experience #2

Well, well... They don't call it the land of the unexpected for nothing.

Me and two friends from work went to dinner last night at a local Italian restaurant. The place was frequented by expats and upper middle class Papua New Guineans, and we usually went there a couple times a month. All was going good, we finished dinner and were downing our last sips of below average wine and waiting for the bill when one of my friends noticed something was not right. He has worked for the UN and been a few places where he's learned a few things. After tapping me on the knee a few times I finally figured it out when I looked up to see the staff running to the kitchen and 2 or 3 guys who didn't quite belong entering the dining area. That's about when they pulled their guns and told everyone to put their wallets and mobile phones on the table. No one really screamed or panicked. A few people hit the deck, and others (myself included) basically froze up. There were 5 of them altogether inside, 1 stood watch, 2 made their way through the customers, and the other 2 I presume hit the restaurant office. There had to be more outside also as all places in Port Moresby have "security", which would have been taken care of before they came inside. It was all over in probably under 10 minutes... I lost 500 Kina ($300) in cash and they didn't want my 30 Kina company phone. They made their way out without any major incident, we called our dispatch for the security drivers to pick us up, and it was all over.

First time I've seen a gun from that angle in person, not exactly a calming effect. But everything went the way it should have... None of us had our regular wallets, expensive watches, or anything not worth losing. Best of all no one reacted poorly and there weren't any "heroes", which is a good thing when there's that many bad guys with guns.

So, needless to say that restaurant is now "no-go". Looking back maybe it should have been the whole time given it was a smaller venue outside of any big hotels and didn't exactly have cracker jack security.

Tonight I ate in.