A quiet day

After an early night and a good 10 hours sleep it was time for breakfast on a very bleak and rainy day. French Toast with fruit for me - was bloody good. We are on a roll with the good food at last!

Louie ventured out for the one that almost poisoned me the other day. We definitely have a reputation now because his didn't come with the dukkah, no questions asked. I guess they didn't want to risk it.

After breakfast we headed back to the room to relax and do fuck all. I got stuck into yesterday's blog because I was too stuffed last night.

Early afternoon the weather had cleared up enough to go for a bus ride into town. Great excitement with the main road closed but probably because they were moving something. We didn't hear any huge crashing or screaming so I guess they did it without serious loss of limb.

Lunch was at Cafe Lalala, a French restaurant mostly dealing in seafood. It took about 45 minutes for it to arrive so I guess they were busy catching Louie's plate fresh.

Great view over the water while we waited, and a lot more comfortable that this lot were.

Pprk filet minions. Pretty sure it wasn't mignon because they are supposed to be tender and juicy. They were really tasty though, and everything else was perfect. Louie had seafood risotto, which the server helpfully advised him it came with rice, which was good to hear.

The orange building is the casino, which I'm pretty sure Vanuatu doesn't need. Such a mix of developing and pretend developed.

After lunch we took a walk up the waterfront again. There's not a hell of a lot to do on a rainy day in Vanuatu.

Bats! Big fuck-off bats like in Brisbane! Out in the daytime which probably isn't good.

Even on a crappy windy rainy day the ocean here is clear and clean. These steps had a whole bunch of crabs on them but they disappeared as soon as we got close.

Nambawan Cafe but the rain is a lot of number 2. 

We stopped for a coffe and snack but the guy had juet gotten a new machine and couldn't get it to work. I helpfully told him to turn it off and back on again, but the language barrier must have been too high because he didn't laugh at my comedy genius.

We got some "local fruit juice" with a note saying most of the juice is imported from New Zealand. I really don't get a lot of what they do here. The food trend too a bit of a dive, the pizza was not cooked fully and turned all sloppy.

Sad to say things didn't improve for dinner. After a couple more hours of lounging about we headed to the other restaurant on site. Rather that rewrite the experience, here is the Google Review I posted: Terrible experience here. "Music" that seems to match the tastes of the staff rather than the customers. Looking around the place I cannot imagine 90% of the customers enjoyed the bass heavy, loud whatever it was being played.

Service wasn't great, table missing basic cutlery and in need of a wipe. There was one server doing most of the work and a bunch of people behind the bar and counter doing a lot of faffing about. The food was terrible. For almost $60 AUD we expected a lot more than frozen meatballs cooked in a microwave until they were dry husks and red hot, and a smear of budget marinara sauce in a chewy bun. Same for the chicken parmigiana burger. I guess they were on the specials menu so they could get rid of the terrible ingredients. The cajun seasoning on the fries was about as cajun as the production line factory it came out of in Australia. No heat, spice or flavour. All around a poor experience. 

Right, time to wrap up the day and look forward to tomorrow. A city tour, coffee factory and the underwater post office (with more snorkelling!!!)

Swimming with the fishes

A bit of a shambles to start the day, with the power out around 2am. Usually not a problem unless you use a cpap. The power came on about 30 minutes later, with everything beeping and the ceiling fan light blazing bright, then went off again. And on and off 10 minutes later with beeping and flashing and finally on. Then it rained, not exactly the ideal weather for an outdoors tour day. Half of it was snorkelling but the bits inbetween would have been a bit rugged.

For breakfast it was an omelette with New Zealand butter. Pretty good for a free hotel breakfast I guess. The service here is generally very good, but a little too attentive. Rio was a bit much with the waiter hovering nearby, but in some places here you get asked every 5 minutes if everything is good. They also take each person's plate once you've finished eating, instead of waiting for the whole table to finish. So when one of us is a gobbler and the other is a more methodical eater, we're often left with what looks like one one person is having dinner. Luckily I don't look as though I get by on scraps so I don't think anyone is going to assume I skipped dinner.

