Departures (2008–…): Season 3, Episode 5 - Papua New Guinea: Fire and Water - full transcript
(reel rumbling)
(upbeat music)
- Papua is in a constant state of change.
So much of this country
is wild and unexplored.
Mother nature is changing this island
almost on a daily basis.
(delightful music)
There's so much history here.
You just got to find it.
Over the three years of traveling,
this could be the trip
that takes the cake.
Anything goes here.
Every step of this world trip
has taken us further away from home
to places we never expected to see.
(delightful music)
Two years ago,
I would never have understood
how much this journey would change me.
This is why we travel.
This is the reason that we're out here.
(delightful music)
We've arrived in Papua New Guinea
and immediately gone through Port Moresby
and flown out to East New Britain.
New Britain is one of the bigger islands
off the coast of the
mainland Papua New Guinea.
We're actually standing
in pretty much the center of
the current town of Rabaul.
Rabaul has seen better days.
It used to be a real gem of the area.
It was a town of hustle and bustle,
town where a lot of
tourists came, ex-pats,
locals wanted to come here
on vacation, everybody did,
but a lot changed.
- Outside of the town is this volcano.
And what it does is it puts
all the dust into the air
and just lands on the town.
- You can see what we're standing on here.
It's just ash, it's all over the place.
We've only come a certain
amount into the city itself
and we know that where we're going
is gonna reveal just how
big this city once was.
It's obviously downsized quite
a bit after 1994's eruption,
which you know covered most of this town.
(delightful music)
Is it better soft?
- Yeah?
Okay.
We've been lucky enough to be hooked up
with a friend named Nick,
who's actually from Papua New Guinea
and his family has had a pretty
well established businesses.
Thank you very much.
All throughout the country.
And because of that, he really
knows the country quite well.
- What is all this?
You walk along here,
everybody seems to do
some of the same thing.
- Well, that product is biddlenut,
kind of like a fruit
and everybody chews it.
It makes your teeth go red
and you can tell who's
been chewing it longer.
The teeth go black.
- [Justin] Do you chew it?
- No.
- [Justin] Look at those teeth.
Those teeth are too white.
Look at those teeth.
(all laughing)
The volcanoes around this island
have taken out cities, towns, communities.
- [Scott] It's hard to imagine
that this was only 15 some odd years ago
because it looks so aged.
- All we need now is like a tumbleweed
to be rolling down here
and get that whole ghost town effect.
- You've still got this
constant stream of smoke,
ash, sulfur gases.
It's coming right up and
over the island here.
- Do you notice there's no birds around?
There's no animals around at all.
That's not a good sign.
- Some of my mates and their parents,
they used to date here at this cinema
and they couldn't get in
without closed shoes on.
You had to come all
dressed up to walk in here
otherwise, you wouldn't get in.
- Do those rules still apply now?
- Not really.
I don't think the
manager's around anymore.
This building down here,
it was a clubhouse.
Only ministers and politicians
and big businessmen
were allowed to go to this place.
- You think we can go into that?
Like, I'm not wearing my
fancy duds or anything.
I know you.
You seem like a pretty important person.
(delightful music)
(Justin chirping)
- Not exactly an inviting
place anymore, is it?
It's all locked up.
- So is this one of the
guns they confiscated?
No weapons allowed.
He was like, "whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
What do you got underneath the jacket?"
And he pulled this thing out and was like,
(hums) what?
I'm not allowed to bring this in?
- This is a World War Two relico, man.
Like, why isn't this in
a museum or something?
- This is a museum.
Have a look around.
- You think we'll see more of this stuff?
- Plenty, all over the place.
(delightful music)
I'm so unhappy I've missed
this part of Rabaul.
We could have been here 20
years ago and see it in action.
That would have been great.
- 20 years ago, bums like us
wouldn't have been
allowed near this place.
- Look at this chain.
We can't even get into this
place and look at this chain.
- [Nick] I reckon that's
what the volcano does
to all the steel around here.
- [Justin] Let's get in here.
- You're still trying
to break your way in?
I think you're 15 years late.
Damn!
- What's that saying?
What's that saying they say?
- Once a nobody, always a nobody?
(all laughing)
(suspenseful music)
Is this part of the
yacht club or something?
We got a big anchor over the door.
- No, this is a Yamamoto's bunker.
- This is World War II?
- [Nick] Yeah, definitely.
- Admiral Yamamoto's bunker?
- [Nick] Yeah, this is it.
- The man who woke up the sleeping giant,
bomb thrill harbor.
- Look at the concrete slab
protecting him under here.
- Well, I'd hope so.
I mean, he was the fricking
leader of the Imperial Navy.
- Shall we go in?
- You think it's safe?
(chuckles) Apparently not.
(dramatic music)
- It's like a map room.
- Holy shit.
Yamamoto like conducted
business here, serious business.
This is where Admiral Yamamoto sat
and tried to plan some pretty
significant counterattacks
as the allies started to
liberate areas like this.
- And if you look at these points here,
maybe these are all the docking stations.
Bet if you went to all these little spots,
there'd be something there.
Like some sort of relic.
- This is the lower level.
And as a result of our
friend, the volcano,
you can see there's an
awful lot of flooding
which has brought a heck of a
lot of silt and ash down here.
It's like finding a lost
relic of Hitler's bunker
or Winston Churchill's
bunker, Romel's bunker.
- [Justin] Stalin.
- Stalin's bunker.
- [Justin] Bob Marley's.
- It opens up a bit here.
- Yamamoto, where are you?
- Look at that.
That gives you an idea
of the flooding that happens down here.
- Anticlimactic a little bit
'cause you come all the way
here and just a dead end.
- Same thing on this side.
A tight squeeze, isn't it?
I still can't get over the fact
I'm crawling through
Admiral Yamamoto's bunker,
half destroyed and half covered in ash
like the rest of the city,
it's awesome.
It's down in the dirt.
When you have the Admiral camped out here,
you need some heavy protection.
These are the take down
any planes coming his way.
When do you go to Pearl Harbor
or when you go anywhere like
museums and those sites,
everything's guarded,
you can't get out to it,
you can't touch stuff over there.
It's a cool way of learning
history, I tell you.
That's probably the best
way of learning history.
Put your hands on it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
We're gonna see more and more.
(delightful music)
(car engine revving)
(delightful music)
Rabaul is basically a modern Pompei.
What a crazy lifestyle?
Live at the bottom of a
volcano, an active volcano.
You're waiting for someone to
show up from the government
saying, "okay, everybody evacuate.
This is not a healthy place to live."
It's like, nope, people are living there.
This is just one little
corner of this country.
One little island, but it has
so much to just go and see.
(delightful music)
Scott is such a plane buff
and it's cool to see him light up.
He becomes like a little kid.
He really loves all this stuff
and he knows so much about it.
Well, Scott, you're the plane guy.
What am I looking at here?
The bomber?
- Twin engine, Japanese, buddy.
(Justin whistling)
Last couple of days of
the war in the Pacific,
I'm sure the Japanese would have loved
to have just had even those.
Took some damage on the way down,
was definitely shot down.
Never seen one of these before.
Not much left to look at,
but it's the real deal.
- Think she'll still fly?
With a little music montage
and a little hard work,
we can get this thing flying.
- I can't believe that this
much survived being shot down
and crashing into the ground.
And then 50 years after the war,
it survived a volcanic eruption
and an extra 15 years
after that, here we are.
- Scott, he's on cloud nine right now
and it's cool to see him like that.
- There's still so much of this left.
It's a miracle.
- It's like me going to a
chocolate factory or something.
Well, just (groans).
- I don't know.
(delightful music)
It's like looking at a
gravestone or something.
There's a lot of losses
on both sides in this war.
- In every war.
- In every war.
(delightful music)
- We're driving to make our
way close to the volcano
and these kids out of nowhere,
just jumped on in our truck
and now we got some kids.
Look here, look here, there's more coming.
(delightful music)
- All the kids in the
whole of Papua New Guinea,
they love tourists, naturally.
(delightful music)
- Yeah, let's go, let's go.
