I Survived the Road to Tawali or the Flat Tire

I survived the road to tawali or the flat tire

Getting to and from the Tawali dive resort in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea is not for the faint of heart.  Arrival goes along the lines of a 24 hour flight to Port Morsby from my home in Alabama, a puddle jumper over the Owen Stanley mountain range in a plane that has seen better days, and arriving in the metropolis of Alatou, PNG.  This is followed by an hour van ride on a dirt road, and then another hour on what I suspect is a pig trail, an uncomfortable wait in the dark New Guinea night on an empty pier, a very wet 30 minute boat ride to the resort which sits majestically 100 feet above the dock in other words MAJOR STAIRS.  Why do all of this?!  Simple!  The scenery and diving is as unspoiled and beautiful as any I’ve ever seen.  

Moonrise view from Tawali Resort and a small fisherman in his canoe

Scenic Reef in Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea

Watching the morning sunrise, looking out from the cliff over the ocean as the local fishermen form their coffee clatch around the bait wells they’ve made on a shallow part of the reef, families rowing their kids by canoe to the next village for school, or a black tip shark making a final cruise over the shallow reef for a bite to eat, these are the sites that make the journey worth it.  The first dive will erase every cramped airplane ride of the last two days.  Mating cuttlefish, rhinopias, massive cleaning stations, great hammerheads and minke whales are just a few examples of the amazing beauty that awaits on these reefs.  Like any trip though, all good things must come to an end and the thought of reversing the long travel  is tiresome.  We awake in the dark so that we can make it to the airport on time for the once a week flight back to Morsby.  The boat ride back is extremely wet.  Lots of dive gear filling the back and very little free board equals me being so soaked when we get back to the strange little dock at the end of the pig trail, I step behind a tree to wring out my shirt and pants.  It was so dark with no ambient light, who would be looking in the dark Papua New Guinea jungle, well apparently the driver who had parked and I assume slept in the van and who stepped out from behind the same tree.  Our van is loaded with 6 divers, massive amounts of dive gear, rediculous amounts of camera equipment, the driver, a mechanic from the resort and his tool box.  The driver begins to load us up by putting all of the bags in the back of the van. Well as any good Alabamian knows, don’t put all the heavy gear in the back on those rough roads or we will blow out a tire.  As we all try to move the bags forward, the driver becomes very upset, after all this is a fancy resort and he doesn’t want us to sit our wet butts in with the bags.  We fought him as much as possible, but in the end the dive and camera gear had the van low riding in the back and the inevitable happened.  Just as we came to one of the villages, our back tire is blows.  Not to worry there is a spare under that mountain of luggage!  We are all tightly wedged in this van and unsure of our driver’s ability to change a flat and very concerned about our ability to still make the weekly flight as all of us are certain we do not want to discover the Alatou motels!  You should know, my dad bears a striking resemblance in personality to the dad in the movie, “A Christmas Story”.  All my life the man has been  a dedicated and speedy tire changer.  We never actually timeed him, but I’m sure he was timing himself.  Sadly though he was wedged into his van seat in the back near the mountain of luggage and unable to get up.  So he turns to me and says, “get out and change the tire on this thing!”  I wouldn’t want anyone to time me, but I am capable of changing a flat.  I get out to help speed the driver along only to discover that the mechanic has already gotten out with his tool box.  By now, daylight is breaking and we are attracting quite a crowd from the village with our luggage unloading and tire changing.  I grab my camera to take a few photos of the village kids laughing at us and look back expecting to see the driver and the mechanic working vigoursly to change the tire.  Well, the driver was hard at work with the jack, but apparently the mechanic had gotten out his toolbox so that he wouldn’t have to sit on the ground to smoke his joint.  Seeing our chances of making the flight dwindling, I did the only thing I could think of to help and started throwing bags into the front of the van.  The driver finishes the tire, the mechanic finishes his joint, and off we go still hoping that the plane will wait for us.  

Changing a flat in the pre dawn hours 

One of the bridges put in by the Australians

I asked the driver what happens when he has another flat and has already used his spare?  “Oh not to worry”  he says, "Then I just drive a bit and get out and hand pump the tire and then drive a bit and get out and pump the tire".   This story gathers a collective groan as we all picture what could happen between our pig trail and the airport.  Luckily we arrive without further disaster, excited to see that our plane has waited for us.  Looking at our plane on the tarmac I see the pilot get out and start taking pictures of the airport.  Ok, I’m worried about flying in the infamous PNG mountains with a pilot that has clearly never been here before and is taking pictures of the airport like he’s never seen one before, but he made it here so maybe we will make it back.  Then he turns and starts taking photos of the plane like it was new to him too!!!  I was about to give up on my ride home and revisit the idea of an Alatou motel when a group of five nuns came in to board the flight.  I took that as a sign from heaven that we would make it back to Port Morseby and we all boarded the flight.  I only apologize to whoever had to sit in my seat on the next flight on that plane because even with the time for the flat tire, the joint, and the pig trail, I was still soaked in saltwater and left my seat on the plane very wet.  

Sunrise in Alatou

Waiting on a lonely pier in the dark

The quiet reefs in Milne Bay

A fisherman on his way to morning coffee

Rhinopias

I'd never seen this airport either, so like the pilot, I took a picture!

