Friend in need for travellers

travellers in PNG

Papua New Guinea A Travel Survival Kit. By Mark Lightbody and Tony Wheeler.

Published 1985 by Lonely Planet Publications, P.O. Box 88, South Yarra 3141 Austra lia. ISBN 0 90808 659 8. Price $8.95.

Papua New Guinea has been referred to numerous times as “the last unknown”. This state ment is certainly borne out by the paucity of specific travel guide books on the country.

The Papua New Guinea Hand book, published by Pacific Publications, is a general guide, intended for businessmen and visitors to the main town and city centres, and as such is unique of its type.

The Tourist Authority in PNG does not produce any material of this general kind and so the seeker after facts and impress ions is restricted to “coffee table” books which tend to be beautiful, but expensive, and

concentrate more or less on one aspect of one of the most complicated countries in the world.

But there is a bridge, known to the knowledgeable, and it has been produced since 1979.

It is the Travel Survival Kit, produced by Lightbody and Wheeler, part of a series of simple, straightforward, but very informative books on some of the more remote places on the planet.

The PNG book falls into two parts. First, it gives a good thumbnail sketch of Papua New Guinea, covering language, his tory, holidays, geography, visa requirements and so forth.

Then there is detailed descrip tions of places to visit and things to see.

The book’s greatest value is its advice on travelling through the countryside, without a guide. Indeed, aside from Paci fic Publications’ PNG Hand

book this is the only complete accommodation guide pub lished anywhere.

The revised edition includes several new maps.

Accommodation prices have been updated, as has the gen eral traveller’s information.

Some of this updating seems a shade uneven. For example, events as recent as the Pope’s visit to PNG are recorded, but the earlier commencement of mining at Ok Tedi is not chroni cled.

There are also still errors in the book, despite this being the third edition. Spelling mistakes appear on some of the maps, some of the economic informa tion is in error and there are mistakes in the information on visas a photograph is re quired and a tourist visa permits a stay of up to one month, with the chance of renewal for a further month.

But, these details aside, it is a very good book. Even PNG old hands will find it interesting, and even essential, when

travelling.

John Hunter.