Crowne Plaza Hotel Port Moresby

... the worst elements. It's definately no picnic and there's no doubt that bad things do happen but my experiences so far have been mainly positive. It pretty much all comes down to basic common sense and not making yourself a target by flashing cameras around etc...

I've met loads of locals who are all really friendly and very accomodating. I went into town with a local guy called Dean who was a security guard at ...

... for just along this stretch of coast. They usually were injured airplanes, limping home after bombing raids on the islands, and unable to climb over the mountains. The pilots would ditch the planes in the water. He said that they found one recently that went missing during the war. The local knew about where it was ditched – and the people from the plane were rescued – but the wreck had not been found. He also told us that Madang is usually quite ...

... more land to the port, then past the port, to the business area. Downtown sits on a hill, with a Crowne Plaza hotel on top, and a few 6-7 story buildings below. It covers a few blocks. Some lone men were out and about, but it is Sunday afternoon. We asked to stop at an ATM, but Jane, Wallee, and Kippy discussed amongst themselves and decided the airport bank was much the safest. Seems like time to get out Port Moresby.

Returned to the hotel to chill. Have decided we love ...

... juice and crackers. i serioulsy hate those crackers they give you, but i was hungry and forced some down - giving the rest to Amba. All the PA announcements had to be done in Japanese first, then English, as we were on a Japanese Airlines Flight. There was some Turbulance, but not too bad - just like a rollercoaster - that doesn't end. yay! We flew through alot of clouds and after we left flying over Australia - didnt see much land at all ...

... Que des papous ou sinon des asiatiques qui tiennent les restos. Apparemment ils sortent pas de chez eux. Via internet, j'avais pris contact avec un expat australien et le soir il m'a emmené à différents endroits : - le Yacht club : Club très fermé, pas un papou à part ceux qui bossent et que des blancs. C'est leur lieu de rencontre. Les hommes bossent et leurs femmes se font chier et passent leur temps au Yacht Club à papoter entre expats et boire des ...

Zero sleep! Definitely tenting it tonight! Some of the slower walkers started a bit earlier while we went up to the ridge where the village was and watched the sunrise as the cloud lifted. Unbelievable! Then it was up, up, UP - over many false peaks on the way to the top of the Maguli Range. Then it was down for long, steep descent before getting steeper and muddier with LOTS of tree roots. At the bottom we had lunch at Ofi Creek ...

... Well, needless to say I got down VERY quickly! Rachel sprayed it when it crawled onto the ceiling and then it fell onto my bed! After Rachel and Bethany stopped screaming, we were all laughing hysterically at ourselves and the roach disappeared! I was not about to sleep up there if that thing was going to crawl on me, so we called Logan to come save us from the roach...I still cannot believe that we called him down there! He came and killed one and then one crawled ...

... how to set up a church there. Our Australia part of the trip is also a slight problem. We decided to go with the train idea of transportation because we could get some really (really is a relative term) cheap tickets, but they have to be shipped to America because it is only for people from America. Thankfully there is a group coming over here in a few weeks that can bring them and Luke knows the guy in charge of the group coming; so we had them shipped to him. Please pray that ...

... like the buffalo to the American Indians. They use every part of the tree. They eat sago (NOT my favorite meal I must add), they build with sago, they dress with sago, they sleep on sago mats.well, you get the picture. It looks like a coconut tree except that instead of having coconuts on it, it has bunches of red seeds. (I'm sure you can look-up a picture of it online) Anyway, Wesley, one of the Christians from Gama (a local village with a ...