Lonely Planet Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands , livre ebook

Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands

Contents

Plan Your Trip

Welcome to PNG & Solomon Islands
PNG & Solomon Islands' Top 15
Need to Know
If You Like
Month by Month
Itineraries
First Time in PNG
Diving in PNG & Solomon Islands
Kokoda Track
Regions at a Glance

On The Road

Port Moresby
Sights
Activities
Tours
Festivals & Events
Sleeping
Eating
Drinking & Nightlife
Entertainment
Shopping
Around Port Moresby
Sogeri Road
Central, Oro & Milne Bay Provinces
Kokoda
Popondetta
Oro Bay
Tufi
Alotau
East Cape
Wagawaga
North Coast
Samarai Islands
DEntrecasteaux Islands
Trobriand Islands
Morobe & Madang Provinces
Lae
Salamaua
Wau & Bulolo
Madang
Around Madang
North Coast Highway
Simbai
The Highlands
Goroka
Kundiawa
Around Kundiawa
Mt Wilhelm
Kegsugl to Madang
Mt Hagen
Wabag
Mendi
Lake Kutubu & Around
Tari
The Sepik
Wewak & Around
Vanimo
Upper Sepik
Middle Sepik
Lower Sepik
Tributaries & Lakes
Island Provinces
East New Britain Province
West New Britain Province
Kavieng
Lavongai (New Hanover) & East Islands
East Coast
Buka Island
Bougainville
Solomon Islands
Honiara
East of Honiara
West of Honiara
Marovo Lagoon
West New Georgia
Ghizo
Islands Around Ghizo
Auki & Around
Langa Langa Lagoon
Solomon Islands Today
History
The Culture
Arts
Environment

Understand

Understand PNG
Papua New Guinea Today
History
Environment
The Kokoda Story
The People of PNG

Survive

Directory AZ
Accommodation
Children
Customs Regulations
Electricity
Embassies & Consulates
Food
Gay & Lesbian Travellers
Health
Insurance
Internet Access
Legal Matters
Maps
Money
Opening Hours
Photography
Post
Public Holidays
Safe Travel
Shopping
Telephone
Time
Toilets
Tourist Information
Travellers with Disabilities
Visas
Volunteering
Women Travellers
Transport
Getting There & Away
Getting Around
Language
Behind the Scenes
Our Writers
Welcome to PNG & Solomon Islands

True adventure awaits in this enigmatic corner of Melanesia. Smouldering volcanoes, forest-cloaked mountains and coral-ringed islands set the stage for one of the world's most flamboyant cultures.


A Land Apart
Are you up for an adventure? Here in PNG you can trek through steaming jungles and ford rushing rivers with expert guides. Your goal may be a remote village, a magnificently plumed bird of paradise or a kangaroo that has elected the life arboreal. Why not test your mettle on a multi-day trek following the steps of Australian diggers along the Kokoda Track, or summit a 4000m-plus Highland peak for a panoramic, coast-to-coast vista.

Aquatic Adventures
The Solomon Islands and PNG are both world-famous diving destinations, with excellent conditions most months of the year. The biodiversity beneath is astounding, with a colourful array of hard and soft corals and teeming fish life, along with a jaw-dropping collection of WWII plane and ship wrecks. Live-aboard boats and first-rate dive resorts provide access to sites far from the hordes. The waves are equally uncrowded for surf lovers, with fantastic reef, point and beach breaks scattered around the region’s northern shores. There’s also fantastic fishing in these pristine waters, with yellowfin tuna, mackerel, sailfish and the legendary Papuan black bass in abundance.

Cultural Wonderland
Home to more than 800 distinct languages, PNG and the Solomons provide incomparable opportunities to be immersed in a variety of fascinating traditional cultures. It’s well worth planning your trip around one or two of the major annual festivals: see colourfully painted and feathered Highland warriors, fearless snake-wielding fire dancers and brilliantly attired island oarsmen chanting to the backdrop of pounding drums. Festivals aside, there are myriad ways to have a paradigm-altering experience: an impromptu singsing (festival) on the Trobriand Islands, learning about the legends of an eerie skull cave or sharing fruit with new-found friends on a bumpy PMV ride.

Island Idyll
Travel is rarely easy in Melanesia, but the rewards are bountiful. After a few weeks of hard travel you can find your way to a palm-fringed, sun-drenched coast and unwind for a few days. Opt for a luxury eco-friendly resort with activities or a rustic bush-material village guesthouse just a few lazy footsteps from the sea. Spend your days snorkelling coral reefs, combing sandy beaches, paddling placid rivers or lounging beneath a palm tree. By night, watch the sunset, feast on fresh seafood and watch the sky slowly fill with stars while daydreaming about the great adventures still ahead.

