Updates on Madang Lodge and Madang Town

Malang Lodge has an outstanding variety of accommodations on meticulously maintained, secure, seafront property with beautiful orchid gardens. The restaurant has a well-deserved reputation for excellent lunchtime dishes like fish of the day (often fresh tuna) and pizza; prices are not cheap, (about K35 for either) but the views are great and the LLB (lemon-lime-betel) is a refreshing mixed soft drink that locals tend to order. The Lodge also has an accessible gym and fitness centre that includes two treadmills, stationary bikes, a rowing machine, strength training stations and yoga groups.

Snorkeling is very good in front of the Lodge, but access to the open water is really only an option with swim shoes and gloves and when the tide is high and the sea is somewhat calm otherwise the swells, sea urchins, and the narrow opening between the jagged, encrusted rock can make for a risky passage.

PMVs, often numbered 6, 9, and 17, can be waved down across the street from Madang Lodge and for about K1 you can ride to Madang town centre, the terminus, just across the street from the currently under-renovation marketplace, or closer to the Lodge, to the adjacent Modilon and Papindo supermarkets, both good choices for self-catering. Divine Word University's main campus, where there's a new supermarket under construction, may be a nearer self-catering option or alternatively, for more limited selections, the Redscar supermarket, just a block or so beyond the Visitor Information Center on Modilon Road and across from the secondary school's athletic field (current venue for the Madang Festival in early June). Both are short walks from Madang Lodge, but safety while walking and even when using PMVs should be a consideration, as locals sometimes caution visitors about "boys from other islands" who have robbed or attacked individual travelers. During Madang Festival there was a local TV news video showing security guards toting bull whips, evidently for crowd control, and one (personally observed) instance of a cop boot-kicking a detainee who was being taken to a police vehicle. For a fee, Madang Lodge has a local shuttle service, a great choice whenever there are concerns about personal safety.

Madang Resort is a short walk from Madang town centre or you can ask the PMVs from the front of Madang Lodge on Modilon Road to drop you near the Resort. The Resort's grounds are a shady delight with Imperial Pigeons and Tree Kangaroos in cages or in the flora, an exceptional seafront, and excellent, though pricey, restaurants on site. A sign on the inside of the gate of Madang Resort warns guests not to walk outside at night as bag snatchings have occurred nearby.

It's a scenic, pleasant daytime walk from Madang Resort to Madang Lodge along the oceanfront Coronation Drive. PMVs don't usually go this way and there's less traffic. This often shady, quite, ~3 km route passes Coastwatchers Hotel, Coastwatchers Lighthouse monument, Madang Country Club, Eden Restaurant, and Family Beach before the Coronation Drive joins Modilon Road just before Smugglers Inn (under extensive renovation) and Madang Lodge.

Very helpful report, thanks!

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