We push back at 1135. The plane is full. A three year old cries in the seat in front of me. A spoilt brat I grump to myself, who does not want to be strapped in and would rather sit in Mum’s lap. Little prat, I am ready to box his ears. Might as well…
It was interesting to hear how many of the trekkers were afflicted by lucid dreams while on the track. Not just one or two but many. What was it in the woods that sparked the brain so? Or was it in the air? Or somewhere else? There are sections of the track that some porters…
Litter. Overgrown verges. Dust. Couples sitting in the shade. Dripping humidity. Kids on hips. In shade of umbrellas. Decrepit vehicles. Blazing sun in a clear sky. Shop fronts with a focus on heavy security – a chicken burger joint looks like a bunker. Crowds of idle men standing around or sleeping. The Art Gallery and…
The museums around Ho Chi Minh City can be derelict but at least there is an appreciation of the role various artifacts have played in the history of the city. That is especially the case when you are talking military artifacts. Port Moresby boasts the worst kept collection of military paraphernalia I have seen. And…
We carefully leave the taxi and as casually and as alert as we can be without indicating our concern we steer through the market stalls and try and avoid the crowd that is being incited by someone on a loud-hailer. All we can hear in the tirade is “Australia” and “rascal”. It is not a…
Where’re you boys goin’? National Musuem National or War Museum. Ah, War museum actually. Okay boys. War museum. At Gordon? Yes. You boys been on Kokoda? As a matter of fact yes. When did you finish? Wrapped up yesterday. Were up there for nine days. It’s good you walked Kokoda. Australians and Papuans are brothers.…
Sitting around the pool the day after walking/flying out of Kokoda was a surreal and dislocative experience. Fraudulent even. Here we were sitting in comparative luxury, able to flop into a tepid pool if we felt too sticky. And yet we had some claim, we felt, to some ownership of the Track. After all we…
Melodious bird song gets our day started. Another tune and another bird I have never heard before. The cloud hands heavy in the valley and for a few moments we are concerned about whether any flights will happen today. Then a couple of purple green peaks float into view and disappear again in the washed…
We are in something of a slow daze and tents are being set up in Kokoda at a rate that is the slowest I have seen for the whole trip. We swim through a humid wall and move slowly after coming out of the cool air of the mountains. But I am getting ahead of…
The surf fades and I sleep the sleep of a teenager. Helped by the fact that I think we have found the best patch of grass so far. We are all still having those lucid dreams. When I surface it is to the sound of the creek, and light has already steeped into the valley.…