(delightful music)
- These kids are all over the place.
- Stand over there.
Stand over there.
- This is the area that used
to be the town of Rabaul.
It was absolutely devastated overnight
by that volcano right there.
- There's a lot of sulfur in the air.
You can smell it, you can taste it.
As we're driving in,
they're telling us this
used to be the main street,
there used to be all these pubs,
this used to be Chinatown.
This used to be this.
This is where the prime
minister used to have his house.
Gone, everything gone.
(delightful music)
- This gives you a pretty good idea
of how quickly this happened.
This is relatively small
amount of ash piled on top.
There's a lot of buildings that we've seen
where you can only just see the rooftops.
One and a half two stories of a building
completely buried in ash.
Some completely buried.
It's a fixer-upper.
Let's do the old tire kick test.
- [Justin] Yeah, that's something.
- Look, it's crumbling apart.
(delightful music)
It's just such a weird landscape.
Like it's just so dead.
It almost feels like I'm
walking on the moon somewhat.
(delightful music)
Top, you can feel more of
the heat coming off of it
the closer we get to it.
The sea right in front of us
is just steaming like crazy.
But I mean, it gets to a point
where we won't be able to go any further
'cause I mean, it'll actually be unsafe
to get too close to
gas that's that noxious
and poisonous to us.
It's just best not to think about it.
I mean, it's not a matter of like,
I wonder if it's gonna go off?
Well, it is going off.
It's going off right now.
It's just, it's not going
off to the degree that it was
when it buried the city.
- Don't you notice as we get closer,
the less people start following us?
It's just like, we started
off with all these kids
and everything, everybody's jumping,
"oh! Yeah, we're going with you."
And then all of a sudden,
"wait a second, where are you guys going?
Okay, that's a little much."
(upbeat music)
- P.N.G lies on the ring of fire
and is one of the most
active of the countries
within the ring of fire.
And I think it was important
to kind of start here
because there's absolutely no greater base
to break this country down into,
let alone the entire world into,
than the absolute roots
of what makes this world,
what created the land
that we all stand on,
which is the brute force of mother nature.
(upbeat music)
It's not until you get this deep into it
that you really realize
how powerful it is.
You were just looking
over at this cliff face.
It just burnt away the land, right?
- [Nick] It feels so alien.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- Like we're not even supposed to be here
or it's not a part of the planet.
- That's the beauty
part about this country
is no one's really around to
tell you not to do it, right?
- Yeah, that's right.
(upbeat music)
(Justin laughing)
- We're getting up on the actual base
of the volcano itself now.
We're gonna have to be careful
how far we get at this point.
Any of these little
fissures can kind of open up
and a new vent can form
and start spurting this toxic
stuff straight up at our face.
You gotta be aware of where
you're putting your feet now.
- I'll just follow your footsteps then.
- (laughs) I'm following Nick's.
- I'm just going that way,
straight with the mountain.
- I am kind of a little bit
concerned on these gases
that are coming up.
God only knows what kind
of poisons are in the air
but that's for me when I'm
75 years old to worry about.
When I'm old, sit in a
wheelchair and be like,
that was a bad idea.
(upbeat music)
(delightful music)
(Nick and Scott coughing)
- Actually, just coming
up that last slope,
breathing the air gets
you coughing, doesn't it?
- Yeah.
My eyes are burning.
- We are what?
Maybe 500 meters from the top?
- You're the only smart one, dude.
- I got it in Japan.
How close do we really wanna go though?
Like, how close is actually safe?
Justin, hey.
I want you to go there.
- As long as you can carry my body down.
Have you noticed that
there's like these fumes
coming up behind us now?
- There's been a lot of people
who've come up here
for a number of reasons
and they've never been heard from again.
- Some people have never
come back, but you know,
hearsay, can't confirm that.
- [Justin] It wasn't that I was afraid
of the thing going off
and like the chance of
this thing going off
while we're up here is like
getting struck by lightning
but the gases and everything
that's being distributed
by this volcano are deadly.
- I have to apologize to my mother,
who has to endure watching me
do these stupid things all the time.
Probably taking years off her life.
Dad's a science nut for
the love of science,
who gets to get this close to a volcano.
So dad, I hope you
understand, mom, I'm sorry.
- Good last words, ain't it?
- [Scott] (laughs) Exactly.
- I'm not going any further than here.
- I'd least like to just get
up in that colored stuff.
- You can see it blowing towards us.
I've taken too many
fire protection courses
to know what kind of chemicals
are in the air after-
- [Andre] What kind?
- Lots.
- Do they teach you volcano protection?
- Yeah, they said don't go near a volcano.
- We're only here once.
- Why am I the one?
I'm usually the dumb one, you know?
- Screw it, let's keep going.
Just a little further.
- You guys push, I'm gonna stay down here.
(delightful music)
- You can see just right
in behind you, Andre,
there's the vent, gases that
are starting to come up,
this sulfur dioxide and
the whole mix of junk,
which is really making
it very hard to breathe.
I think Justin had the right idea.
Probably not wise to go on
a heck of a lot further.
(dramatic music)
(Nick coughing)
- (groans) Shit, I can't even talk.
Oh! You just really taste it.
What do you say we do that
big rock and see what happens?
I really don't like what
I'm doing to myself,
but at the same time,
the excitement of being
at the lip of a volcano,
an active volcano, is so much of a thrill.
So much of a draw.
What should we do now?
- Always ready when you are.
(delightful music)
- I'm wearing this mask
but I think it's just filtering
out the oxygen as well.
- [Scott] Are you still
feeling a burn and stuff?
- Oh! Yeah.
I don't think is doing anything.
It's for like not catching the flu.
- Guys, the wind is
coming up from the side.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- Let's go.
- [Scott] It's getting pretty bad.
- Yeah, that's it.
- I don't know if it's really worth it.
I'm with you.
(air whooshing)
- [Andre] I'm gonna take a look.
- [Scott] Okay.
(delightful music)
(Andre panting)
(Andre coughing)
- It's not that much farther.
This thing is not doing anything.
It's not that much farther up.
So I'm gonna try to get up there
but I'm gonna have to lose the steady cam
'cause it's too heavy.
(delightful music)
It just burns in your lungs.
I'm so close.
I just wanna...
It's just over that ridge there, maybe.
100 more feet then I can
take a look into the crater.
(delightful music)
(Andre groaning)
I'm almost there.
My heart is pounding.
My heart's just pounding.
Try to give me enough oxygen.
There's no air so we'll
just be quick about it.
(delightful music)
Holy Shit.
That cloud of gas behind me would kill me.
And it's kinda coming this
way a little bit, you can see.
Okay, I am inside the
crater of an active volcano.
I probably even shouldn't be touching this
but it's really, really hot.
The soil is fricking really hot.
(coughs) I probably shouldn't
stay here very long.
Oh! It just burns your eyes.
Okay, I'm out of here.
(delightful music)
- Oh my God!
It's impossible to breathe up here.
- [Andre] You all right?
- It's like chemical burn time.
Feels like the next closest
thing to mustard gas.
My shirt isn't exactly medical grade.
- [Andre] You want mine?
- Okay, here I go.
(delightful music)
(Scott groaning)
I'm still 50/50.
That's one of the most amazing things
I've ever seen in my entire life.
But this is one of the stupidest things
I've ever done in my entire life.
Way to go.
You did it first, buddy.
You inspire me.
Let's never do this again.
- [Andre] That's a good call.
- Okay.
To be honest, this is
really, really dangerous
and most of the time,
there's all kinds of shit
rolling down the side of the mountain.
Rock, lava, gas, water,
boiling water, cheerios,
I don't know, it doesn't matter.
It's dangerous.
(upbeat music)
- [Andre] Mind carrying the vest for me?
(Scott groaning)
It's a little sweaty.
(upbeat music)
- Enjoy that climb?
- [Scott] It was rough.
- Yeah, it was.
- [Scott] How you doing?
- Good, the air is cleaner down here.
- It's terrible.
Amazing but terrible and terrifying.
(upbeat music)
- Oh! Acid sweat, burns the eyes.
