EM64 – SIMBAI
AND SEPIK PACKAGE FOR INDEPENDENT TRAVELLERS
4 nights ex-Madang (extendable) (2 nts Simbai 2 nts Sepik River villages)
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to download the itinerary for EM64 in Acrobat (PDF) format. |
Simbai junior welcome committee
with piglet
Simbai senior welcome committee
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DAY 1: MADANG
/ SIMBAI
0700 Check in at Madang airport for your light aircraft flight to Simbai
(your ticket will be available for collection at the check-in counter).
NB Simbai flights do not operate on a fixed schedule – departure
and arrival times are flexible to meet the needs of passengers and
cargo customers at various remote airstrips around the Madang province,
and therefore you may need to be patient if the aircraft has to do
a run to another airstrip and back before doing the Simbai run. Unless
the weather is really bad, the Simbai flight always operates Mon-Sat
but you may have to wait.
On arrival at Simbai airstrip you will be
met by our local guide with a few extra guys to help carry bags. From
the airstrip it is
a 45 minute hike to the Kalam Guest House.
Today you will explore
the tiny Simbai government outpost, visit the little Kalam Culture
Centre which has displays of traditional
tribal artifacts, and walk to a couple of the satellite villages
within an hour’s walk of Simbai. This will be an opportunity
to learn some basics of the Kalam tribal culture, and a few words
of the language.
Overnight Kalam Guest House, Simbai.
A traditional Kalam tribal sing-sing will be held in your honour
either this evening or on your last night.
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Simbai green beetle shell head-dress
Cuscus in forest near Simbai
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DAY 2: SIMBAI
Today your guide will give you a choice of activities depending on
your interests and your hiking ability.
If you are fit to hike for about 4 hours you can take a scenic hike
through some village hamlets a little further afield, stopping to meet
and talk to locals you meet on the way. There will be spontaneous opportunities
to observe or join in with locals doing their gardening, hunting, building
houses and other day to day activities.
If you are not much of a hiker
there is plenty to see around Simbai and its satellite hamlets.
- Visit the primary school and give a talk about your home country
and hear the children sing the national anthem – teachers are
delighted with such opportunities for the students to hear English
spoken by Westerners.
- Visit the little health centre and talk with the nurse about the
kinds of health problems people experience in this remote area.
- Take a short walk into the forest with your guide who will point
out wild orchids, medicinal plants and perhaps a shy tree kangaroo
or cuscus.
- Sit with village women as they prepare traditional foods, and let
the men show you their “bride price” heirlooms, and demonstrate
how they make their trademark green beetle head-dresses.
Overnight
Kalam Guest House, Simbai.
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Charter plane at Timbunke airstrip
Benny our Sepik River guide
in his motor canoe
Canoe full of girls on the main Sepik River near Tambanum
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DAY 3: SIMBAI / MIDDLE
SEPIK
After breakfast, walk to the airstrip and wait for today’s
light aircraft flight to arrive from Madang. Today the flight will
be diverted
to fly you on a charter basis to Timbunke airstrip on the Middle Sepik.
You should arrive at Timbunke by midday. Our Sepik guide will be waiting
for you at Timbunke airstrip. A short walk from the airstrip is the
mighty Sepik River and your waiting motor canoe.
If our local guide
and the canoe are not there when you arrive, perch yourself on the
shady lawn near the catholic church and wait
there. Our guide will not be far away and may have been delayed by
weather conditions or other factors. Timbunke mission station is
a safe place to wait.
From Timbunke you will board the motorised canoe
and travel 1 hour downstream to Tambanum, the largest village on the
Sepik River. Tambanum
is known locally as the “carving factory” of the Sepik
due to the prolific output of its village artisans. Tour the village,
inspect the men’s spirit houses (males only - please display
reverence) and view artefacts available for sale.
For lunch today
the guide will purchase fruit and dried fish from the local people
for you. Fresh green coconuts can be purchased for
drinking. The local tour guide will bring with him a supply of bottled
water for you.
Overnight village hut, Tambanum Village (village food
and camp rations for dinner and breakfast). NB there is no village
guesthouse at Tambanum
and the guide will arrange a private homestay.
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DAY 4: MIDDLE SEPIK
From Tambanum, motor upstream past Mindimbit and Angriman villages.
If time permits you can stop and walk around the villages and see
their Haus Tambarans (men’s spirit houses). These villages
each have their own distinct artistic style – Mindimbit figurines
are moon-faced figurines while Angriman masks and figurines have
elongated faces.
Continuing upstream, by lunchtime you will arrive
at the crocodile cult villages of Yentchen, Palembei and Kanganaman.
These three villages
are situated close to each other on opposite sides of the river.
Spend time in these villages this afternoon, your guide will introduce
you to the village people and they will be proud to tell you about
their traditions.
Here, the crocodile is respected and revered for
its strength, stealth and hunting ability – the people identify with the crocodile
and seek to be like it – boys undergo an initiation ceremony
in their early teens when the skin on their back is cut in many places
with a razor – without anaesthetic - and ashes or other organic
material is inserted under the skin causing bumpy scars that resemble
the dorsal surface of the crocodile. The skin cutting ritual occurs
on average only once every two years these days due to increasing
numbers of young men leaving the village to go to boarding school
or look for work in Wewak and other towns – their exposure
to modern culture weakens their resolve to undergo the agony of the
skin cutting ritual.
Overnight Kanganaman village guesthouse (includes
dinner and breakfast). Lunch today will be fruit and dried fish purchased
from locals – your
guide will organise this.
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Women's singsing, Kairiru Island
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DAY 5: MIDDLE
SEPIK / WEWAK
From Kanganaman, motor upstream to the Pagwi Mission Station and board
our waiting vehicle for the road transfer to Wewak town (3 hours).
En route you can buy fresh fruit and cooked foods from roadside
markets for your lunch (own expense).
The earliest you could arrive in Wewak would be 1300hrs. The trip may
take longer in the case of bad weather, or problems with the motor
canoe or road vehicle (flat tyre etc) but by leaving Kanganaman early
around 0600 you can make allowance for contingencies.
On arrival in
Wewak, proceed straight to the airport and check in for your flight
from Wewak to Port Moresby or Madang (not included
in package) or overnight hotel if continuing on to Kairiru Island
next day. Afternoon flights depart between 1500-1700 on different days.
End of standard package itinerary
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