Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands Book Notes

Posted this in the book updates section, but thought I'd copy and paste it to here as well.

Vanimo
-The Vanimo Beach Hotel is best avoided. The manager refused to let me in the cheap rooms and told me the only room available was the Delux Suite that cost 180 kina a night. I was the only guest there.

Wewak
-Help Resources, the place listed in the book for internet, is either not there or impossible to find. There are two small internet places at the base of the hill behind town on Valley Road.
-The Wewak Yacht Club does not serve food

Sepik
-The map of the Sepik is seriously out of date. Mindimbit is no longer on the river but on the Karawari because the river cut the oxbow.
-There are now guesthouses in Pagwi, Korogo, Palembei, and there are two in Kaminabit
-It is pretty easy to go from Angoram to Boroi via Watam. Cletus Maibam in Angoram may be able to help you find a boat
-On page 195 you say the spirit house in Palembei was bombed by the Japanese. According to the locals in Palembei, it was actually bombed by the Americans because the Japanese were hiding in the village
-Some good guides:
Sam Vlaki - specializes in bird watching tours on the river
samvlaki@yahoo.com.au
675-7623-6374

Jacob Kambak
Owns the guesthouse in Palembei. The police in Pagwi know him and may be able to help you find him.

Madang
-Cheapest guesthouse in town is the Delcresend Guesthouse behind Redscar
-Aquaventures dive shop is no longer at Jais Aben
-There are loads of pickpockets in the market...I met three or four foreigners who had had trouble
-There is a Star Ships office in town (you say there isnt on page 145). Its SE of Luthern Shipping on Midilan Rd. Huge sign on the toad

Mt. Wilhelm
-On page 162, you say the climb takes 3-4 days. It takes 2-3
-The A Frame Lodge is also at the base
-On page 162, you mention a guesthouse in Gembogl. The guesthouse owner, Bonny, is a terrible guy. He screwed me out of a day of guiding, stole my lunch one day, and then left me on the mountain. His place doesn't deserve to be listed.

Goroka
The Goroka Bowling Club is a decent place to have a few late afternjoon beers and maybe learn how to lawn bowl. Its across from the Luthern Guesthouse

Lae
-Rabaul Shipping only goes to Rabaul once a week on Fridays, not twice as listed.
-For the Rainforest Habitat, it says to go to Unitech Gate 2 but very, very few PMVs actually go that far so its better to go to the main gate and either walk from there or ask one of the security guards to help

Rabaul/Kokopo Area
-On page 219, the Duke of York map insert says to see pg 221 for the full size map. Its actually on pg. 225
-On page 215, you group the Warwagira Festival and the Mask Festival together but they are actually two seperate festival. The Warwagira Festival is a local music festival with no traditional cultural shows
-On page 215, you say that the tumbuans come the last three days of the festival...they come the first day
-On page 215 you tell people to call the ENB Tourist Bureau for information about the mask festival and then on page 213, you say that the ENB Tourist Bureau is "pretty much useless." It is worse than useless so don't tell people to call this place.
-All your maps show that Rabaul is still the provincial capital. Kokopo has been the capital for a decade or so.

New Ireland
-On the main map, the color one in the front, Namatanai is spelled "Namantai." Kind of hard to get to Namatanai when your asking for boats to Namantai....
-Your boat fares for banana boats are way too high. To get to Tsoi it costs 20 kina. Duke of York: 15 kina. Kokopo to Namatania is 60.
-Theres a guesthouse in Namatanai town (Solwara Guesthouse) for 88 kina a night and a free transit lodge for passengers going to and from Kokopo

Kavieng
-Theres a United Church guesthouse outside of town that costs 10 kina a night
-You should mention that there is no ATM at the Westpac - every foreigner I met was running into money troubles because of this

Buka
-Agmark Shipping has never taken passengers. I have no idea where you got this info from...
-There are two cheap guest houses (50 - 70 kina a night) down the road from the Kuri Village Resort and two very cheap guesthouses in Kokopao (no facilities)