- [Scott] Sulfuric acid.
- I hear it's good for you.
(upbeat music)
- It was good to be back
down at ground zero,
that's for sure.
- Look at where it starts
and it goes all the way
up over there (laughs).
- You guys are idiots, I think.
Honestly, you have no idea
what you guys just breathing in up there.
I saw you guys go up
then I was like, no way.
You guys just went up
there for like a minute.
You're up there for like good 20 minutes.
Hope you enjoyed it.
(upbeat music)
- During the second world war,
Papua New Guinea was a huge battleground.
Japanese came through
and occupied a lot of Papua New Guinea.
So consequently,
there's a lot of stuff
left here on the island.
We're gonna go in and see
a submarine base right now.
- There was an old man there
and his father and his grandfather
helped build the tunnels.
George was his name and he
was just full of information.
So you say it drops 300 meters.
- Yeah.
- That the submarines would come up here,
tie up to these things and
then load up with bombs
and all the ammunition and everything.
So we just go in here?
- Yeah, in there.
- How far does it go back?
- In and out.
- Oh! It goes in and out?
- Yeah.
- [Justin] How old were you
when they were doing this?
- I was 14.
14 years.
- [Justin] 14?
- Yes.
- [Justin] Oh! So you
remember it pretty well?
- I can speak a little
bit Japanese language.
(Justin speaking in foreign language)
(George speaking in foreign language)
- (laughs) I know a little bit
Japanese, very, very little.
Very little.
(George speaking in foreign language)
- (speaks in foreign
language) means tunnel.
- How long did they take to build this?
(George mumbling)
Three or four months you say?
How many people would
actually live down here?
- Well, thousands.
- [Justin] Thousands?
- Thousand.
- [Justin] Wow!
(upbeat music)
- They would have had
native slaves or prisoners
digging this up by hand.
Yeah, you can see here,
look at the pink-
- [Scott] Pink marks.
- [Nick] Pink marks all the way through.
- You have to do this all by hand,
you're a slave in your own backyard.
And then after the war ends,
then you just keep having
repetitive problems
with the volcano.
These people have to
endure a lot, don't they?
(delightful music)
- It's so important to find
those people, the eyewitnesses.
There's so many stories that are untold.
Just to sit down with
somebody who experienced it
when they were young
and get their impression of
what happened here Papua,
to me, that'll stick in my mind a lot more
than anything I could ever read.
You were saying that during the day,
this was always getting bombed.
His uncle got killed by
a bomb and then at night,
the bombs would stop
and then that's when they
bring up the submarines
and then they'd load them up.
He said it was really, really quick.
- I lost one of my toes.
World War II.
- [Justin] Did the Japanese do that?
- [George] Yeah.
- [Justin] They cut off your toe?
- Yeah.
(somber music)
- It's always better to be
here, to be on the spot.
Like I could throw stones on a submarine
if I was here 60, some odd years ago.
That's how close they brought them.
And there would have been
Japanese zeroes flying overhead.
My grandpa had books after
the war that he picked up,
all about the second
world war that my dad had,
my dad gave to me.
I used to read them all the time.
There's something
about looking at these
black and white pictures
that always makes it seem
like it was so long ago
but you come here and
everything's in color and in 3D
and basically, what to me
as a kid was a storybook,
this really interesting storybook,
kind of come to life.
It's the next best thing
to being able to have a time machine.
(upbeat music)
I still just can't get over the scenery
and everything from up here.
I mean, this is the perfect spot
to have a million dollar cottage
anywhere else in the world.
And is where some of those bloody battles
of World War II happened.
(upbeat music)
We're just down for a second level,
deep inside one of the bunkers here.
You can still see Japanese newspapers
that have been stuck to the roof.
(upbeat music)
This is a pretty, crudely
chopped out gun emplacement.
The beauty part about this,
you get to see the best example
of how small that reef
goes out from the coastline
and how abrupt that huge
wall is dropping down
a few hundred meters.
(delightful music)
- A lot of things happened in this area,
where a lot of ships went down,
a lot of planes went
down and because of it,
in this area,
it's just, there's so much to see.
(delightful music)
(boat engine revving)
- 45-minute exciting little
boat ride across the bay
and then we'll get our gear sorted
and get in the water.
(delightful music)
(boat engine revving)
- This is it, boys.
(delightful music)
- In order to dive in this
area, we need to pay him first.
This guy kinda owns the land in this area
so he kind of takes care of everything.
It's just to show respect
and just to thank him
for letting us dive here.
Thank you.
(water splashing)
How awkward was that?
- You guys give him the money?
- [Justin] Yeah.
- That's the way it works.
- [Justin] Is he sharpening
the axe right now?
- [Nick] Yeah, that's right.
- (chuckles) Well, let's get out of here.
The man's been paid.
- The water right below
the bow of the boat here
is about 100, 150 meters.
- So this is your first dive, huh?
- [Nick] Yeah.
- [Justin] First volcanoes, now this?
- Now we're diving on
wrecks from World War II.
- We just showed up and man,
you just keep going with us, man.
You're right there with
us, that's awesome.
- Check out the beast.
- This is what I got to carry.
This can go down to about 200 meters.
So farther than I'm ever gonna
probably dive in my life.
(delightful music)
- Out of the darkness,
out of this deep blue sea,
the shape of a Japanese
zero comes into view.
(delightful music)
For a guy who grew up
spending countless hours in the basement
crafting together World
War II aircraft models,
to be able to see this stuff,
face to face for the first time,
is like a little mini dream come true.
(delightful music)
Looking face-to-face
with the very front end
where the propeller is
and grabbing onto it,
looking into the engine
and just trying to,
almost with macro view,
go up and appreciate every little detail
that's still left for me to see
that hasn't washed away or corroded away.
(delightful music)
Thanks to way P.N.G is
and the way it's been left
since the second world war,
for a war buff, it is heaven.
This is just one little
sliver of a huge bloody war
that a lot of people gave their lives for
and it means a lot for me.
(delightful music)
It's almost like being visited by a ghost
and I know it's just a machine,
but people went down
with those tools of war.
Things that caused such fear
and such terror in people,
now lie dormant.
The guns have rotted away
and the bullets are gone
and the action and the
speed, they're still.
It's amazing.
(upbeat music)
Before we leave the island of New Britain,
we wanna see more than just the coastline.
So we're taking a couple of four by fours
deep into the jungle, as far as we can.
And then from there, we'll go on foot.
We'll try to make a day of it,
overnight in the woods, somewhere.
- Jungle, it's not the woods.
Pure jungle.
- We're going with Nick of
course and a buddy of his, Cory
and a couple of his boys who
are gonna help us stay safe
and find our way safely
in and out of the bush.
- It's not bush, this is jungle.
(upbeat music)
- This is where the hike begins.
- It's a nice trek up to Baron village,
which about a year ago,
there was only one villager living there
but he's now sort of
slowly building his empire.
There's now two families living there.
- Our hope is if we hike all day,
we can probably get to one
of the nearest villages,
spend the night with them
and get a real feel
for what the real inland
part of New Britain is like.
(upbeat music)
Wow!
It's the wall of bamboo, right?
This represents probably
95% of this entire country?
- Yeah, that's it.
That's why I wanted you guys
to come out and have a look.
This is what we have, real jungle.
(upbeat music)
- The sun's coming up,
a bit closer to mid day now.
We've been walking for a few
hours, starting to get hot,
starting to get really
hot even under the canopy.
(bird chirping)
(upbeat music)
(dogs barking)
Well, on a perfect little ridge
overlooking the whole area.
The dogs just got told.
We just arrived in the village
that we were hoping to get to before dark.
Plenty of time to spare, a
nice breeze rolling through
and they call this a village.
But I mean, it's essentially
just five or six huts
and that's it.
Who knows?
If you come back here 10 years from now,
there might be 12 huts here.
(upbeat music)
- This is Israel.
- Israel, nice to meet you.
He was the one who actually
started this village, right?
- This was the only hut that was standing,
about two years ago.
And then since that time
another two families have also arrived.
- So can you ask him why
he chooses to live here
instead of go to the city?
