Bada top place to be there. It brings back fond memories of my family in those early days.

Yes, I regret not having more time to photograph the area. Sounds like you have some great memories living there!

Thank you!

LIVEFORONCE thank you. Yes, not a bad place to visit, but not the gem it used to be decades ago. It’s changed a lot for the worst since the first time I went wreck diving there.

Why is that? To many tourists?

LIVEFORONCE actually I believe tourism is way down. Basically infrastructure is failing while crime and corruption is increasing-mostly a nationwide trend, unfortunately. Some exceptions are Kokopo, New Britain and Milne Bay. Bougainville Island is also relatively safe despite the many locals who are wary and suspicious of foreigners, and their infrastructure is virtually non-existent after the civil war. The resorts in Madang are nice though and the local staff at Madang Lodge (where we stayed 4 nights) were very friendly and helpful. They had also upgraded our room to a “cottage” with a full kitchen, at their lowest single room rate-which was also by far the lowest rate we encountered anywhere else in the country-which tends to be 4x more expensive than an equivalent hotel room in the US. Anyway I don’t mean to denigrate Madang-just pointing out that it was sad to see this place deteriorate so much. If you enjoy scuba diving, it’s not a bad place to visit. Has some cool wrecks from WW2 to dive on, though Rabaul / Kokopo would be your best destination for wreck diving. Rabaul Harbor was the largest Japanese Naval base outside of Japan itself during WW2, and Kokopo has very friendly locals and well maintained infrastructure. I’ll be making a short video featuring this area later (but only had one short afternoon there with my drone-for which I regret in retrospect).

Thanks for the in-depth response, I appreciate it. It is always good to hear first hand experience from a person with your real life perspective. I will sub your channel and check back in the near future. Thanks, Mark.

Appreciate it Mark!

KK DELA It’s real. :P

Wou... i, m from Jayapura. I want visit this place. How can i come there

KK DELA You’re just up the coast from Madang. Not sure how to travel there other than perhaps boat or aircraft. You’d probably need to fly into Wewak first to clear customs then fly from there to Madang.

Thanks you

@@kkdela9580 just get in touch with the immigration officers along the both border agency post office then come to vanimo fix up whatever necessary documents and get a plane from Vanimo to madang and enjoy the rest of your staying here and return back.