The tour we were going on today was to Lelepa Island, off the North West coast. The bus to the boat was a normal bus but was full of white people. So absolutely not normal at all. We picked up some more couples along the way, two pairs of Australians and a NZ couple. Real international lot we were. We couldn't help compare their resorts with ours, and Louie decided ours was far better. Each time we did a pickup there was much bartering and discussion of prices and exchanging of money, waving about bits of paper and promises of different prices. We were waiting for our turn to be shaken down for cash but we heard the mention of "collected from Nasama" so our resort once again won out - protecting us from the cut throat financial bartering of local tour operators. I did a quick check just now and by my memory the difference was about $3.

My ability to read foreign languages without formal training continues to grow, spotted this pearler on the way to the boat. It was an interesting trip, going through the morning Port Vila traffic near the airport so it jam packed, but other than the odd friendly hello toot, there wasn't any car horns or impatient driving just everyone taking their turn and giving way to everyone else.

The driver told us there aren't really any rules here, just guidelines and everyone just drives however fast they want. As far as our small experience goes, it works pretty well.

Out of the city the scenery was pretty much small houses, roadside stalls and tropical trees. Sometimes roaring past at terrifying speeds. Oh and no seatbelts either.

Our departure point with the luxury launch. Very glad I bought reef shoes because there are coral stones on the beaches and they fucking hurt to stand on. As you can see the weather got a lot better, pretty hot a lot of the day and only the odd passing shower.

Billy our guide for the day was a real character as you can imagine. He lives on Lelepa Island along with about 500 others, in their ancestral village. After the Vanuatu independence, ownership of their island and the fronting shoreline of the main island was returned to them. It was good to be able to see that the money we paid was going directly to them and not to some faceless tour company.

We had a quick stop along the shore to drop Billy off so he could cook lunch and the boat operator Lino took us over to Lelepa and along the shoreline for snorkelling.

He dropped us off on the shore, after after a lot of fooling about trying to walk into the deeper water with flippers on I was in heaven!

Absolutely crystal clear waters (as far as I am concerned) and so many tropical fish! Due to the winds, we weren't able to go to the main areas which have a lot more fish and rocky stuff but where we went was perfectly fine for me.

The GoPro takes a really wide angle photo so things look a lot smaller than they are, this rock was about 3m across and was teeming with little bright fish. Louie didn't really enjoy the snorkelling, and he couldn't relax with using a snorkel underwater but for me it was the best time just floating and looking at all the action below me. The prescription goggles I bought worked perfectly and I was able to really enjoy everything in focus. The cheap GoPro waterproof housing worked a treat as well, and didn't have to think about it, just hit record and go for it.

Fish, you might have to zoom in or squint.

The water was very warm, just straight in and no panicked gasping. Lino moved the boat away from the shore and we could slowly make our way to him, maybe 200m away. The  depth started out maybe a meter but by the time we got to the boat it was a lot deeper. Absolutely amazing just floating above everything and just watching.

Thanks to my genetic inheritance of hollow bones I guess, can't be anything else I was able to float without anything in the way of jacket or aids. My childhood spent floating about in our pool paid off.

After a bit of undignified scrambling up a ladder we moved to where the giant clams were. I tried to swim down for a closer look but thanks to those hollow bones, I wasn't able to get far. I was impressed with my asthmatic lungs though, being able to blast all the water out of the snorkel. i remember Dad teaching us how to do that, so the lesson was not wasted, although it took over four decades to come into use.

More fish, this time featuring a Blue Tang. I need the change the GoPro so it zooms in a bit.

Our last stop was to a sunken plane. By this time I guess everyone was getting a little tired, but I was hitting my stride. I was first off the boat by a long shot and the last on, very reluctantly. Here are my flippered feet fo scale. Please note that I'm not horribly sunburnt, this is just the camera doing colour correction for the blue water. There will be much dicking about when we get home with the 100s of photos I took underwater.

Not everyone got in this time, and they kind of stayed near the boat. I took off and did a full orbit of the plane and a bit further. One my way back I saw some white crap floating past me and a top of fish - Lino was throwing bread to them and made sure I got in on the action by throwing some at me. Worked a treat until my watch beeped telling me I had been swimming for 10 minutes and scared all the fish off. 

Everytime I've seen tropical fish in a tank, they have a UV light on them to make their colours pop. Here they did it all by themselves. It was mostly overcast but the colours were as bright as anything. I can't wait to go again!

