Talk about eye makeup! These wild guys have known the value of bright yellow, feathers and proto-sequin shiny stuff since the Stone Age.
Papua New Guinea, or PNG to friends, is home to hundreds of separate tribal communities, some very small, each with its own customs, traditions and languages – 850 tongues, in fact, and mutually unintelligible.
Barely-explored, PNG is set in the South Pacific Ocean, east of Indonesia and north of Australia. Rugged mountains, swamps, mossy dense rainforests, a long coastline, tiny market villages, volcanic fjords, rainforests and reefs, and truly wild parties. The country beckons with many mysterious species of plants and animals; a huge variety of rats, bats, kangaroo, really big butterflies, whales, manatee and more.
Paradise for photographers, PNG is an ultimate destination for idealistic, inquisitive and energetic travelers eager to explore one of the most fascinating and non-commercial countries on earth.
Headhunting and ritual cannibalism are no longer as popular as they used to be but for this untamed, exotic place, we still heartily suggest travelling with a well-experienced, specialist outfitter such as:
Colorado-based, award-winning Asia Transpacific Journeys offers two “Mt. Hagen Sing-Sing” 14-day trips this August, 2012 when over 100 tribes convene. This could be your only opp to meet the Huli Wigmen and Crocodile People. Call 800-642-2742 or surf to www.asiatranspacific.com.
Chicago-based R. Crusoe & Son. Call 312-980-8000 or 800-585-8555 or surf to: www.rcrusoe.com. In addition to receiving the most artistic brochure in the travel industry, travel to PNG with R. Crusoe and sail aboard either the 106-passenger Orion, or the 100- passenger Orion II, both luxurious, and carrying onboard experts in history, botany, biology, and geology.
Papua-based Trans Niugini Tours – www.pngtours.com gets high marks from my friend Jeannie, a fellow intrepid. Her small group were all thrilled with their trip guided by Greg Stathakis, escort to the intensely curious for 28+ years and still going strong. They got close enough to a group of tribal initiates, a widow in mourning and into the hair-raising 300-tribesmen ‘‘Tumbuna Sing-Sing.”
Fed up with the unfriendly skies? For a happy break from frenetic and increasingly unpleasant air travel, check out the award-winning “Man in Seat 61” a sophisticated, encyclopaedic website for travel by train, track-by-track, almost anywhere on the planet. This colossal collection of routes, prices, timetables, and even ferry connections generates fodder for heart-poundingly inspirational travel.
Hang out with The Man in Seat 61 for a fun jaunt like Moscow to Beijing via Kazakhstan. Or, for more fun, he says, “It’s easy to travel by train all the way from the UK to Belgrade in Serbia, to Skopje in Macedonia or Podgorica, then to Bar in Montenegro.”
He seems to have worked out every route and permutation on earth. Last one: The weekly Nile steamer links Aswan inEgypt with Wadi Halfa in the Sudan, and then a weekly train will deliver you directly to Wadi Halfa with Khartoum. This page explains not only how to make the journey, but also what it’s like.
We are crazy about that Man in Seat 61 who, in real life, is one Mark Smith, an energetic Englishman and international railroad encyclopaedist who is not as mysterious as his moniker.
From Adelaide to Alice Springs to Darwin, the Ghan crosses the spectacular transcontinental heart of Australia, north to south, in a 48-hour one-way ride with two nights on board. 
India anyone? The royally luxurious Deccan Odyssey departs from Mumbai and visits towns and villages all along the gorgeous coastline of the Arabian Sea for 8 days, including hottest beach spot on the subcontinent, the intensely sensual sandy city of Goa.