Reviews (2)

Robert Young Pelton
I've read everything he has out.Loved it!It's current (as books go), funny, serious and a great read!

A must of the armchair traveller....
Not exactly LP, but it tells stories of two places that beenRead more

Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. People of Color    3. Special Interest - Adventure    4. Travel    5. Travelers    6. Australasia, Oceania & Other Land Areas    7. Chechnya    8. Papua New Guinea    9. Russia    10. Sierra Leone    11. Travel / Adventure    12. Travel writing    13. Warfare & Defence   

Reviews (11)

YOU MUST READ THIS BEFORE YOU THINK OF READING THIS BOOK !
I was very disappointed in this book. Although well written, its focus is not just on PNG. The author begins her first chapter writing about a life threatening experience she had while traveling in rather unsafe places in Africa. It is hard to believe that her story is true, as it makes her seem very stupid because of the truly foolish risks she takes and "always" manages to survive these horrendous situations with flying colors. Don't get me wrong as I am no wimpy traveller myself but I travel with respect for the people I visit. I am a "guest" in "their" country. I have visited many off the beaten path countries and lived with the local people traveling with only a backpack on my back. I have no problems riding in dusty local transportation vehicles with a chicken or two in the seat next to me.I have even hiked in places Borneo (Kalimantan), where you did not see one person all day. I have been to PNG many, many times and am the lucky recipient of a large Papuan family in Port Morsby that were so kind as to "adopt" me. I love and am addicted to what you could call "adventure travel", but I am a "Traveller and not a Tourist". There is a vast difference between the two. Although I really don't consider the author a tourist in her travels in the book, but she does make, what I would call, inappropriate demands on the indigenous people. Some of her behaviour makes me think of her a bit like "the ugly American" traveller of the 1950's. At times her behaviour seems rude to the indigenous people she has contact with and I got the impression that she made the trip, and possible others, focusing only on finding her self and not on any negative impact she might be making on the peoples in the rural villages she encountered. What REALLY upset and angered me reading the book, is the many foolish and dangerous risks she puts herself in. I feel she may give the impression to male readers that many women travelers are like this.
engaging, though very personal
Kira Salak's engaging and highly readable account of her cross-country trip across one of the remotest and most exotic corners of the world as a 24-year-old shouldn't be read for its stylistic excellence (though keen on maintaining a reader's suspense, Salak's prose is a little average) or its abundance of descriptive detail (there are some good sections, such as her account of meeting a rebel leader and her descriptions of costumes and dancers) but for its fascinating and intense coming-of-age arc.
Harangue in disguise
Being keen on New Guinea biota, I have been working to collect all the literature I can on the area. Most resources one finds are by missionaries, anthropologists, or military stories of World War II. Fairly useless for learning of the flora and fauna. Thus, seeing a book of a peregrination along hundreds of miles of lowland territory was intriguing.
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Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Essays & Travelogues    3. Special Interest - Adventure    4. Travel    5. Travel - Foreign    6. Travel - General    7. Literary studies: general    8. Travel & holiday guides    9. Travel / Adventure    10. Travel writing   

Subjects:  1. Papua New Guinea    2. Travel / road maps & atlases   

Reviews (9)

Natnats, hot sun, and dangerous men.
Four corners is a tale of a 24 year old woman's journey across Papua New Guinea. Her experience makes for a wonderful read, but she overworks the "finding herself" bit. Despite the self obsessive and all too frequent maudlin tangents, Salak writes in tight prose that grips the reader early in the book and doesn't let go until the second to last chapter (the last chapter is so sappy it brought the entire book from a solid 5 stars to a 4. It nearly morphed the read from high adventure to a "chick" book).
moving and insightful
(Memoir) Salak decides to travel across Papula
Great read!
I am leaving for my second trip to Papua New Guinea in little under a week. Ifound Salak's book to be a great read! I agree with another reviewer that her introspective thoughts became a bit redundant but all in all the book flowed well and was very interestingRead more

Subjects:  1. 1971-    2. Biography/Autobiography    3. Description and travel    4. General    5. Papua New Guinea    6. Salak, Kira,    7. Travel    8. Travel - General    9. Travelers' writings    10. Journeys    11. Salak, Kira    12. Memoir   

Reviews (5)

