Wonders of Modern Communication

It is amazing once you start one of these blogs and publish a few anecdotes, thoughts and observations about life here in PNG, how many people start to get in contact with you and the fascinating things you can learn from that.

Well many may be slightly overstating it, but so far I have had quite a few different people send me e-mails. Included in these is a PNG woman from Enga who has mainly studied in Australia but is currently now travelling through the mid-east. I have just received a long and brilliantly written e-mail from her about her current exploits. It made me jealous just reading it and desire to just whack on my back-pack and head off on a new trail somewhere.

Also I have received an e-mail from a American woman who did a lot of field work for a tectonics phD in PNG and specifically she worked at Unitech while here. She even e-mailed me her thesis on the plate movements in this area after asking if I wanted to get a copy - of course my reply was.

Quite a few travellers coming to PNG have got in contact with me in regard to going to various places. It makes me feel like I some sort of expert in PNG now. I have to keep telling people that I have only been here 9 months and there is still a lot for me to learn yet as well. I guess when you start travelling any information is better than none.

All of these people I think have come to my blog because I have posted a few replies on the Lonely Planet Thorntree to specific questions about PNG - hence the travel questions - so it just makes me admire the age we live in when we can converse, share ideas, experiences so easily. Sure the Internet has bad sides, but surely overall it must be benefit for all.

I will finish up this post with a link to a great article sent to me by my new globetrotting-Engan friend about the dangers of travelling. The article is called Danger Abroad!: Our Concerns Are Often Another Display of Our Xenophobia and I think this quote from it brilliantly somes it up:

Millions of tourists flock each year to what Dave Barry describes as “the most heavily armed place on earth� - Miami. Most return alive.