About the only place left in PNG where you could do that was Rabaul by the mid 90s...maybe Tububil but that was a mining town...no unemployment and little meaningfull crime. Pre Volcano Rabaul, the yachty robbery not withstanding, was a special place...and even the yachty robbery was 'old style' raskolism...steel some beer and take peoples wallets then leave...it was a pleasant surprise after Moresby. Rabaul was my little peek at the PNG you guys enjoyed in the 60s and 70s...just magic...it was worth the price of admission to have lived there...the price being just about everything I owned being destroyed by the volcano...I, like a few of my mates at Airlink, was going to buy a house on the harbour and commute 'home' from Moresby every chance I got...was not to be though.
Most people who know me well would attest to the fact that I get along with nearly everybody...perhaps there is something to the negative aura thing...bit hard to explain that theory to a quiet, unassuming middle aged divorcee women teacher sleeping in her bed in Goroka or to a bunch of people having a quiet family bbq on a Friday night, or to Heather Mitchel, a young female Pacific choppers pilot going pinis whose only aura was one of too much trust, after they raped her they cut her up like a butchers, they being the wantoks of a person pretending to want to buy her car...that she thought nothing of hopping in the passenger seat while they took the car for a test drive is testimony enough to her missplaced faith in humanity...and let's not forget that for every crime perpetrated against an expat the locals suffered 1000 fold.
I walked home pissed from the Rabaul Yachty many times..."Eh poro..yu savi haus bilong mi i stap we?" "Klostu masta...mi soim yu!" and they did...they knew where I lived and took me by the arm and walked me there...it happened...and my place never got robbed...well until after the volcano flattened it but I got all that was left that meant anything to me...they were welcome to the other stuff.
Nobody dared walk 100m from their cars, or even stop at a traffic light late at night in Moresby by the early 90s...very sad indeed. Ask Doug Maskelyne about being stabbed at (from memory) Taurama lights....sitting in his freaking car at the traffic lights!!!
Your average grass roots Papuan/New Guinean, including Highlanders, are really quite wonderfull people...way out in the remote areas away from the Highlands Highway I met some wonderfull people...old Chief Kawali at Bomai...he made me a great black ash bow in exchange for some frozen kakaruk, razor blades and green hair gel...don't ask I don't know...introduced me to his latest wife, number 19 from memory, "Yu gat how mus meri?" "19"..."Dude I thought you were supposed to be wise" I very much doubt he actually understood anything other than the tone of my voice and the twinkle in my eye when I said that...he looked back with a twinkle in his eye and laughed out loud..."Emi oraight...ol meri it stap long narapela haus...suppose mi laik kwap mi raun long gaten" What a cool old dude.
In fact it took two trips to get him his stuff...enroute Bomai I had dropped a load of trade store goods off at Karamui and some theiving cnut stole his stuff outa the Islander...I called ahead on company HF flying back there to adequately prepare them for what was coming next...Chuck doing his nana...BIG TIME. Told them they could shove their coffee up their collective arses and I wasn't coming back for three days, theiving so and so etc...well that's the readers digest version...Didn't get Kawali's stuff back but got a big leaf bowl full of fruit and the sincerest appologies from the daughter of the Chief there...when I came back 3 days later...and then we were friends again
Never carried a gun out in the bush...it was about the only place you REALLY didn't have ANY need for one.