Mt Hagen Market

In an earlier post I suggested that I was beginning to accept the unusual as the norm. Things that were unusual when I first encountered them are now part of everyday life and as such are in danger of being overlooked and eventually forgotten. I thought I'd record a few of these .

This is a great slideshow of photos of Hagen Market. Not my photos but much better than anything I could do!





So here's a few tips if ever you go to Hagen Market..

Set aside enough time - a trip to the market is a social event. Lots of the women from the Handicrafts Group also have stalls in the market so we will always stop and tok stori.

Market is open every day except Sunday - Saturday is the big day but its busy all the time. It was even open on Christmas Day.

The market in Hagen is probably one of the best in the country for fresh produce. Hagen is in the Wahgi valley a major centre of agriculture for thousands of years. Produce comes direct from the gardens around Hagen - its all organic, fresh as it possibly could be and cheap! You can expect to find potatoes, sweet potatoes (kaukau), spring onions, garlic, cabbage, sweet corn, capsicums, cucumber, shallots, onions, dried beans, chillis, carrots, beans, kumu (green leaves -think spinach), peas, tomatoes, oranges, limes, bananas of all shapes and sizes (green to cook & yellow to eat), pineapple, strawberries (all year round!), guava, mango, tomato fruit (not to be confused with tomatoes!), passion fruit and a lot of other stuff that I don't know the name of. You can buy a massive amount of fresh produce for about 20Kina

No Haggling - the price is the price and they don't try to cheat the whitepelas!


You must never step over food in the market (particularly important for women not to do this) - it is considered incredibly rude and unhygienic. You are likely to be stopped and made to buy the food because nobody else will want it once you've stepped over it.

There are lots of boys in the market - about 7-12 yrs old - who will offer to carry your shopping. They are incredibly persistent but most of them are good kids just trying to earn a bit of cash. So its always best to employ one and then the others leave you alone. Give the boy a couple of Kina (about 50p)


Always make sure you have lots of small change and certainly nothing bigger than a 5 Kina note. market traders are not able to change large notes.


You can buy a really good shopping bag made from a recycled rice sack for 1Kina


The best way to make friends is to stop and chat and buy something.


Always use the side entrance! The main entrance is surrounded by pickpockets and guys selling knocked off car radios, dvd players etc. Best avoided.


Never take anything of value with you - I never take a wallet and I leave my phone at home.


If you are going to take an expensive camera with you its a good idea to have a few PNG friends standing near you when take it out of your bag. ALWAYS ask for permission before you take a picture and, if you have a digital camera, ALWAYS show the subject the photo.


Ask the men who sell tobacco leaves to show you how they roll their own bush cigars (definitely not in the Cuban style!)


Buy a chicken. it will be the freshest chicken you can get - still clucking.


Buy peanuts and a chunk of fresh pineapple to eat as you walk round the market.


Buy PNG coffee beans if you see them.


Buy some "bush fern" - its used to cook with the chicken - wrap the chicken in the bush fern and then cook it. You get green roast chicken (honest) but it tastes great.


The one thing you won't find is fresh herbs - PNG food is incredibly bland, but you can buy dried herbs in the supermarket (at a price!)


In TokPisin there is only one word for green leafy vegetables - Kumu. Try as many different types of kumu as you can - there may only be one word but there are many tastes!


Apart from the food you can also buy some really nice jewellery, baskets and bilums - again don't expect to haggle