the house of spirits). However, the locals were not ready to receive us so I took the clients with the local guide and went to visit the House Tambaran while Jane stayed with the motor operator to organize our local lunch.

We departed Kanganaman for Pagwi station at around 2pm. It was a long two-hour trip to the station that the tourists fell asleep including myself in the canoe without knowing Jane taking photos at us snoozing away!

Snoozing away! on a long canoe expedition, upstream towards Papwi station

The 15-seater hire bus, fully air-conditioned and owned by Gilbert Djata was already on standby when we arrived. We loaded all our cargoes before departing for Wewak at 4pm. The road from Pagwi to Wewak town was recently being constructed and part of it was in construction when we drove past. It was a good afternoon drive to the capital! The drive took us well over a 3hours drive stopping at couple of points of interest including the local markets along the journey buying fresh fruits and vegetables before arriving at our hotel-base at 7:15pm.

Simbai: Day 3

Tuesday 7^th December

We departed Wewak’s Boram Airport at 8:50am and landed safely at Simbai airstrip at 9:40am.

This was a very frightening and exhilarating trip for me as I was told by the local pilot, Captain Stanley Namalok (previously flew Air Link and now with TNT for 5years and has over 13years of flying experience) to sit next to him in front as a co-pilot. That was something I've dreamt of and flying in front with the pilot was a once-in-a-life-time experience and very exciting for me as a traveler!

We flew steadily on an altitude of 9000 feet before approaching Simbai, south-east of our point of departure. It was a bit foggy when we flew over Simbai. The thick clouds blocked our sight to spot the airstrip and did some couple of circles in the air looking for a way through the huge clouds.

Finally, we touched down at 9:42am. We had traffic in the air delaying our ETA as there was another aircraft that landed before us soon after we landed. Not long we saw another one landing just after 15 minutes on our arrival at the airstrip. This clearly indicated how busy the small air-strip was at that particular day with visitors traveling to Simbai, the highlands of Madang province.

We met Ronald and went to Wenchrau village where we were given a warm welcome by the famous Bettle-shell head-dressers of the Kalam tribe of Simbai. The local people were very friendly and were shown around the place with the tourists.

bettle-shell headdress

Locals heating stones for traditional mumu

Israeli tourist taking shots at local bettle-headdressers

bettle-shell headressers performing a cultural welcome dance

The villagers had a display of traditional way of making fire and did a traditional mumu (a traditional method of cooking where food is placed on the heated stones in a ditch and covered carefully with leaves and additionally covered by soil to conceal all the heat and steam for the food to cook) for the tourists to witness. We then left for lunch at around noon. The hospitality provided by the locals was great.

After lunch, I got the clients with Ashron, a local guide and tourism student of Divine Word University and went sightseeing before arriving at the airstrip at 2:10pm.

Touching down at Mt. Hagen's Kagamuga Airport

We departed Simbai airstrip at 2:20pm and arrived at 3:05pm hours at Mt Hagen's Kagamuga Airport.

Jane and the clients left as soon as we arrived while I stayed back to do an inventory to other selected tourism products near Mt Hagen, Western Highlands province.