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Published: February 20th 2009
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From Easter Island, the next stop was westward across the Pacific to Samoa for a quick overnight stop. This was just a place to crash for the night to break up the trip to Australia. The jet landed at 1am EST, which is the time zone used in Easter Island, but we had to set our clocks back 6 hours. So in Samoa it was only 7pm. We were served our second dinner of the night and watched a show. I have to hand it to this bunch of world travellers, they stayed up to watch the show. It was a bunch of warrior-type Samoan guys banging around the stage and twirling fire; that kind of thing.
The next morning, because of the time change, everyone was up at around 4 am. For the first time in my life, on this trip, I have felt like an early riser. Traveling west your whole life wouldn't be such a bad deal. If you are like me, you stay up a little later each day so that you go to bed later and wake up later in the morning. My internal clock works on more than a 24 hour time frame, it
is more like 27 hours. But when you travel west you are constantly setting your clock back a few hours so that when it is midnight in the time zone you just came from, it is really 9pm in your new time zone. Hence, you wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed. So I just have to keep traveling west for the rest of my life and I am all set. No problem.
Anyway, we woke up early and a few of us went swimming in the ocean right in front of our hotel as the sun came up. Not a bad way to wake up.
A word about the Samoan people; they are huge. I could see immediately why they are well represented in the NFL (think Junior Seau). They are all built like linebackers. Even the women. But they are truly gentle giants with very warm and friendly dispositions.
Next stop was Australia which for a few reasons I don't have too many pics of. One is that there weren't too many photo opportunities in the classic sense. Our main objective was to hit the Great Barrier Reef and since my camera is not waterproof, I
didn't even take it out on the boat. The reef was good, and I got a chance to scuba dive for the first time. I thought the reefs off the coast of Honduras and Belize were better in terms of colors but we did see some barracudas and giant clams. The thing I will remember about Australia though are the people. The are all born comedians. I have met more than a few traveling around and they always have made me laugh, but going to the source just confirms it; they are the funniest people on the planet. Oh, and they like to drink a few beers on occasion.
The other reason that I didn't get to take to many pics is that the second day in Australia, things got busy for me, medically speaking. A dreaded GI bug had crept into our group and I had about 10 calls that morning from people who thought they were dying. Mostly just good old fashioned diarrhea and vomiting with some cramps thrown in for good measure. No one died or even came close, but people did feel pretty lousy. We can't be sure what exactly it was that made everyone
sick, but there was a lot of speculation for the next 3 days. In fact, I think it was the number one topic of conversation.
Next stop was Papau New Guinea (PNG). I am including PNG in this blog because, while PNG is an extremely interesting place with much to see and tell, it also happens to be where I came down with the same GI bug that everyone else had. Why it hit me a day later than everyone else, I have no idea. But I remember feeling quite shocked when I felt the characteristic rumblings of Montezuma's revenge, because I had just finished traveling South America and South East Asia with nary a loose episode (hope you are not eating while reading this!) It hit me on the flight to Port Moresby and I spent the next 3 days hugging porcelain. My passport says that I was in PNG but I didn't see much of it. I managed to take a pic as we got off the little puddle-jumper plane that took us from Port Moresby to the PNG highlands simply because there were about 200 people there to watch the white people get off the plane. Apparently
they don't have Xbox in PNG.
It was honestly a great place to be ill. The weather was cool and rainy, and I had a nice hut in which to be ill all by myself. The best part was there was no phone or any type of communications so that if any of my patients wanted to get in touch with me, they actually had to seek me out, but luckily during that time, no one needed my services. The folks on the flight were very nice and inquired about me as I didn't leave my hut for a day and a half. When I finally did emerge, I was about 10 pounds lighter but felt much better.
Bottom line of PNG, these people are really primitive. The first time they saw a white man in the highlands of PNG was in 1955. They are still living the life that they and their ancestors have lived for 1000's of years, although now they have guns. They are still very warlike and often have clan wars with the neighbors over a stolen pig or wife (the pigs are more important).
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