A Southern Highlands Huli wigman | MATT MUNRO/LONELY PLANET ©


Why I Love Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands
By Lindsay Brown, Writer
Papua New Guinea is blessed with an astounding mix of traditional cultures and natural splendour, making it a personal favourite. From the Highlands to the islands there's a myriad of cultural riches. These are best witnessed during one of the spectacular festivals where body decoration simply defies imagination. To bunk down in a sleepy beach-side village is the perfect antidote to modern-city-living ailments, and something I highly recommend to independent travellers. Adventurers will find coral gardens the equal of anywhere else, while jungle trails provide the opportunity to see PNG's weird and wonderful wildlife: tree kangaroos, cuscuses and the scene-stealing birds of paradise.
PNG & Solomon Islands' Top 15

Diving & Snorkelling
PNG and the Solomons rank among the best of destinations to don a mask and fins, with an irresistible menu of underwater treasures: luminous coral reefs festooned with huge sea fans; warm waters teeming with rainbow-coloured fish; canyons and drop-offs that tumble into the abyss; and a host of eerie WWII wrecks – not to mention the thrill of diving uncrowded sites. A handful of idyllic dive resorts such as Kimbe Bay provide the perfect gateway to your undersea adventure. To reach even more remote and pristine environments, sign on to a live-aboard vessel.

A snorkeller in Kimbe Bay | FRANCO BANFI/GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Fabulous Festivals
Rio’s Carnaval has nothing on the magnificent pageantry of a Highland festival. PNG’s biggest fests, such as the Mt Hagen and Goroka shows, are pure sensory overload, with massive feather headdresses, rustling grass skirts and evocative face and body paint adorning enormous numbers of participants – over 100 different tribal groups – from all across the Highlands and further afield. Singsing (festival) groups perform traditional songs and dances in this pride-filled extravaganza. The thrill of coming face to face with such uplifting traditional cultures is indescribable – and well worth planning a trip around.

A tribal man at the Goroka Show | RICHARD KENDALL/GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Milne Bay
At the eastern edge of the mainland, Milne Bay is a landscape of remarkable beauty. You’ll find scattered islands, coral reefs, lovely palm-fringed beaches, hidden waterfalls, meandering rivers and steep-sided, rainforest-covered mountains plunging to the sea. The opportunity for adventure is staggering, with great birdwatching, bushwalking and island- and village-hopping. Alotau is the gateway to it all, and also host of the colourful Canoe Festival, with gyrating singsing groups, string bands and people-packed longboats racing across the waterfront.

LOUISE KRISTENSEN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©


Top Experiences
Marovo Lagoon (SI)
A visual feast awaits you at Marovo Lagoon . A profusion of dive sites at South and North Marovo offer excellent fish action, suitable for all levels of proficiency. The reefs are blanketed with sea fans and act as a magnet for marine species, from tiny critters to marauding pelagics, including manta rays and sharks. The lagoon is dotted with hundreds of small idyllic islands while beneath the surface there's a vibrant assemblage of dramatic walls, exhilarating passages and uncomplicated reef dives.

MICHAEL MCCOY/GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Sepik River
Besieged on all sides by thick jungle and shrouded in mist, the mighty Sepik wanders across northwestern PNG like a lazy brown snake full with food. The river is the region’s lifeblood, home to a string of villages rich in artistic tradition, and the cultural treasure chest of the Pacific. Here you can hire a crocodile-headed canoe and thread the seasonal waterways from one village to the next, sleeping in stilt homes and exploring the towering haus tambarans (spirit houses).

Children canoeing on the Sepik River | DESIGN PICS INC/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ©


Top Experiences
Highland Highs
The craggy ridges of the Bismarck Range culminate with the wind-scoured peak of Mt Wilhelm , the tallest mountain in Oceania. A predawn start has trekkers clambering up its rocky slopes so that they see the mainland’s north and south coasts before the clouds roll in. Other popular trekking peaks include Mt Gulwe and Mt Hagen. In the vicinity of the latter and in the jungles near Tari the goal is to spot as many species as possible of the magnificent birds of paradise – the most emblematic of PNG's fascinating wildlife.

Bird of paradise | TIM LAMAN/GETTY IMAGES ©


Top Experiences
Tribal Art
Treasure hunters will be spoilt for choice when it comes to the incredible assortment of woodcarvings, bark paintings, masks and other tribal art from across PNG. One of the best destinations for crafts is the Middle Sepik , where master carvers carry on age-old traditions creating shields, masks, figures, canoe prows and story boards. Other artistic traditions flourish in the Trobriands, such as carved ebony walking sticks, bowls and sculptures inlaid with mother of pearl. Oro Province around Tufi is the go-to spot for tapa cloth – a bark cl