(Israel speaking in foreign language)
- This is his home.
He likes being in the bush, isolated,
he's got fresh meat, his garden
that he plants his veggies in, his fruit
and he's got his family here,
so what more do you want?
(Israel speaking in a foreign language)
So we're gonna watch them prepare the pig
in traditional P.N.G style.
- Look at the bounty
we're about to dig into.
Thank you very much.
(upbeat music)
Get a load of that.
That's quite the trophy case.
He's collected just about every bottom jaw
of every pig that he's killed
in the last year or so,
maybe two years that he's been up here.
- Jesus! It's gotta be here
over close to 100 there.
- [Scott] You've got a
couple of families to feed
and no grocery store.
- There's a lot of pigs out there.
Throughout the mountains, everywhere.
So that's why all the native survive.
(delightful music)
(branches cranking)
- [Scott] This is a country
that is probably 90% unseen, undeveloped.
The first couple of days here
have been absolutely mind-blowing.
It just keeps getting better and better.
(delightful music)
(knives clanking)
- They're starting to
cut the pig now and...
(loud thudding)
(delightful music)
But what they did before
they started gutting on them,
was that they kind of ash
burned him a little bit.
It was to remove all the hair
and to get rid of the bacteria.
That's why it looks a little crisp now.
(delightful music)
(cat meowing)
- [Cory] This is where
they prepare all the meals
and that's-
- [Scott] It's their own oven.
- What they're preparing
are the hot stones,
which are gonna be used
to cook the fresh pig
that they caught today.
(stones rumbling)
(all laughing)
- Scott?
- Yeah, right.
- [Nick] Come on, give it a go.
- I have a hard time walking on the beach.
I'm like, (groans).
- (groans) Yeah, I know.
(delightful music)
(Justin groaning)
(all laughing)
- (laughs) That's hot.
(Israel laughing)
- Oh! You're the man, good show.
- Wow! We're all so surprised.
(delightful music)
Aside from machetes
and a couple of knives,
there's really no metal here at all.
Everything else has been
fashioned in some way
but there's no generator here at all.
They don't have a radio,
they don't have anything.
- It's cool that you come in
and then you can see that they
live on what's around them,
that's it.
- No outside influence.
'Cause that's the tough thing, right?
It's like, it's so hard
to live with those outside influences.
Clearly they've got
everything they need here.
And it's so nice to see
that they're there kind
of remaining true to that.
I'm just getting the
feeling that this is P.N.G.
This is the way this country is.
- Wild and free.
(delightful music)
(children laughing)
(delightful music)
(meat sizzling)
Do you notice the little girl
hacking away with the knife?
Things like that don't happen
where we come from, never.
Kids don't even know how
to use like butter knives.
(girl cooing)
That's the jungle, man.
(upbeat music)
(Israel speaking in a foreign language)
(all laughing)
(upbeat music)
- Look at the size of this
little piece of their bananas.
This thing is enormous.
You can cook it over the fire
or you can just eat it raw
like a normal banana we do at home.
It has so much flavor.
(upbeat music)
The sun's going down now
and I'm just in perfect relaxation mode.
It's the exact same feeling you get
going in for a weekend of camping.
Once camp is set up and everyone's settled
and you get a nice sunset like
this, it's all that matters.
You just mellow out, get ready for dinner
and you know that when the sun goes down
you're gonna be out like a light as well.
(upbeat music)
This sort of terrain and
this sort of isolation
is pretty hard to come
by in this day and age.
And yet, this is how these
people live every single day.
(birds chirping)
(delightful music)
(children chattering)
- There's so much meat here.
It'd take me like four weeks
to eat all of this meat.
And every week he does this.
He brings back a pig and everybody eats
and everybody's healthy and it's simple
but it makes so much sense.
(boy laughing)
(upbeat music)
Well, you can see all the
different layers, right?
Skin, fat, more fat.
Bye bye abs.
- It's your window to weight gain.
(salt shaker whirring)
- Oh my God!
I can't believe you're eating that.
- I'm eating all the fat.
What are you saving it for?
Tomorrow?
- [Justin] That doesn't help.
Can I see you take a bite just of the fat?
- Don't ruin his fat meat sandwich.
(upbeat music)
- [Justin] What's it taste like?
- [Scott] Like fat.
Here you go, fat boy.
Eat up.
- That rice is just get in your way, dude.
Look at it.
You worry about that rice
too much, eat the fat.
You do realize we have a
whole day of hiking tomorrow
and we don't have time for
you to have a heart attack.
(all laughing)
(upbeat music)
(delightful music)
This is like the halfway point for us.
And we still have another day
of trekking through the jungle,
where we're gonna see
the fire dancing tribe.
That's what we came for and
this is has just been extra.
I mean, this stuff has been fantastic.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
(delightful music)
There's a few more river
crossings that we're doing today
and the rivers are up a little bit.
They're not quite shallow enough
that you can just walk
across and save your boots.
(water splashing drowns out speaker)
(delightful music)
I think it's safe to say that we made it.
I see fire and I see dancing.
- [Scott] This is a bigger village
than we saw yesterday too.
- Oh! Yeah, this is a lot bigger.
(children chattering)
(villagers humming)
They're just loading up the
fire and we've been welcomed in
and we're gonna sit back
and watch the dance.
Right now they're just kind
of building the fire up.
And what they're gonna do is
have the females dance first
and then later the men are gonna dance.
And apparently when the men dance,
they dance on the fire and
the females dance around it.
- [Scott] They've got the
fire just roasting right now.
- This is the home of the fire dance.
- Right.
So this is the only place in P.N.G
we're probably gonna find
this kind of tribal display?
- Did you bring the mash mellows?
- I forgot.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
This is why you hike this
far out for the real deal.
This isn't going on in some pavilion,
there aren't tour buses over there.
The only other people
here are the villagers
and the villagers from
the next village over,
who have come to see
this thing take place.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
- We're having a hard time
finding things in this
world that appear anymore.
This country is just so diverse.
What is here is the unknown.
Sometimes it can be scary
'cause you just don't know what to expect
because it is that raw.
You'll see the parents come up
and if their kids have been acting a brat,
what they'll do is they'll
hand their kid over
to one of the dancers
and the dancers will take the kid
and look like dance around
and look like they're gonna
throw him in the fire,
to teach him a lesson.
They're not gonna do
anything to hurt the kid,
but it's interesting to see how like,
that's how they discipline their kids.
It's like, you've been bad?
Well, that's it.
You're not listening to me?
Fine, listen to this guy.
You would better listen next time.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
It's completely different out here.
What we've seen lately is like,
kids running around with machetes,
kids playing with fire,
kids playing with snakes.
And it's a different lifestyle here.
It's totally different, but it works.
It works.
(delightful music)
- [Scott] Sometimes I think
that we're traveling along
at an incredible time.
50 years from now,
there's gonna be almost
nothing true left to see.
Every place we go, we see dying cultures.
And a lot of times nobody
even knows about them.
I hope I'm wrong, but at the same time,
I don't wanna take that chance.
I have my health and I have
my youth and my energy,
put all those things together
and see it while you can.
- You push yourself to this country
and you're gonna see things
that will blow your mind.
I think we're done for the night.
What a performance.
- That's better than
the volcano, I tell you.
And it's hotter than the volcano too.
- Initial reactions to the
country is that it's very wild.
I'm starting to think that,
although that might be true,
a better word for it is pure.
- I love the culture, the
traditions, I love it.
- The way they live their
life boggles my mind.
I mean, this is what we've searched
through a lot of the world to find
just something just like this.
And now we're experiencing it.
- Proud to be a Papua New Guinean, 100%.
- [Scott] This is as pure as it gets
and I think we're gonna
see a lot more of it.
(delightful music)
Nick is absolutely that right connection.
There are some places that it's a benefit
to have someone who has that
kind of knowledge in P.N.G,
it becomes close to a necessity.
- [Justin] There are
some really bad areas.
You have to watch yourself
and you have to be prepared.
The next couple of trips we wanna do
are gonna push even harder and
further in Papua New Guinea.