The Cassowary Ransom

Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea is literally miles from no where.  Small villages dot the area around Tawali Resort and the resort's infrastructure provides a living for many of the villagers in some way.  Life without cars and very little electricity in a place surrounded by exotic birds and incredible reefs may seem idyllic especially in these rustic hunter gatherer type villages where a traditional way of life is still practiced, however, the green eyed monster of jealousy lives here just like it does in any big city.  Let’s not forget that the heritage of these people includes ancestors who practiced head hunting well into the 1950's.  From time to time,  living in the shadow of a luxury resort has caused a few problems with the local people.  Tawali kept two Cassowary birds as pets in a fenced enclosure for the guests to enjoy and get a rare up close look at a very large and dangerous bird.  Unfortunately one of the cassowary escaped it’s habitat and was caught in a nearby village where a plan was hatched to ransom the bird for 50kina (at the time of this story that was about $15 USD).  The people at the resort were outraged at the blackmail attempt and refused to pay the ransom.  The villagers warned that if the money was not paid, they would kill the cassowary bird.  Well, the resort stuck to its principals, and to prove they were serious, the villagers killed the bird.  Now like I said, this is a hunter gatherer society where nothing is wasted, so after killing the cassowary, they cooked and ate him.  Apparently cassowary is delicious to the local palate.  The villagers were at the resort very early the next day offering 50 kind, now the established market rate for a cassowary,  to purchase the remaining bird for a tribal feast.  I know I ate a lot of “chicken” while I was in PNG, perhaps I too enjoyed a bite of cassowary.

I think this is the one that survived.  They look like they would be a little tough to me!

It's Hard Being Southern in a Foreign Land

It's Hard Being Southern in a Foreign Land


No matter how far I travel from home, I will always be Southern.  I will always obey the rules of Southern hospitality that my mother ingrained in me even though that might mean I am saying yes mam and no sir as a sign of respect to an older New Guinea Islander who understands no English.  I will always look forward to that first glass of sweet tea and bbq sandwich when I get home from my travels.  Hopefully you can understand that I carry a lot of my ideas about food and home with me wherever I go.  I didn't realize how much until I was on a live-aboard dive boat in the Maldives with my dad.  The chef was trained in classic French cooking and the breakfast crepes were heavenly.  All of the food had been quite good so when they announced one night that the dessert would be lemon merengue, imagine my excitement!  I do so love a good lemon merengue ice box pie as it is more commonly known in the south.  Nothing in this world tastes as good on a hot afternoon as chilled lemon merengue pie!  When we were each served a small ramekin, I thought how clever to have made individual pies and to keep them so cold in these small dishes!  As my dad (also southern born and raised) and I began to dig in our ramekins we turned to each other in disbelief.  "Where's the pie?" I asked.  Dad said, "I don't know.  Mine doesn't have pie either!"  Of course the rest of the guest, most French, some yankees (California and New England) wanted to know why the two of us were digging for gold in our ramekins.  "Where's the pie?!" I said again in response to all of their questions.  One of the French said, "There is no pie, it is merengue."  Huh.....Where I come from there should be pie under here.  You mean y'all are just going to eat the merengue?!  They ate it and thought it was wonderful.  Poor, poor, sad people who don't know that merengue is what you put on top of an ice cold lemon pie and often scrape off to the side so you can enjoy more pie!


Below you will see a copy of my Gammie's Lemon Ice Box Pie recipe and perhaps have a better understanding of what I was expecting in my ramekin.  Notice that the merengue part needs only the words, add merengue, as in it is a bland topping that everyone knows how to make and add to the finished pie.

You Don't See this on Law and Order

You Don't See this on Law and Order!

Not too long ago I had the chance to fly on my dad's plane into Curacao.  While the pilot, my dad, and I were waiting for fuel, a small plane came in with a Venezuelan tail number.  The pilot and a very well dressed man got out and spoke to the ground crew about acquiring some assistance unloading cargo.  While they waited, the older man came over to admire our plane and to tell us how much he had always wanted something similar.  Our pilot is a virtual encyclopedia of planes and was asking him about the fuel range of his plane.  The man replied that they had been very concerned about the 45 mile trip from Venezuela with the weight of their cargo.  The plane didn't look that small so we all became curious about their cargo.  Very shortly a team of ground crew and airport police arrived to begin unloading the cargo off the man's plane.  I've never actually seen what kilos of cocaine look like, but I have watched loads of Law and Order and therefore felt certain that I was correct in assuming that the large, square packages wrapped in black garbage bags and duct tape being unloaded from the south american plane must surely be drugs.  It seemed so obvious, that it prompted a quiet discussion between the three of us about how happy the man seemed to have help unloading his drugs.  Were we watching a drug bust, or maybe dirty cops helping a drug lord?  We were offered a ride to the customs part of the airport by one of the airport police who was no longer needed at the "bust".  As we drove away, I couldn't help asking if the policeman knew what was in those packages.  "Oh sure," he says, "The senior is bringing in a load of gold bars."  Gold what?!  Like Fort Knox, James Bond, Goldfinger type of gold bars?!  "Of course," the policeman says like I'm the only person he has ever met that hasn't seen gold bars unloaded before.  Frankly I would have said my chances were better at seeing kilos of cocaine come off a plane!  My only regret is that we didn't have time to talk further to "the senior".  I mean, if he really liked our plane, we were all in agreement that he could have it and any one of us to go with it for just one of his gold bars.  I later read in one of the dutch papers that with Venezuela's failing economy and their proximity to the dutch banks in the Netherlands Antilles, that banks in Curacao were having to put a limit on the number of gold bars each person is allowed to deposit.  I'm certainly glad to have that knowledge in case I ever come across a stack of them again.