A legal videographer examines the possibilities, sightings, and realities
In 1994 seven boys saw the giant ropen flying over a crater take: in 2004 an American foresnsic videographer interviewed them and gained more details of a creature with a wingspan longer than a village hut. Could a living pterosaur elude scientists and discovery for decades? A legal videographer examines the possibilities, sightings, and realities in SEARCHNG FOR ROPENS: LIVING PTEROSAURS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA.
Right-Wing Religion Disguised as Cyrptozoology
This book is awful.The author starts off with a right-wing Christian agenda about how idiotic Darwinism is.This is cryptozology for paranoid creationists.You will read about his boring (and short) visit to New Guinea and how he questioned a few people there about the Ropens.But you will mostly have it pounded into your head that the Christian bible is truth and evolution is wrong.*SIGH*
Cryptozoology ?
I'm a lover of Cryptozoology Books, but this one is the worst I ever read.
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Subjects:  1. Life Sciences - Zoology - General    2. Special Interest - Adventure    3. Travel    4. Travel - General    5. Science-Life Sciences - Zoology - General    6. Travel / Adventure   

Reviews (2)

A Very Poor Guide! :-(
Once upon a time, Lonely Planet had a good guide to Papua New Guinea (371 pages), and an excellent one to the Solomon Islands (279 pages). For better or worse these fascinating countries don't exactly attract hordes of holidaymakers, so after leaving those books unupdated for many years, the publisher now has decided to dump them together in this new edition (272 pages).
Great guide book
As usual for the lonely planet guides, a well researched and detailed travel guide. I have not been to Papua New Guinea yet, so I can not comment on the accuracy of the information, but there is a wealth thereof. I respect the author's achievement, as it is obviously much easier to research for a travel guide about a European country where most people speak English and credit cards are accepted than for a pre-industrial place like Papua New Guinea, still mostly unspoiled by westernization.
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Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Travel    3. Travel - Foreign    4. Papua New Guinea    5. Solomon Islands    6. Travel & holiday guides   

Reviews (1)

Interesting
This book contains short accounts of expeditions to the western highlands of West Papua in the early 20th century, accompanied by 50 black and white photographs and a few maps.Read more

Subjects:  1. Art    2. British    3. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions    4. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - General    5. Discovery and exploration    6. Dutch    7. Exhibitions    8. Explorers    9. Indonesia    10. Papua    11. Papua (Indonesia)    12. Photography    13. Scientific expeditions    14. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Africa    15. Uhunduni (Indonesian people)    16. Exhibition catalogues and specific collections    17. Geographical discovery & exploration    18. History Of Art / Art & Design Styles    19. Papua New Guinea    20. Photographs: collections   

Subjects:  1. Biography: general    2. Papua New Guinea    3. Travel writing    4. c 1980 to c 1990   

Reviews (1)

Excellent Overview of Little-Visited Sites
This book is an excellent and still pretty up-to-date book on PNG's many and varied dive sites.Good way to plan a dive trip, by seeing which site descriptions most appeal to you.PNG's dive sites are very variable; fabulous visibility one day can be down to murky on the next.Little explored country in terms of diving, new sites are being identified all the time. Hopefully they'll update the book in a few years to include the many sites not known at the time it was first published.All in all, a very helpful and thorough book. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Australia & Oceania - South Pacific    3. Guidebooks    4. Papua New Guinea    5. Scuba & Snorkeling    6. Scuba diving    7. Skin diving    8. Sports    9. Travel    10. Travel - Foreign    11. Sub-aqua swimming    12. Travel & holiday guides   

Editorial Review

Papua New Guinea seems like the last place on Earth. Its terrain is so rugged, its jungles so impenetrable, that even at the end of the 20th century it remains largely unknown by the West. As late as 1993, new tribes were still being discovered in this land of more than 700 languages and as many cultural and racial groups. Travel there is neither particularly easy nor particularly safe, yet--more and more--intrepid travelers are making their way to the island's shores. Lonely Planet has produced a guidebook to help visitors get the most out of their time and money. Read more

Reviews (4)

LP guidebooks are usually great, and this is even better !
Having been a collector, affectionate reader, and on-the-field user of Lonely Planet guidebooks during my numberless and continuous travels, I can indeed witness that this one is one of the best.Some guidebooks try to cover too much, e.g. all of West Africa or all of Central Asia, and don't do the job so well (inevitable and still better than carrying one book for each country, but to the detriment of the quality).Another common problem, is the author's favourable bias towards the country she or he is covering, as if it were the most marvelous place on Earth - I think here of the LP guidebook to Libya.In other books still, some regions are covered more in-depth than others: the Indonesia guidebook only has seven pages on East Timor, which would in fact deserve a whole chapter if not a whole book on its own !Instead, in covering the fascinating land of Papua New Guinea, this author has done an excellent job, and not much else really needs to be added: this is indeed the Lonely Planet standard, that is to say, an excellent standard.For those who may not be familiar with it, this means excellent, up-to-date, accurate coverage of all areas of the country, with information (primary basic facts as well as further data for perfectionists) about accommodation, getting around, eating, entertainment, etc.Despite the vastity of this land and the difficulty of getting to the most remote areas, the author has managed it.The chapters on history and culture, especially in this guidebook, I find to be extremely well-written and researched.This one is indeed an excellent tool not only for the traveller but also for the armchair traveller who may wish to know more about PNG without necessarily going.It is extremely enjoyable and pleasant to read, thus combining the unrivalled qualities of a guidebook from Lonely Planet, with great information and facts about the mysterious land of Papua New Guinea.

