PMV

The Public Motor Vehicle, or PMV, is almost every Papua New Guinean's form of transportation. A PMV is simply a private owned van, truck, or bus that drives to and from local villages and towns. To qualify your vehicle as a PMV you simply show the right people that you have a form of transportation and a drivers license and your off. It seems like a quick vehicle safety inspection wouldn't be to much trouble for the authorities, and it would certainly give me greater peace of mind when riding in one.

There are several types of PMV's. There is the luxurious Coaster bus which seats 20 or so comfortably, is usually holding 35. There is also the van that seats 12 comfortably but will hold up to 25. Lastly there is my favorite, the PMV Dyna. A Dyna is a common term for a large truck with a small cab and a long flat bed. These Dyna PMV's will hold as many people as you can stuff onto the bed, sometimes standing room only.
The fair for a PMV ride averages out to around 5 cents per kilometer. Though much less comfortable and less convenient, it is much cheaper to take a PMV than take your own car and pay for the fuel. This is mostly because the driver of the PMV is paying for the fuel himself so he is trying to stuff as many bodies into the vehicle as possible.

Trying to get a PMV, more specifically the right PMV can be difficult. Most places we go to get a PMV, there are several waiting for passengers and they are all going different places. Sometimes there is a man hanging out the side yelling where the PMV is headed, but some times they just assume you know where they are going. The man yelling out the side is always speaking very quickly, repeating the destination so fast that it takes me a bit to understand what he is saying. During the time I am processing the info the man hanging out the side always looks at me like I'm an idiot. Example, a lot of PMV's go to a large town nearby called Hagen or Hagen town. The man hanging outside the PMV going to Hagen will say something like "hagetonhagetonhagetonhageton" in less than a second, and somehow I am supposed to decipher what that means.

My favorite part about the PMV's is that the owners like to label or name them. Names like Peace Maker, Fun Bus, Round About, Hugs and Kisses, or Nancy. But the greatest PMV name of all has to be the infamous "Lek Nogut" which means "bad leg" or when talking about a vehicle it would mean "bad wheel." I don't think I want to get into a PMV with a self proclaimed bad wheel. Later I learned that the driver of Lek Nogut had a bum leg and named his ride the same as his disability.