We had slept well – Val had last night fixed sticks on the underside of the guys on the fly-sheet, the better to keep it from pressing down on the tent itself, + allowing the water thro’, + that had worked remarkably well. By the time we had breakfasted + packed up, it was time to go down to the main entrance, from where, we had been assured, we would have no trouble in obtaining a PMV. In fact, it was quite some time before a vehicle appeared heading our way, but this gave me the opportunity to re-dress my sores. The good news was that at last the swelling of my feet had subsided – Val had bought some antibiotic ointment in Mt Hagen, + that seemed to have done the trick. A vehicle did come past us eventually, but it rushed thro’ at great speed, without stopping. Which was partly our fault – there doesn’t seem to be a recognised hailing (or hitch-hiking) signal, + they had probably misinterpreted my wave as a mere expression of friendliness. They did, however, return a few minutes later, + offered to take us to Mt Hagen, apologising, in fact, for not picking us up before. “We’ll be back in a few minutes,” said the driver, in excellent English, + back they were, in a larger pick-up – the other one had already been pretty full. This one had a double cab, so Val, at my behest, climbed in the front, while I sat in the open truck, as much to keep an eye on our bags as anything else. I had a pleasant, + not too uncomfortable ride, tho’ I was rather cold – it was interesting to listen to the chat among the others, tho’ they were rather taciturn, + even more so to observe them – their rivalries, humour, etc. They were enormously delighted when a truck going the other way drove thro’ a puddle as it passed us, + threw a fair quantity of water over one of their number… + me.
When we arrived in Mt Hagen, I enquired if Val whether she had paid for our ride, + it was only then that I learned that we had been given a ride by the Premier of the Western Highlands. I then minded the bags while Val re-stocked the larder with fresh meat, + then we sought out, + found, the PMV to Mendi. Once again we were fortunate – our chosen vehicle was a bus, not a truck. The driver’s assistant (tho’ in this case I believe he was the driver’s superior), was dressed in traditional style, as are a large no. of the men, tho’ very few of the women, around Mt Hagen. This is a belt around the waist, thick, made of bamboo or leather, + hanging down the front to cover their genitals a piece of cloth. Most interesting, hanging down the back to cover the buttocks a bunch of leaves. On the head, many of them wear a woolly top – isn’t it funny the way that negro peoples seem to like brightly coloured woolly hats, + the richer of them, richer in pigs that is, indicate this by a string of strips of bamboo hanging from their neck, + our feller obviously has himself quite a few porkers, with his necklace quite a way down his chest.
We had, tho’, got the wrong idea entirely about the trip to Mendi. It cost us K6 each, + was one hell of a long ride. What was worse, we had managed to leave ourselves very short of money indeed – I was rather keen on staying at a guest-house for a change, but we really didn’t have the money to do that, + have the fare for the return journey. However, we’d also got hold of the wrong end of the stick with regard to the place. I had somehow got the impression that this trip to Mendi was to a small, off the beaten track village, with different costumes, + possibly a particular style of handicraft. It was, in fact, a good-sized town, the HQ of the Southern Highlands, really not all that much different from Mt Hagen. It did have the advantage of having a bank, but our pleasure at that soon disappeared when we discovered it was shut. Then, to add to our problems, it began to rain.
We sheltered, + then took it in turns to find out about accommodation. My discovery was nothing special – the only guest-house that might possibly be within our fairly limited price range was a fair way out of town. Val did rather better, tho’ I hesitated to acknowledge it at the time. She had asked at the police station, + tho’ there didn’t seem to be a government house that we could use, they were happy for us to camp on their back lawn. So, this we agreed to do. The grass was well-cut, the ground flat, + they also had a toilet, + a small outhouse with a sink in it that we could use. So we sheltered in there until we thought it was easing. Then, once we were fully committed to erection, down came the rain with renewed + revived force. We had always managed to avoid putting Terry the Tent up in the rain before, so we weren’t exactly proficient, + there was a good deal of bad language roundly + unfairly for getting us into the mess.
However, it was put up eventually, + really didn’t seem to be doing too bad a job at keeping out the rain. The weather was most uninviting, but we decided we should make the effort to get out + about, + have even a brief look at the place. So we donned our ponchos + went for a stroll. It was interesting enough, I suppose, tho’ not really very much more so than any other PNG town. Wandered back to the police station + cooked our meal – a big pot of chili. I still had no appetite, unfortunately, so wasn’t able to do it justice. And afterwards, we crawled into our tent, read, + then went to sleep. We did, anyway, when the shouts of the prisoners in the cells died away.
As seems to be usual for this stage of our journey, we don’t seem to have the relevant photos you would have thought we would have taken. I suppose one does have to remember this was in the days of film cameras, when one had to be careful about how many one took, etc, but we really do seem to have carried that to an extreme.
Apologies for the “negro peoples” remark, just showing what a pitfall language can be. Don’t think it was considered offensive at the time, but what do I know?
