16.02.2023 - Madang (Papua New Guinea)

We drove through the wonderful island landscape of Madang in the early morning until we docked at the small pier around 08:00 o'clock.

Already during docking, we could watch the dance group getting ready to dance for us. Somehow, they don't fit in between the port workers in safety vests and the containers standing around here.

The buses were slightly more comfortable today than two days ago, but still without air conditioning. So we sat in our own sweat on the ride to a remote village.


Madang itself has about 40,000 inhabitants and is an ugly city. Most streets are simple sandy tracks with huge potholes, occasionally a few hundred meters are paved.
There are also masses of people on the move here, but they always waved at us in a friendly manner.

After a good hour's drive, we arrived in the village of Siar. In contrast to the village in Alotau, this was not a stage, but a real village where about 1,500 people live. It seemed as if everyone was on their feet to greet us and show us their village. That was very interesting. We also had conversations with some residents who all spoke excellent English. English is the 3rd lingua franca after Pidgin English (a mixture of English and native languages) and the original language of the inhabitants. However, these languages are spoken in some places, there are supposed to be over 800 different languages in the country - plus countless dialects.

Around noon, we returned to the ship and then took a short walk into the city. We were looking for a supermarket to buy some sweets to distribute among the children tomorrow. We even found a supermarket that accepts credit cards.


After several young men tried very forcefully to offer themselves as guides, we ended the walk and went back to the ship.


Before dinner, there was a reception for guests who are traveling with Silversea for the first time. The band was playing at the same time, so you could talk and dance.


For dinner, we went back to The Grill and ordered a steak on the hot stone - delicious.


The evening show was performed by the onboard singers, who we have also enjoyed so far.

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Weather: dry, 28°C, felt at least 35°C, very calm sea