This is what $150/night will get you in PNG. There is no tourist infrastructure so prices for everything except betelnut & rice are pretty pricey. The pay off- there is no tourist infrastructure!

And played with the kiddos of the island. These are surfboards! Carved from ingenuity after an Australian visited them with his fiberglass board in the 80s. The ritual continues...if you are out there Mr Ausie, know you've changed this island's work ethic (in a good way) forever.

OK. I'm over it. Had to decline in accepting this 1st course. May I please just skip to the desert, and I hope it's not moving. Seriously, bugs are a main source of protein. The other source is Sago plant-a coconut type plant. The Sago is probably the most important of all agriculture in PNG. The fibers are used for clothing, the bark is used for jewlery, the nut is pounded to pulp & turned into about a 101 different types of dishes, and the worms inside the nut...well that is the true delicacy. The only other source of protein is pigs, which are served up only once a year for celebration of marriages.

Barramundi farming is a growing industry in Papua New Guinea. Also called Asian Seabass, Barramundi are a popular tablefish farmed in coastal waters and estuaries, and much, if not all, of the production in PNG goes to the local restaurant industry. Barramundi in Lae are commercially farmed, but some are also farmed using a smallholder model, where members of the landowning communities raise fish in pens before selling them, fully grown, to the farming company. Not seen in this photo was a large group of children whose job was to watch the pens - a task most easily accomplished while swimming.