We are thinking of creating a new blog category called “Escape from…”

I don’t know how it happens, but Lucy and I will be having a perfectly happy time pootling round some lovely part of the world. Things will be going smoothly: buses will turn up reasonably on time, planes will run (sometimes early), tour guides will fulfill promises made, everything will be great. Then, over the horizon will come … a flight connection perhaps, a planned tour maybe, something from the outside world which was preplanned and Cannot Be Missed. Suddenly, it seems like everyone disappears, everything grinds to a halt and seemingly insurmountable obstacles stand in our way. So it was with Ambrym.

We were relaxing after our epic volcano trek. We had a thoroughly-deserved day off, ensuring that we didn’t miss the plane by the simple expedient of staying in Sam’s guest house (it is not only close to the airport; Sam is the airport). There were no showers, but the ground water was heated by lava and so bucket showers from the well were warm and toasty. We were given as much rice as we could eat. Life was great.

Then our plane was cancelled. “Don’t worry.” says Sam “We will get you off tomorrow.” We waited a day before it was cancelled. “Don’t worry.” says Sam “We will get you off tomorrow.” And then your connection will be the day after, so we can get you to your destination – ooh – three days late. Assuming that your connecting flight runs, which it probably will. Or it might not. Two weeks in Vanuatu you say? Once in a lifetime you say? Oh, so sorry about wasting a quarter of your trip loitering around an airstrip.

Lucy and I are relatively seasoned problem solvers – it was what we used to do for a living, I guess. We ran through the options: we called Air Vanuatu and gave them hell (no dice); I heard about a passing ship and strolled down to the harbor to see if they would give us a lift (deck passengers only, heading in a direction best described as “off the edge of the world”); we looked to see if we could make a short hop to another island and fly from there (no); and … er … that was it. Only one airline flies to Ambrym. Ships call once a week. The neighbouring islands are just as remote. There were no other options. We were stuck. We weren’t going to have time to do half the things we had wanted to do in Vanuatu, and we were deeply p***ed off.

Or not. In our problem solving bag of tricks, there is one that we try never to use. A Nuclear Option, if you will. We hate using it, but it sometimes works where nothing else does. There is a big red button with big white letters saying “Solve, with money”, and we pressed it – our private charter plane arrived soon afterwards.

And yet we had faced yet another difficult decision – due to the complex economics of inter-island flight we had two equally priced (expensive, but not too astronomical) options:

• A nine-seater Islander plane, allowing us to fly out not only ourselves but also our two friends Sergi and Miriam and the late additions of one chronically sick local guy and his wife who desperately needed to make it to the capital for medical treatment; or
• A three-seater REAL LIFE SEA PLANE that would take only Lucy and me, but the pilot of which promised that he would allow me to FLY THE PLANE MYSELF! And damn the others! YEAH!

Sigh. Cue two grateful Spaniards, two extraordinarily grateful islanders and a slightly wistful James. As a consolation prize the pilot of the nine-seater agreed to allow me to sit in the co-pilot’s seat so long as I agreed not to touch anything and not to squeal too loudly when he flew us between the first two islands at 150 feet, buzzing the occasional passing yacht.

We made it.

PNG can be a pretty scary place at times. It has a terrible reputation internationally, particularly in Australia which is close enough for the newspapers to carry articles about the constant local tribal wars. Probably the best vignette to sum up the reality, however, happens about twenty times a day: you will be walking in the street when up comes a large Melanesian man, scruffily dressed, pretty dirty, bearded, deeply aggressive looking and with dark red betel-stained teeth. Oh, and he’s carrying a two foot machete. He stops and looks at you. You smile as confidently as you can muster, say a cheery good afternoon and cross your fingers. He pauses, then breaks out into a huge grin, introduces himself as something deeply biblical (like Isaac or Joshua) and is instantly your best friend. It’s bizarre, slightly unnerving yet rather wonderful.

The tribal wars which make the newspapers are typically fairly ritualized affairs fought, say, on the local football pitch – in the days before guns, they used to attract spectators. Although collateral damage regularly involves the burning down of villages, it is pretty rare for an outsider to be caught up in them. Compensation for wartime killings is typically made in pigs and the systems of payment are relatively sophisticated: we recently saw a long line of stakes by the side of a road stretching towards a distant marker – each stake signifies a pig, and both sides visit the site at differing times, adding and removing stakes and moving the marker back and forth. Once the stakes reach the marker the negotiation is complete, the pigs are paid and everyone is friends again. And at no point does anybody call the police – again, either great or terrible, depending on how you look at it.

The other issue which surprised us rather was the cost of everything. Or rather, the value of everything. We don’t mind slumming it, and we don’t mind paying up for quality. What really gets our goat is overpaying for crap. There are virtually no mid-range hotels, and very few backpacker joints that you would want to trust your backpack to. Mining companies fill up the few hotels inflating prices – you can easily pay US$100+ for a hotel room that would cost you about $40 in the US, if anybody were prepared to stay there. Two chicken drum sticks and half a plate of oven chips will set you back $22. Internal flights (which you need to get anywhere at all, as there are few roads) can be US$700 each, one way. We spent many thousands of dollars in our three weeks here, and were by no means rushing around.

PNG has been utterly blessed with an extraordinary fertile climate – everything grows everywhere and seemingly everybody has a garden producing an excess of coconuts, bananas, sweet potatoes, passion fruit, papayas etc.. Fish jump out of the rivers for lack of room. Jungle runs rampage on uncultivated land, fence posts sprout leaves – it’s incredible. So why do they charge tourists the earth for crappy imported noodles, crappy imported tuna, crappy imported peanut butter and (actually quite nice) imported jam? The roads are typically third world country bad, but don’t reach into the interior from the capital. Everything has to be flown in or shipped the long way round, and this boosts the prices yet further.

There is an argument that there is no need for enterprise, given the incredible fertility and the resulting ease with which subsistence affluence can be attained. There is another argument that the “wantok” system that allows one’s kinsmen to share in one’s good fortune not only provides an effective social security net, but also discourages individuals from working hard as they are not allowed to keep the gains. Post colonial hangovers of an unsuitable Westminster-style parliamentary democracy and (perhaps?) a post-colonial inferiority complex can’t help.

Yes, everybody is extremely friendly (while warning you to watch your back), but a smile doesn’t really soften the blow of (for example) a $400 one-way three hour minibus transfer or (and I think this was an accident, and I certainly didn’t pay it) $60 for four bowls of thin vegetable soup.

Apologies for the rant. This was written just after our hotel (for which we paid US$ 900 for three nights, during which we ate bread, jam and bananas two meals a day) just “forgot” about our agreed transfer to the airport, and eventually got us there ten minutes before the flight was due to take off. The upsides in PNG are amazing, however, and make the whole thing worthwhile (for example, the check in people at the airport were extremely helpful, waved us through, and put our backpacks on the plane themselves). You’ll just have to look at some of the other posts to describe the good times we have had here!