Shortland Islands
-Theres a new guesthouse being built in Pirumeri. Find a guy named Valentine
-There are a couple grim guesthouses in Nila mission station and John, the local cop, is making a newer one
-There are no regular banana boats going to Gizo. There is now a bank in Taro in Choiseul so most people go there for services.
-The Bikoi comes through once every two or three weeks and goes to Gizo
-Flights go to Gizo on Wednesday

Gizo
-Another good guesthouse is called Ceglies. Its below Phoebes and costs 120 a night
-There is no longer an immigration guy in Gizo so you have to make it to Noro if you want to get stamped in. Ask at the customs office in Gizo for more update info and be prepared to get yelled at.
-Never heard anything about this MV Solomon Express. The main two boats plying the waters are the Bikoi and the Pelican.
-The MV Pelican is not reliable. Its a flat bottomed river boat and wont sail in rough seas. It was cancelled three weeks in a row when I was there.

Munda
-There are two cheap guesthouses in town. Both are in the group of houses opposite Agnes Lodge. $70 a night

Honiara
-The Raintree Cafe is only open to the public on weekends
-Theres a great guesthouse opposite the Quality Inn. $200 a night (same as Chesters) and you get a private bathroom.

General Solomon Islands Stuff
-Why the hell aren't there any decent maps in this book?????????

Overall, this book is useless. I only got into trouble when following it. It mainly consists of the "this place exists and you can go there" variety of information which I don't need a guidebook to know. Also, its really bad for budget accomodation. And really, no maps for the Solomon Isalnds? Come on... What happened to all the good info that you had in your previous SI books? Why was all this reduced to 30 odd useless pages?

More information on Solomon Islands
The MV Solomon Express does exist, and generally does a weekly trip to Gizo as well as one to Auki, as does the Express Pelican. They are similar boats, and are regularly being repaired, or unable to travel if the sea is too rough.
The guesthouse opposite the Quality Inn is St Agnes, run by the Mothers Union (part of the Anglican Church of Melanesia). Chester House, nearby, is run by the Melanesian Brothers, from the same church. St Agnes is more expensive than Chester, as all its rooms have en suites, while none of Chester's do. Both are very popular with locals, so you do need to book well in advance. (Costs and contact details at Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau.

Thanks for cross-posting this, Zachleigh - I hadn't even noticed there was a place where we could comment on the books.

Though an LP editor has recently said here that copyright was not an issue, my understanding is that years ago when the last SI book was published, authors used to own the copyright while currently LP owns it all.
So they can't just take and republish stuff from old editions that they don't own.
And they obviously can't be bothered to find and pay a suitable person to reserach the scattered Solomons meaningfully. Many of us have commented on how useless those 30 pages were, but LP seems to think it is great stuff. As they hase no competition whatsoever anyway, people will buy it no matter how bad or good.

And if you think the current book is useless on PNG, you should have seen the previous edition...

As for there being no ATM in Kavieng, that caused me no problem as I could simply get a cash advance over the counter!

Ozzie, the St. Agnes and Chesters are the same price now...both $200.

Makes sense about the copyrights....didnt think about that. I saw a SI guide from the 80's and it was brilliant. Had good maps and told some basic info about a lot of the larger villages. It also took a more realistic approach to travel in the area. Instead of saying "Theres no guesthouse so good luck" it said "Theres no guesthouse so meet some friendly guy on and stay with him." Didnt like the tone of the current LP....

Yeah Lazlo, I saw the older PNG LP...pretty useless. And they had a whole 15 SI pages. And you know if they had decent maps of the islands that actually showed where larger towns and villages are, it would be okay. But to simply say that someplace exists without even showing you where it is on a map does me no good at all.

ATM in Kavieng....I didnt get in trouble either because I wasn't sure if there would be an ATM so I stocked up on cash in Kokopo. A lot of people misread and thought that there would be an ATM and were having to get money wired to them.

$200 is the minimum price quoted for St Agnes on the Visit Solomons website. The smallest room may be that price, but others go up to about $350 (for the rarely available downstairs room with its own kitchenette).