THE guidebook for PNG
Even though this edition is already some years old it is still THE guide for independent traveling in this awesome country. The perfect travel guide for an incredible location
We traveled to Mt. Hagen and Port Moresby last March for the first time. What a great and beautiful country, and what a perfect travel guide toorient you. While this book is nice enough to have on the shelf, ours isworn from use... and usefulness. As a bonus, it's also well-written and agreat book to read!Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Australia & Oceania - South Pacific    3. Guidebooks    4. Papua New Guinea    5. Travel    6. Travel - Foreign    7. Travel & holiday guides   

Subjects:  1. Art    2. Description and travel    3. Papua New Guinea    4. Sepik River Region (Indonesia and Papua New Guinea)    5. Sepik River Region (New Guinea)   

Reviews (1)

Beautiful, accurate and perceptive
The photography in this book is spectacular.Gillison spent years getting to know the Gimi people of PNG and it shows in the photography.Subjects are casual and acting normally; you won't find photos like this by any photographer briefly (read less than a couple years) visiting PNG.This book is a window into the lives and ceremonies of PNG people that few outsiders are fortunate enough to see and even fewer talented photogaphers capture.This is not the standard travelogue with snapshots,Read more

Subjects:  1. Customs & Traditions    2. Gimi (Papua New Guinea people)    3. Individual Photographer    4. Papua New Guinea    5. Photo Essays    6. Photoessays & Documentaries    7. Photography    8. Rites and ceremonies    9. Social life and customs    10. Subjects & Themes - Travel - General    11. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Africa    12. Customs & folklore    13. Indigenous peoples    14. Photographs: collections    15. Photography / General   

Subjects:  1. History - General History    2. Oceania    3. Australasian & Pacific history: postwar, from c 1945 -    4. Biography: general    5. Markham, Edward Archibald    6. Papua New Guinea    7. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000    8. Travel writing   

Editorial Review

Papua New Guinea is one of those destinations so far off the beaten path that good guidebooks for the region are few and far between. Trust Lonely Planet, however, to rectify that situation. In Read more

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania    2. Australia/Oceania - South Pacific    3. Essays & Travelogues    4. Guidebooks    5. Hiking    6. Mountaineering    7. Papua New Guinea    8. Travel    9. Travel - Foreign    10. Walking    11. Travel & holiday guides    12. Walking, hiking, trekking   

Subjects:  1. Anthropology - Cultural    2. Anthropology - General    3. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions    4. Cultural And Social Anthropology    5. Documentary Photo Collections    6. Ethnology    7. Field work    8. History    9. Malinowski, Bronislaw,    10. Papua New Guinea    11. Photo Essays    12. Photography    13. Photography in ethnology    14. Portraits    15. Social Science    16. Subjects & Themes - Travel - World/Australasia    17. Trobriand Islanders    18. Trobriand Islands    19. Anthropology    20. Contributions in photography    21. First World War, 1914-1918    22. Malinowski, Bronislaw    23. Photographs: collections    24. Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural    25. Special kinds of photography   

Reviews (1)

"Do"judge a book by it's cover
I love Cousteau and family but am only familiar with the videos.Give me something to look at!
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Subjects:  1. Cousteau, Jacques Yves    2. Description And Travel    3. Ethnology    4. Natural history    5. Papua New Guinea    6. Photo Techniques    7. Travel   

Subjects:  1. History / Australia & Oceania    2. Papua,travel,description,Voyage,Kenneth,Mackay   

Reviews (1)

Only the Best
Bob Halstead writes what he knows. And what he knows for sure are the islands, the underwater marine life and the Best Dive Locations in Papua New Guinea.He and his wife Dinah were the fist to introduce recreactional divers to PNG.Here is the most authentic book you'll find on the reefs in Papua New Guinea's Milne Bay area.
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Subjects:  1. Asia - Southeast    2. Australia & Oceania - General    3. Scuba & Snorkeling    4. Special Interest - Adventure    5. Travel    6. Travel - Foreign   

Subjects:  1. Australia & Oceania - General    2. Biography / Autobiography    3. Travelers   

Subjects:  1. Description and travel    2. Papua New Guinea    3. Pictorial works