MT HAGEN, PAPUA NEW GUINEA — I’ve been spending this past month in the Papuan Highlands, in a paranoid little town called Mt. Hagen. My motel’s pretty typical for New Guinea: there’s a huge, corrugated-iron wall around the perimeter with a sheet-metal gate you have to bang loudly every time you want in. You knock on the gate, the doorman peeps through a little hole and lets you into the carpark. There are two more checkpoints: one to your immediate left, which leads to a hut full of pokie machines — you can see gamblers getting pat-downs on their way in — and a moat at the other end of the carpark, with yet another gate, another guard post, which takes you to the inner courtyard with the actual motel rooms. (more…)
January 6th, 2012 | Comments (34)