(delightful music)
(upbeat music)
- Papua is in a constant state of change.
So much of this country
is wild and unexplored.
Mother nature is changing this island
almost on a daily basis.
(delightful music)
There's so much history here.
You just got to find it.
Over the three years of traveling,
this could be the trip
that takes the cake.
Anything goes here.
Every step of this world trip
has taken us further away from home
to places we never expected to see.
(delightful music)
Two years ago,
I would never have understood
how much this journey would change me.
This is why we travel.
This is the reason that we're out here.
(delightful music)
We've arrived in Papua New Guinea
and immediately gone through Port Moresby
and flown out to East New Britain.
New Britain is one of the bigger islands
off the coast of the
mainland Papua New Guinea.
We're actually standing
in pretty much the center of
the current town of Rabaul.
Rabaul has seen better days.
It used to be a real gem of the area.
It was a town of hustle and bustle,
town where a lot of
tourists came, ex-pats,
locals wanted to come here
on vacation, everybody did,
but a lot changed.
- Outside of the town is this volcano.
And what it does is it puts
all the dust into the air
and just lands on the town.
- You can see what we're standing on here.
It's just ash, it's all over the place.
We've only come a certain
amount into the city itself
and we know that where we're going
is gonna reveal just how
big this city once was.
It's obviously downsized quite
a bit after 1994's eruption,
which you know covered most of this town.
(delightful music)
Is it better soft?
- Yeah?
Okay.
We've been lucky enough to be hooked up
with a friend named Nick,
who's actually from Papua New Guinea
and his family has had a pretty
well established businesses.
Thank you very much.
All throughout the country.
And because of that, he really
knows the country quite well.
- What is all this?
You walk along here,
everybody seems to do
some of the same thing.
- Well, that product is biddlenut,
kind of like a fruit
and everybody chews it.
It makes your teeth go red
and you can tell who's
been chewing it longer.
The teeth go black.
- [Justin] Do you chew it?
- No.
- [Justin] Look at those teeth.
Those teeth are too white.
Look at those teeth.
(all laughing)
The volcanoes around this island
have taken out cities, towns, communities.
- [Scott] It's hard to imagine
that this was only 15 some odd years ago
because it looks so aged.
- All we need now is like a tumbleweed
to be rolling down here
and get that whole ghost town effect.
- You've still got this
constant stream of smoke,
ash, sulfur gases.
It's coming right up and
over the island here.
- Do you notice there's no birds around?
There's no animals around at all.
That's not a good sign.
- Some of my mates and their parents,
they used to date here at this cinema
and they couldn't get in
without closed shoes on.
You had to come all
dressed up to walk in here
otherwise, you wouldn't get in.
- Do those rules still apply now?
- Not really.
I don't think the
manager's around anymore.
This building down here,
it was a clubhouse.
Only ministers and politicians
and big businessmen
were allowed to go to this place.
- You think we can go into that?
Like, I'm not wearing my
fancy duds or anything.
I know you.
You seem like a pretty important person.
(delightful music)
(Justin chirping)
- Not exactly an inviting
place anymore, is it?
It's all locked up.
- So is this one of the
guns they confiscated?
No weapons allowed.
He was like, "whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!
What do you got underneath the jacket?"
And he pulled this thing out and was like,
(hums) what?
I'm not allowed to bring this in?
- This is a World War Two relico, man.
Like, why isn't this in
a museum or something?
- This is a museum.
Have a look around.
- You think we'll see more of this stuff?
- Plenty, all over the place.
(delightful music)
I'm so unhappy I've missed
this part of Rabaul.
We could have been here 20
years ago and see it in action.
That would have been great.
- 20 years ago, bums like us
wouldn't have been
allowed near this place.
- Look at this chain.
We can't even get into this
place and look at this chain.
- [Nick] I reckon that's
what the volcano does
to all the steel around here.
- [Justin] Let's get in here.
- You're still trying
to break your way in?
I think you're 15 years late.
Damn!
- What's that saying?
What's that saying they say?
- Once a nobody, always a nobody?
(all laughing)
(suspenseful music)
Is this part of the
yacht club or something?
We got a big anchor over the door.
- No, this is a Yamamoto's bunker.
- This is World War II?
- [Nick] Yeah, definitely.
- Admiral Yamamoto's bunker?
- [Nick] Yeah, this is it.
- The man who woke up the sleeping giant,
bomb thrill harbor.
- Look at the concrete slab
protecting him under here.
- Well, I'd hope so.
I mean, he was the fricking
leader of the Imperial Navy.
- Shall we go in?
- You think it's safe?
(chuckles) Apparently not.
(dramatic music)
- It's like a map room.
- Holy shit.
Yamamoto like conducted
business here, serious business.
This is where Admiral Yamamoto sat
and tried to plan some pretty
significant counterattacks
as the allies started to
liberate areas like this.
- And if you look at these points here,
maybe these are all the docking stations.
Bet if you went to all these little spots,
there'd be something there.
Like some sort of relic.
- This is the lower level.
And as a result of our
friend, the volcano,
you can see there's an
awful lot of flooding
which has brought a heck of a
lot of silt and ash down here.
It's like finding a lost
relic of Hitler's bunker
or Winston Churchill's
bunker, Romel's bunker.
- [Justin] Stalin.
- Stalin's bunker.
- [Justin] Bob Marley's.
- It opens up a bit here.
- Yamamoto, where are you?
- Look at that.
That gives you an idea
of the flooding that happens down here.
- Anticlimactic a little bit
'cause you come all the way
here and just a dead end.
- Same thing on this side.
A tight squeeze, isn't it?
I still can't get over the fact
I'm crawling through
Admiral Yamamoto's bunker,
half destroyed and half covered in ash
like the rest of the city,
it's awesome.
It's down in the dirt.
When you have the Admiral camped out here,
you need some heavy protection.
These are the take down
any planes coming his way.
When do you go to Pearl Harbor
or when you go anywhere like
museums and those sites,
everything's guarded,
you can't get out to it,
you can't touch stuff over there.
It's a cool way of learning
history, I tell you.
That's probably the best
way of learning history.
Put your hands on it.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
We're gonna see more and more.
(delightful music)
(car engine revving)
(delightful music)
Rabaul is basically a modern Pompei.
What a crazy lifestyle?
Live at the bottom of a
volcano, an active volcano.
You're waiting for someone to
show up from the government
saying, "okay, everybody evacuate.
This is not a healthy place to live."
It's like, nope, people are living there.
This is just one little
corner of this country.
One little island, but it has
so much to just go and see.
(delightful music)
Scott is such a plane buff
and it's cool to see him light up.
He becomes like a little kid.
He really loves all this stuff
and he knows so much about it.
Well, Scott, you're the plane guy.
What am I looking at here?
The bomber?
- Twin engine, Japanese, buddy.
(Justin whistling)
Last couple of days of
the war in the Pacific,
I'm sure the Japanese would have loved
to have just had even those.
Took some damage on the way down,
was definitely shot down.
Never seen one of these before.
Not much left to look at,
but it's the real deal.
- Think she'll still fly?
With a little music montage
and a little hard work,
we can get this thing flying.
- I can't believe that this
much survived being shot down
and crashing into the ground.
And then 50 years after the war,
it survived a volcanic eruption
and an extra 15 years
after that, here we are.
- Scott, he's on cloud nine right now
and it's cool to see him like that.
- There's still so much of this left.
It's a miracle.
- It's like me going to a
chocolate factory or something.
Well, just (groans).
- I don't know.
(delightful music)
It's like looking at a
gravestone or something.
There's a lot of losses
on both sides in this war.
- In every war.
- In every war.
(delightful music)
- We're driving to make our
way close to the volcano
and these kids out of nowhere,
just jumped on in our truck
and now we got some kids.
Look here, look here, there's more coming.
(delightful music)
- All the kids in the
whole of Papua New Guinea,
they love tourists, naturally.
(delightful music)
- Yeah, let's go, let's go.
(delightful music)
- These kids are all over the place.
- Stand over there.
Stand over there.
