Art collection!

Day 43: Leaving PNG

This morning, we got up and sadly shuttled off to the airport to leave PNG. We had such a beautiful time here, but it was so very short. There’s a sort of melancholy leaving a place you love. There’s always that hope that you will come back, but there’s also that tiny little voice that says “what if we don’t?”, and you wonder if you will ever have the chance again. But on the other side, it’s so wonderful leaving a place with sadness because it means you really had a great experience there.

Thankfully, when we arrived at the airport, our tickets were still unsuspended (phew!), so we got onto our flight, and bid farewell to Kokopo, Mount Tavurvur, and all the beautiful people we had befriended in the last few days. We will truly miss them.

We arrived in Port Moresby with 8 hours to pass, but having heard about the high crime rate in the city, were unsure whether we should venture out of the airport at all. We finally decided to grab a hotel shuttle and spend a few hours at the Holiday Inn to grab a bite to eat. At the hotel, we called up a family friend who lives in Port Moresby and luckily, aunty was at home and free to come meet us, so she came and picked us up with her driver and second security vehicle!

She took us around Port Moresby to various art centres, where we had a look at the beautiful tribal and traditional works. Then she took us to their home and we spent a wonderful few hours getting to know aunty, as she told us all about her life, her family, and her two sons in Toronto. Around lunchtime, uncle came home and we all ate together and had great conversation! It was so natural and we felt as if this wasn’t just the first time we were meeting, but that we had known each other forever. They were so warm, helpful, and accommodating, and it was great to spend some time at “home”!

After lunch, aunty’s driver took us to an art store where we made our first major art purchase for our collection! We won’t tell you what it is but it is awe-inspiring! You’ll have to come visit us at home to see it in person! With very little time to spare until our flight, we rushed to ship the item back to the US (a cost that was more than the purchase itself!) and crossed our fingers that it would arrive in one piece!

Then we hurried over to the airport to check in and, seeing we had a couple of extra minutes to spare, asked the driver to take us to one more area where we bought another piece of art to bring home with us! In a matter of about one hour, we made two major art purchases, and were very excited to be starting our art collection in this way! 

We made it back to the airport in time for our flight, and headed back to Cairns, still wishing we could stay back in PNG for longer. We arrived in Cairns and grabbed a cab to where we had left our luggage, hoping they would have a room available, since we didn’t book anything for our next two nights here! Unfortunately, they were fully booked, but they sent us over to another hotel that had two rooms left! The first room went to a guy who arrived with us, and we bargained with the guy to give us the room at a better rate (which he did, phew!), so we checked in, dropped our stuff off, and went out to grab a bite to eat. We went out to a local lounge, listened to some live musicians, had a few drinks, and made our way back to the hotel to sleep. 

What is our first piece of art?!

A little glitch in paradise

Day 39: Papua New Guinea

We got up around 2:30am this morning for our very early flight to Papua New Guinea, packed up a little carry-on bag each, and left our luggage at the hotel in Cairns. It’s so great travelling with next to nothing – you really don’t need very much! When we arrived at the airport, it was empty! We were the only dorks who arrived at the suggested time before our flight! When the check-in counter finally opened, we checked in, had some breakfast, and got on our flight.

We arrived in Port Moresby, and went to check in for our next flight, which is when we hit a little glitch in our plan: our onward tickets had been suspended by the airline! Basically, when Rachna had purchased the tickets online, the airline had double-charged her credit card, so she had called the credit card company to cancel the second charge, but this resulted in the airline suspending the valid tickets as well. Rachna finally got someone to unsuspend the tickets on the promise that we would tell the credit card company that it was not a fraudulent charge! Phew – who said a little stress didn’t make you stronger! We spent what remained of our 8-hour layover in a café, waiting for our next flight, thankful we had a next flight to wait for.

Flying over and landing into Kokopo was spectacular – the view of mountains, the ocean, the palm tree forests, the islands – it felt like we were landing in a dream. Kokopo is a little town in the East New Britain island of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The island is surrounded by volcanoes, one of which (Mount Tavurvur) is active. The town of Kokopo actually flourished after a volcanic eruption in 1994 devastated most of nearby Rabaul, which used to be the main town in the area.

We were picked up at the airport by the hotel shuttle, and we met a nice 75-year old man on the shuttle, who had moved to PNG and lived there for 40 years with his wife. He had so many stories to tell us about his life and experiences – it was so interesting! When we got to the hotel, we checked in and got to our room, which was pretty basic at an exorbitant cost, but that was the cheapest one in the town, considering we were here for the National Mask Festival. Luckily, our cheapo hotel was the sister hotel of a resort hotel 5 minutes away, so we took the shuttle and went over there for dinner.

The resort was beautiful, with fabulous amenities, a lounge, bar, and restaurant, and huge traditional masks everywhere. Dinner was great, and we spent some time there and talked to the manager, who helped us plan out and book things for our short stay here. We took the shuttle back to our hotel to sleep, and decided we would only sleep at our hotel, but do everything else at the resort, and get the best of both worlds!

 Flying into Papua New Guinea