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Link The Mount Hagen Cultural Show attracts performers from nearly 80 Highlands tribes. It is one of Papua New Guinea's biggest sing-sings. Photo: Inga Ting

The festival showcases the song and dance of tribes from one of the world's most culturally intact regions. Photo: Inga Ting

The Mount Hagen cultural festival has been running since the 1960s. Photo: Inga Ting

The Foi tribesmen of Papua New Guinea's Lake Kutubu region are renowned for their ability to extract the treasured oil of the kara'o tree. Photo: Inga Ting

The festival arena is an explosion of colour and rhythm. Photo: Inga Ting

Men and boys from this Highlands tribe honour their ancestors by dressing as old men. Photo: Inga Ting

Performers spend hours preparing their costumes and makeup ahead of the festivities. Photo: Inga Ting

The legend of Papua New Guinea's famed Asaro Mudmen tells how their ancestors hid on the banks of the Asaro river when the village came under attack. When they emerged from the river covered in mud, their enemies mistook them for spirits and fled. Photo: Inga Ting

The feathers of rare birds, including birds of paradise, are used to create elaborate headdresses. Photo: Inga Ting

Colour and custom come together at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

Foi tribesmen mix the viscous oil of the kara'o tree with charcoal or plant dye to create the paint used in celebrations: black for warriors, red for mature men and yellow for initiates or men in training. Photo: Inga Ting

Young and old join the celebrations at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

Colour and custom come together at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

A performer plays a kundu or lizard skin drum at the Mount Hagen Cultural show. Photo: Inga Ting

These days, many of the masks worn by Papua New Guinea's famed Asaro Mudmen draw smiles from foreign spectators. Photo: Inga Ting

Some headdresses feature whole birds, as well as rare feathers. Photo: Inga Ting

The showground becomes a sea of towering headdresses as performers enter the field. Photo: Inga Ting

Costumes are made of traditional materials including bark, seeds, animal bones and feathers. Photo: Inga Ting

Many costumes at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show evoke ancestral spirits. Photo: Inga Ting

Colour and custom come together at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

The feathers of rare birds, including birds of paradise, are used to create elaborate headdresses at the Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

Papua New Guinea: Mount Hagen Cultural Show. Photo: Inga Ting

This masalai or spirit carries a garland of pig bones. Photo: Inga Ting

The Omo Famous Masalai re-enact the battle between forest spirits as part of their performance. Photo: Inga Ting

The Omo Famous Masalai re-enact the battle between forest spirits as part of their performance. Photo: Inga Ting

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Pop quiz: which country is Australia's closest neighbour?

You could be forgiven for immediately thinking of New Zealand, given it's closer to the east coast of Australia than Perth is, and shares many of our cultural traits. You might even name Indonesia, which really isn't far to the north, and certainly dominates our news.

But you'd be wrong on both counts, because the largely forgotten country that is only 3.7 kilometres away from Australian soil at its nearest point, is Papua New Guinea. PNG. It takes just an hour to fly from Cairns to Port Moresby. It's three hours from Brisbane. That's very close.

And yet how many Australian tourists have ever visited our nearest neighbour? We all like to proudly tell the world that we're hardcore travellers who think nothing of an eight-hour flight for a short holiday in Asia – but who's been to PNG?

I was in the country recently, and started to realise just how much there is to offer for tourists up there, and how few Australians ever get to experience it. This is thought of as the home of the Kokoda Trail, and that's about it. No one else comes up here.

Granted, there are some barriers to travelling in PNG, but they're probably not the ones you're thinking of. Security is a certainly an issue in cities such as Port Moresby and Lae, but if you avoid those areas – which is easy enough to do – then you'll find other parts of the country surprisingly friendly and safe.

Smart Traveller recommends visitors to PNG "exercise a high degree of caution". That's the same level of warning as Brazil, or Turkey. Stay out of Moresby and it's really not that bad.

One of the main issues for Australian travellers to Papua New Guinea is cost – this is not a cheap country to travel to, whether that's for flights to get up there or for costs once you're on the ground. There's a sort of false economy for foreigners in PNG, where hotel stays and food at decent restaurants can cost more than it does in Sydney or Melbourne.

The other issue is time. PNG might be our closest neighbour, but if you're flying from Sydney or Melbourne, you're probably looking at three flights and a full day of travel to get to the sort of area you'd actually want to holiday in – somewhere like Milne Bay, or Rabaul. In that amount of travel time you could also get to Thailand, or Bali, or Vanuatu.


So it's going to take a little bit of dedication to visit our closest neighbour, which is perhaps what scares some people off. Those who do make the effort, however, will find a fascinating country that has so much more to offer than a dangerous capital city and a historic hike.

The tribal culture in Papua New Guinea, for starters, is amazing. This is the sort of stuff that people spend thousands of dollars to travel to Africa and see, and it's right on our doorstep. There are more than 820 different languages spoken in PNG by tribes who are rich with distinct cultures.

You can do homestays in villages with no electricity or running water up there, stay in tiny places on islands or in mountain villages inhabited by friendly people keen to share their way of life. You can watch dances and ceremonies and see costumes and dresses that are far more distinctive and bizarre and interesting than anything you could find in, say, Zambia or Tanzania.

For scuba divers, Papua New Guinea might just be the best destination in the world, with beautiful untouched reefs in the area around Milne Bay, and sunken wrecks from World War II still lying on the ocean floor near Rabaul. And you have to share these underwater marvels with pretty much no one except the fish.

Speaking of World War II, there's enough Australian history here to rival sights in Europe, much of it seemingly forgotten in the fervor surrounding Gallipoli. As well as Kokoda, the Battle of Milne Bay marked the first victory by Allied troops over the Japanese in WWII, and Australian troops were heavily involved in the area around Rabaul, where many of the Japanese bases and pieces of heavy artillery can still be found.

It's a little wild in PNG, a little edgy. It's amazing to think that you're still so close to Australia when you wander around a local market up there, watching people selling betel nut and mustard sticks, or stewed cassava wrapped in banana leaves. There are places there where shells are still used as currency.

It's another world. It's also exactly the kind of thing that adventure travellers seek when they journey so far from home. And it's right on our doorstep.

Have you been to Papua New Guinea? If not, would you want to go? Leave a comment below.

Email: b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au

Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater

​See also: The world's safest cities for travellers

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