- This is the area that used
to be the town of Rabaul.
It was absolutely devastated overnight
by that volcano right there.
- There's a lot of sulfur in the air.
You can smell it, you can taste it.
As we're driving in,
they're telling us this
used to be the main street,
there used to be all these pubs,
this used to be Chinatown.
This used to be this.
This is where the prime
minister used to have his house.
Gone, everything gone.
(delightful music)
- This gives you a pretty good idea
of how quickly this happened.
This is relatively small
amount of ash piled on top.
There's a lot of buildings that we've seen
where you can only just see the rooftops.
One and a half two stories of a building
completely buried in ash.
Some completely buried.
It's a fixer-upper.
Let's do the old tire kick test.
- [Justin] Yeah, that's something.
- Look, it's crumbling apart.
(delightful music)
It's just such a weird landscape.
Like it's just so dead.
It almost feels like I'm
walking on the moon somewhat.
(delightful music)
Top, you can feel more of
the heat coming off of it
the closer we get to it.
The sea right in front of us
is just steaming like crazy.
But I mean, it gets to a point
where we won't be able to go any further
'cause I mean, it'll actually be unsafe
to get too close to
gas that's that noxious
and poisonous to us.
It's just best not to think about it.
I mean, it's not a matter of like,
I wonder if it's gonna go off?
Well, it is going off.
It's going off right now.
It's just, it's not going
off to the degree that it was
when it buried the city.
- Don't you notice as we get closer,
the less people start following us?
It's just like, we started
off with all these kids
and everything, everybody's jumping,
"oh! Yeah, we're going with you."
And then all of a sudden,
"wait a second, where are you guys going?
Okay, that's a little much."
(upbeat music)
- P.N.G lies on the ring of fire
and is one of the most
active of the countries
within the ring of fire.
And I think it was important
to kind of start here
because there's absolutely no greater base
to break this country down into,
let alone the entire world into,
than the absolute roots
of what makes this world,
what created the land
that we all stand on,
which is the brute force of mother nature.
(upbeat music)
It's not until you get this deep into it
that you really realize
how powerful it is.
You were just looking
over at this cliff face.
It just burnt away the land, right?
- [Nick] It feels so alien.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- Like we're not even supposed to be here
or it's not a part of the planet.
- That's the beauty
part about this country
is no one's really around to
tell you not to do it, right?
- Yeah, that's right.
(upbeat music)
(Justin laughing)
- We're getting up on the actual base
of the volcano itself now.
We're gonna have to be careful
how far we get at this point.
Any of these little
fissures can kind of open up
and a new vent can form
and start spurting this toxic
stuff straight up at our face.
You gotta be aware of where
you're putting your feet now.
- I'll just follow your footsteps then.
- (laughs) I'm following Nick's.
- I'm just going that way,
straight with the mountain.
- I am kind of a little bit
concerned on these gases
that are coming up.
God only knows what kind
of poisons are in the air
but that's for me when I'm
75 years old to worry about.
When I'm old, sit in a
wheelchair and be like,
that was a bad idea.
(upbeat music)
(delightful music)
(Nick and Scott coughing)
- Actually, just coming
up that last slope,
breathing the air gets
you coughing, doesn't it?
- Yeah.
My eyes are burning.
- We are what?
Maybe 500 meters from the top?
- You're the only smart one, dude.
- I got it in Japan.
How close do we really wanna go though?
Like, how close is actually safe?
Justin, hey.
I want you to go there.
- As long as you can carry my body down.
Have you noticed that
there's like these fumes
coming up behind us now?
- There's been a lot of people
who've come up here
for a number of reasons
and they've never been heard from again.
- Some people have never
come back, but you know,
hearsay, can't confirm that.
- [Justin] It wasn't that I was afraid
of the thing going off
and like the chance of
this thing going off
while we're up here is like
getting struck by lightning
but the gases and everything
that's being distributed
by this volcano are deadly.
- I have to apologize to my mother,
who has to endure watching me
do these stupid things all the time.
Probably taking years off her life.
Dad's a science nut for
the love of science,
who gets to get this close to a volcano.
So dad, I hope you
understand, mom, I'm sorry.
- Good last words, ain't it?
- [Scott] (laughs) Exactly.
- I'm not going any further than here.
- I'd least like to just get
up in that colored stuff.
- You can see it blowing towards us.
I've taken too many
fire protection courses
to know what kind of chemicals
are in the air after-
- [Andre] What kind?
- Lots.
- Do they teach you volcano protection?
- Yeah, they said don't go near a volcano.
- We're only here once.
- Why am I the one?
I'm usually the dumb one, you know?
- Screw it, let's keep going.
Just a little further.
- You guys push, I'm gonna stay down here.
(delightful music)
- You can see just right
in behind you, Andre,
there's the vent, gases that
are starting to come up,
this sulfur dioxide and
the whole mix of junk,
which is really making
it very hard to breathe.
I think Justin had the right idea.
Probably not wise to go on
a heck of a lot further.
(dramatic music)
(Nick coughing)
- (groans) Shit, I can't even talk.
Oh! You just really taste it.
What do you say we do that
big rock and see what happens?
I really don't like what
I'm doing to myself,
but at the same time,
the excitement of being
at the lip of a volcano,
an active volcano, is so much of a thrill.
So much of a draw.
What should we do now?
- Always ready when you are.
(delightful music)
- I'm wearing this mask
but I think it's just filtering
out the oxygen as well.
- [Scott] Are you still
feeling a burn and stuff?
- Oh! Yeah.
I don't think is doing anything.
It's for like not catching the flu.
- Guys, the wind is
coming up from the side.
- [Scott] Yeah.
- Let's go.
- [Scott] It's getting pretty bad.
- Yeah, that's it.
- I don't know if it's really worth it.
I'm with you.
(air whooshing)
- [Andre] I'm gonna take a look.
- [Scott] Okay.
(delightful music)
(Andre panting)
(Andre coughing)
- It's not that much farther.
This thing is not doing anything.
It's not that much farther up.
So I'm gonna try to get up there
but I'm gonna have to lose the steady cam
'cause it's too heavy.
(delightful music)
It just burns in your lungs.
I'm so close.
I just wanna...
It's just over that ridge there, maybe.
100 more feet then I can
take a look into the crater.
(delightful music)
(Andre groaning)
I'm almost there.
My heart is pounding.
My heart's just pounding.
Try to give me enough oxygen.
There's no air so we'll
just be quick about it.
(delightful music)
Holy Shit.
That cloud of gas behind me would kill me.
And it's kinda coming this
way a little bit, you can see.
Okay, I am inside the
crater of an active volcano.
I probably even shouldn't be touching this
but it's really, really hot.
The soil is fricking really hot.
(coughs) I probably shouldn't
stay here very long.
Oh! It just burns your eyes.
Okay, I'm out of here.
(delightful music)
- Oh my God!
It's impossible to breathe up here.
- [Andre] You all right?
- It's like chemical burn time.
Feels like the next closest
thing to mustard gas.
My shirt isn't exactly medical grade.
- [Andre] You want mine?
- Okay, here I go.
(delightful music)
(Scott groaning)
I'm still 50/50.
That's one of the most amazing things
I've ever seen in my entire life.
But this is one of the stupidest things
I've ever done in my entire life.
Way to go.
You did it first, buddy.
You inspire me.
Let's never do this again.
- [Andre] That's a good call.
- Okay.
To be honest, this is
really, really dangerous
and most of the time,
there's all kinds of shit
rolling down the side of the mountain.
Rock, lava, gas, water,
boiling water, cheerios,
I don't know, it doesn't matter.
It's dangerous.
(upbeat music)
- [Andre] Mind carrying the vest for me?
(Scott groaning)
It's a little sweaty.
(upbeat music)
- Enjoy that climb?
- [Scott] It was rough.
- Yeah, it was.
- [Scott] How you doing?
- Good, the air is cleaner down here.
- It's terrible.
Amazing but terrible and terrifying.
(upbeat music)
- Oh! Acid sweat, burns the eyes.
- [Scott] Sulfuric acid.
- I hear it's good for you.
