The emergence of motorbikes....

Times, they are a-changin'

After my first couple of trips to PNG, a few people asked whether or not people rode motorbikes (like in SE Asia). After chuckling, with the slightest hint of condescension, I said no, it’s too dangerous. Besides the roads being of poor quality, the threat of being attacked or ‘bike-jacked’ would be too great.

However, in the past 10 months since arriving in Port Moresby, there has been a change. Little by little I am seeing more and more motorbikes on the roads. At first, it was the odd police motorbike. Then on one occasion, a group of expat guys arrived at the coffee shop I was at on their road-registered trail bikes. It struck me as odd, but figured that they must have felt there was safety in numbers.

And now I see at least two to three motorbikes everyday on the roads around Port Moresby. There’s the Dad that I see each morning taking his child to school on a bike near Boroko (wearing a bicycle helmet and thongs – I’m not even going there). There’s the middle-aged expat I saw yesterday riding some kind of cruiser that was nicely polished up. Not to mention the random nationals that I see around the place riding their bikes around town, too.

There really seems to be a change of atmosphere going on in POM, and the emergence of motorcyclists is just one of a number of minor observations that I’ve been making around town. I'm also seeing more and more expats walking freely on the streets. I’m not sure if this change is due to the recent Pacific Games, or what it is. However, it’s certainly refreshing to see more people (including expats) feeling much more comfortable and secure in what is generally considered an unpredictable environment.