(upbeat music)
- It was good to be back
down at ground zero,
that's for sure.
- Look at where it starts
and it goes all the way
up over there (laughs).
- You guys are idiots, I think.
Honestly, you have no idea
what you guys just breathing in up there.
I saw you guys go up
then I was like, no way.
You guys just went up
there for like a minute.
You're up there for like good 20 minutes.
Hope you enjoyed it.
(upbeat music)
- During the second world war,
Papua New Guinea was a huge battleground.
Japanese came through
and occupied a lot of Papua New Guinea.
So consequently,
there's a lot of stuff
left here on the island.
We're gonna go in and see
a submarine base right now.
- There was an old man there
and his father and his grandfather
helped build the tunnels.
George was his name and he
was just full of information.
So you say it drops 300 meters.
- Yeah.
- That the submarines would come up here,
tie up to these things and
then load up with bombs
and all the ammunition and everything.
So we just go in here?
- Yeah, in there.
- How far does it go back?
- In and out.
- Oh! It goes in and out?
- Yeah.
- [Justin] How old were you
when they were doing this?
- I was 14.
14 years.
- [Justin] 14?
- Yes.
- [Justin] Oh! So you
remember it pretty well?
- I can speak a little
bit Japanese language.
(Justin speaking in foreign language)
(George speaking in foreign language)
- (laughs) I know a little bit
Japanese, very, very little.
Very little.
(George speaking in foreign language)
- (speaks in foreign
language) means tunnel.
- How long did they take to build this?
(George mumbling)
Three or four months you say?
How many people would
actually live down here?
- Well, thousands.
- [Justin] Thousands?
- Thousand.
- [Justin] Wow!
(upbeat music)
- They would have had
native slaves or prisoners
digging this up by hand.
Yeah, you can see here,
look at the pink-
- [Scott] Pink marks.
- [Nick] Pink marks all the way through.
- You have to do this all by hand,
you're a slave in your own backyard.
And then after the war ends,
then you just keep having
repetitive problems
with the volcano.
These people have to
endure a lot, don't they?
(delightful music)
- It's so important to find
those people, the eyewitnesses.
There's so many stories that are untold.
Just to sit down with
somebody who experienced it
when they were young
and get their impression of
what happened here Papua,
to me, that'll stick in my mind a lot more
than anything I could ever read.
You were saying that during the day,
this was always getting bombed.
His uncle got killed by
a bomb and then at night,
the bombs would stop
and then that's when they
bring up the submarines
and then they'd load them up.
He said it was really, really quick.
- I lost one of my toes.
World War II.
- [Justin] Did the Japanese do that?
- [George] Yeah.
- [Justin] They cut off your toe?
- Yeah.
(somber music)
- It's always better to be
here, to be on the spot.
Like I could throw stones on a submarine
if I was here 60, some odd years ago.
That's how close they brought them.
And there would have been
Japanese zeroes flying overhead.
My grandpa had books after
the war that he picked up,
all about the second
world war that my dad had,
my dad gave to me.
I used to read them all the time.
There's something
about looking at these
black and white pictures
that always makes it seem
like it was so long ago
but you come here and
everything's in color and in 3D
and basically, what to me
as a kid was a storybook,
this really interesting storybook,
kind of come to life.
It's the next best thing
to being able to have a time machine.
(upbeat music)
I still just can't get over the scenery
and everything from up here.
I mean, this is the perfect spot
to have a million dollar cottage
anywhere else in the world.
And is where some of those bloody battles
of World War II happened.
(upbeat music)
We're just down for a second level,
deep inside one of the bunkers here.
You can still see Japanese newspapers
that have been stuck to the roof.
(upbeat music)
This is a pretty, crudely
chopped out gun emplacement.
The beauty part about this,
you get to see the best example
of how small that reef
goes out from the coastline
and how abrupt that huge
wall is dropping down
a few hundred meters.
(delightful music)
- A lot of things happened in this area,
where a lot of ships went down,
a lot of planes went
down and because of it,
in this area,
it's just, there's so much to see.
(delightful music)
(boat engine revving)
- 45-minute exciting little
boat ride across the bay
and then we'll get our gear sorted
and get in the water.
(delightful music)
(boat engine revving)
- This is it, boys.
(delightful music)
- In order to dive in this
area, we need to pay him first.
This guy kinda owns the land in this area
so he kind of takes care of everything.
It's just to show respect
and just to thank him
for letting us dive here.
Thank you.
(water splashing)
How awkward was that?
- You guys give him the money?
- [Justin] Yeah.
- That's the way it works.
- [Justin] Is he sharpening
the axe right now?
- [Nick] Yeah, that's right.
- (chuckles) Well, let's get out of here.
The man's been paid.
- The water right below
the bow of the boat here
is about 100, 150 meters.
- So this is your first dive, huh?
- [Nick] Yeah.
- [Justin] First volcanoes, now this?
- Now we're diving on
wrecks from World War II.
- We just showed up and man,
you just keep going with us, man.
You're right there with
us, that's awesome.
- Check out the beast.
- This is what I got to carry.
This can go down to about 200 meters.
So farther than I'm ever gonna
probably dive in my life.
(delightful music)
- Out of the darkness,
out of this deep blue sea,
the shape of a Japanese
zero comes into view.
(delightful music)
For a guy who grew up
spending countless hours in the basement
crafting together World
War II aircraft models,
to be able to see this stuff,
face to face for the first time,
is like a little mini dream come true.
(delightful music)
Looking face-to-face
with the very front end
where the propeller is
and grabbing onto it,
looking into the engine
and just trying to,
almost with macro view,
go up and appreciate every little detail
that's still left for me to see
that hasn't washed away or corroded away.
(delightful music)
Thanks to way P.N.G is
and the way it's been left
since the second world war,
for a war buff, it is heaven.
This is just one little
sliver of a huge bloody war
that a lot of people gave their lives for
and it means a lot for me.
(delightful music)
It's almost like being visited by a ghost
and I know it's just a machine,
but people went down
with those tools of war.
Things that caused such fear
and such terror in people,
now lie dormant.
The guns have rotted away
and the bullets are gone
and the action and the
speed, they're still.
It's amazing.
(upbeat music)
Before we leave the island of New Britain,
we wanna see more than just the coastline.
So we're taking a couple of four by fours
deep into the jungle, as far as we can.
And then from there, we'll go on foot.
We'll try to make a day of it,
overnight in the woods, somewhere.
- Jungle, it's not the woods.
Pure jungle.
- We're going with Nick of
course and a buddy of his, Cory
and a couple of his boys who
are gonna help us stay safe
and find our way safely
in and out of the bush.
- It's not bush, this is jungle.
(upbeat music)
- This is where the hike begins.
- It's a nice trek up to Baron village,
which about a year ago,
there was only one villager living there
but he's now sort of
slowly building his empire.
There's now two families living there.
- Our hope is if we hike all day,
we can probably get to one
of the nearest villages,
spend the night with them
and get a real feel
for what the real inland
part of New Britain is like.
(upbeat music)
Wow!
It's the wall of bamboo, right?
This represents probably
95% of this entire country?
- Yeah, that's it.
That's why I wanted you guys
to come out and have a look.
This is what we have, real jungle.
(upbeat music)
- The sun's coming up,
a bit closer to mid day now.
We've been walking for a few
hours, starting to get hot,
starting to get really
hot even under the canopy.
(bird chirping)
(upbeat music)
(dogs barking)
Well, on a perfect little ridge
overlooking the whole area.
The dogs just got told.
We just arrived in the village
that we were hoping to get to before dark.
Plenty of time to spare, a
nice breeze rolling through
and they call this a village.
But I mean, it's essentially
just five or six huts
and that's it.
Who knows?
If you come back here 10 years from now,
there might be 12 huts here.
(upbeat music)
- This is Israel.
- Israel, nice to meet you.
He was the one who actually
started this village, right?
- This was the only hut that was standing,
about two years ago.
And then since that time
another two families have also arrived.
- So can you ask him why
he chooses to live here
instead of go to the city?
(Israel speaking in foreign language)
- This is his home.
He likes being in the bush, isolated,
he's got fresh meat, his garden
that he plants his veggies in, his fruit
and he's got his family here,
so what more do you want?
(Israel speaking in a foreign language)
So we're gonna watch them prepare the pig
in traditional P.N.G style.
- Look at the bounty
we're about to dig into.
Thank you very much.
(upbeat music)
Get a load of that.
That's quite the trophy case.
He's collected just about every bottom jaw
of every pig that he's killed
in the last year or so,
maybe two years that he's been up here.
- Jesus! It's gotta be here
over close to 100 there.
- [Scott] You've got a
couple of families to feed
and no grocery store.
- There's a lot of pigs out there.
Throughout the mountains, everywhere.
So that's why all the native survive.
(delightful music)
(branches cranking)
- [Scott] This is a country
that is probably 90% unseen, undeveloped.
The first couple of days here
have been absolutely mind-blowing.
It just keeps getting better and better.
(delightful music)
(knives clanking)
- They're starting to
cut the pig now and...
(loud thudding)
(delightful music)
But what they did before
they started gutting on them,
was that they kind of ash
burned him a little bit.
It was to remove all the hair
and to get rid of the bacteria.
That's why it looks a little crisp now.
(delightful music)
(cat meowing)
- [Cory] This is where
they prepare all the meals
and that's-
- [Scott] It's their own oven.
- What they're preparing
are the hot stones,
which are gonna be used
to cook the fresh pig
that they caught today.
(stones rumbling)
(all laughing)
- Scott?
- Yeah, right.
- [Nick] Come on, give it a go.
- I have a hard time walking on the beach.
I'm like, (groans).
- (groans) Yeah, I know.
(delightful music)
(Justin groaning)
(all laughing)
- (laughs) That's hot.
(Israel laughing)
- Oh! You're the man, good show.
- Wow! We're all so surprised.
(delightful music)
Aside from machetes
and a couple of knives,
there's really no metal here at all.
Everything else has been
fashioned in some way
but there's no generator here at all.
They don't have a radio,
they don't have anything.
- It's cool that you come in
and then you can see that they
live on what's around them,
that's it.
- No outside influence.
'Cause that's the tough thing, right?
It's like, it's so hard
to live with those outside influences.
Clearly they've got
everything they need here.
And it's so nice to see
that they're there kind
of remaining true to that.
I'm just getting the
feeling that this is P.N.G.
This is the way this country is.
- Wild and free.
(delightful music)
(children laughing)
(delightful music)
(meat sizzling)
Do you notice the little girl
hacking away with the knife?
Things like that don't happen
where we come from, never.
Kids don't even know how
to use like butter knives.
(girl cooing)
That's the jungle, man.
(upbeat music)
(Israel speaking in a foreign language)
(all laughing)
(upbeat music)
- Look at the size of this
little piece of their bananas.
This thing is enormous.
You can cook it over the fire
or you can just eat it raw
like a normal banana we do at home.
It has so much flavor.
(upbeat music)
The sun's going down now
and I'm just in perfect relaxation mode.
It's the exact same feeling you get
going in for a weekend of camping.
Once camp is set up and everyone's settled
and you get a nice sunset like
this, it's all that matters.
You just mellow out, get ready for dinner
and you know that when the sun goes down
you're gonna be out like a light as well.
(upbeat music)
This sort of terrain and
this sort of isolation
is pretty hard to come
by in this day and age.
And yet, this is how these
people live every single day.
(birds chirping)
(delightful music)
(children chattering)
- There's so much meat here.
It'd take me like four weeks
to eat all of this meat.
And every week he does this.
He brings back a pig and everybody eats
and everybody's healthy and it's simple
but it makes so much sense.
(boy laughing)
(upbeat music)
Well, you can see all the
different layers, right?
Skin, fat, more fat.
Bye bye abs.
- It's your window to weight gain.
(salt shaker whirring)
- Oh my God!
I can't believe you're eating that.
- I'm eating all the fat.
What are you saving it for?
Tomorrow?
- [Justin] That doesn't help.
Can I see you take a bite just of the fat?
- Don't ruin his fat meat sandwich.
(upbeat music)
- [Justin] What's it taste like?
- [Scott] Like fat.
Here you go, fat boy.
Eat up.
- That rice is just get in your way, dude.
Look at it.
You worry about that rice
too much, eat the fat.
You do realize we have a
whole day of hiking tomorrow
and we don't have time for
you to have a heart attack.
(all laughing)
(upbeat music)
(delightful music)
This is like the halfway point for us.
And we still have another day
of trekking through the jungle,
where we're gonna see
the fire dancing tribe.
That's what we came for and
this is has just been extra.
I mean, this stuff has been fantastic.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
(delightful music)
There's a few more river
crossings that we're doing today
and the rivers are up a little bit.
They're not quite shallow enough
that you can just walk
across and save your boots.
(water splashing drowns out speaker)
(delightful music)
I think it's safe to say that we made it.
I see fire and I see dancing.
- [Scott] This is a bigger village
than we saw yesterday too.
- Oh! Yeah, this is a lot bigger.
(children chattering)
(villagers humming)
They're just loading up the
fire and we've been welcomed in
and we're gonna sit back
and watch the dance.
Right now they're just kind
of building the fire up.
And what they're gonna do is
have the females dance first
and then later the men are gonna dance.
And apparently when the men dance,
they dance on the fire and
the females dance around it.
- [Scott] They've got the
fire just roasting right now.
- This is the home of the fire dance.
- Right.
So this is the only place in P.N.G
we're probably gonna find
this kind of tribal display?
- Did you bring the mash mellows?
- I forgot.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
This is why you hike this
far out for the real deal.
This isn't going on in some pavilion,
there aren't tour buses over there.
The only other people
here are the villagers
and the villagers from
the next village over,
who have come to see
this thing take place.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
- We're having a hard time
finding things in this
world that appear anymore.
This country is just so diverse.
What is here is the unknown.
Sometimes it can be scary
'cause you just don't know what to expect
because it is that raw.
You'll see the parents come up
and if their kids have been acting a brat,
what they'll do is they'll
hand their kid over
to one of the dancers
and the dancers will take the kid
and look like dance around
and look like they're gonna
throw him in the fire,
to teach him a lesson.
They're not gonna do
anything to hurt the kid,
but it's interesting to see how like,
that's how they discipline their kids.
It's like, you've been bad?
Well, that's it.
You're not listening to me?
Fine, listen to this guy.
You would better listen next time.
(villagers singing in a foreign language)
It's completely different out here.
What we've seen lately is like,
kids running around with machetes,
kids playing with fire,
kids playing with snakes.
And it's a different lifestyle here.
It's totally different, but it works.
It works.
(delightful music)
- [Scott] Sometimes I think
that we're traveling along
at an incredible time.
50 years from now,
there's gonna be almost
nothing true left to see.
Every place we go, we see dying cultures.
And a lot of times nobody
even knows about them.
I hope I'm wrong, but at the same time,
I don't wanna take that chance.
I have my health and I have
my youth and my energy,
put all those things together
and see it while you can.
- You push yourself to this country
and you're gonna see things
that will blow your mind.
I think we're done for the night.
What a performance.
- That's better than
the volcano, I tell you.
And it's hotter than the volcano too.
- Initial reactions to the
country is that it's very wild.
I'm starting to think that,
although that might be true,
a better word for it is pure.
- I love the culture, the
traditions, I love it.
- The way they live their
life boggles my mind.
I mean, this is what we've searched
through a lot of the world to find
just something just like this.
And now we're experiencing it.
- Proud to be a Papua New Guinean, 100%.
- [Scott] This is as pure as it gets
and I think we're gonna
see a lot more of it.
(delightful music)
Nick is absolutely that right connection.
There are some places that it's a benefit
to have someone who has that
kind of knowledge in P.N.G,
it becomes close to a necessity.
- [Justin] There are
some really bad areas.
You have to watch yourself
and you have to be prepared.
The next couple of trips we wanna do
are gonna push even harder and
further in Papua New Guinea.
(delightful music)