Me being typical, the last to get out of the water. My happy smiling while snorkelling face. Absolutely one of the best mornings I have ever spent. The afternoon was great too, but this was an absolute highlight.

Sadly we had to head back to shore for lunch and some lounging around. Definitely worse places to relax! I thought the warning about falling coconuts was a bit of a tourist thing but I heard a couple falling amongst the trees so I steered clear.

A mostly local spread of Vanuatu fare, and definitely the start of the upward quality of food. Going from top down we have local bread, "Vanuatu cabbage" salad (looked like supermarket coleslaw and corn to me), what I thought was raw fish and bananas was pinkgrapefruit, papaya and bananas, chicken wings and sausages, rice and beef stew.

i didn't try the bread so have no idea if it was good, but it went fast so i guess so. The chicken was fantastic, golden and crispy on the outside and tender. I have no idea how he cooked this on an open fire wood BBQ! The sausages were so good, no idea what the meat was and I don't care, they were great. The beef stew was beef stew, loads of local root veges and the meat was well cooked.

The bananas were very small and thin but they are so sweet and very strong in flavour, I would eat these every day if we had them at home. The grapefruit was nice and sweet too, not like the sour buggers we have in NZ. Papaya I didn't like at all. Louie said it was really good so maybe this is like coriander?

Next on the events was the actual island, where Lino dropped us off on a beach made entirely of coral. No soft landing if we fell over here!

After we were all on the beach, Lino motored off and Billy proceeded to tell us all about how his tribe used to be cannibals. We were waiting to hear how there was to be a village feast with us as the guests of honour.

Thankfully the stories he told were about how one of the great chieftans brought about the end of cannibalism. Definitely a relief for me in particular, since looking at the others I would have been considered the most succulent and tender. The others were mostly gristle and tough old mutton.

We heard about different herbs and leaves used to treat pain, catch fish and something to do with women's troubles and vaginering.

A walk through the bush a bit further we got to the start of the village. It runs along the shore for quite a bit, and is entirely designed for making tourists fall over and break their ankles. I kind of saw what it looked like but mostly looked down so  wouldn't arse over.

I always feel really akward going through places like this, as though I'm intruding on their private lives. Counter to that, a lot of their income depends on tourists coming to the island so it's a double edged sword.

There are a few dogs in Vanuatu and every one of them have been so friendly. Louie does not approve of my need to pat every one of them (and this morning we had a bit of a drama keeping the very wet resort dog from coming inside). However the village dogs required smooches and chose the other dog happy visitor and myself to warm our feet.

The villlage had a range of "crafts" to sell to help suppliment their income although some were suspiciously similar to mass produced crap in the Port Vila markets and others were literally rubbish. $20 for a dirty coke bottle seems a bit much, even if the Gods Must Be Crazy.

The punching bag at the back of one of the churches might explain why they are the friendliest people - nobody messes with anyone who uses a gas bottle as a punching bag.

More local languge, but I haven't quite worked this one out yet. Co-operative society means they are strong together at least.

Idyllic waterfront to the village, but with no electricity and having to eat fish it's a tough trade-off. 

They do have a fair amount of power on the island, with a few solar panels and the odd generator. A lot of the adults go off the island to work, and past primary school the high school is on the main island so they rely on the small ferry boats. Today was a great insight into the trade-off between a paradise location and the realities of living there in a developing country.

On the way back, one of the others asked the driver if he could stop by a market so she could buy some pamplemousse (grapefruit). For some reason he thought the best solution was to stop at the main market the locals use in the middle of rush hour. It did give us a view of the back streets and people living their lives there. The chaps outside the "Gentlemen's Kava Bar" seemed very friendly.

After the day we were absoutely knackered, and very grateful for the on-site restaurants. Tonight I had hands down the best gnocchi I have ever had, and one of the best all round meals I've had in a long time. 

Kumala (yes that's how they spell it) gnocchi with island cabbage, braised onion, pesto, pickled walnuts, crispy basil, parmesan cheese and chicken. I might have caused issues because after I ordered the host came up to me as asked if I was allergic to nuts. I said just peanuts, nothing else but I think the walnuts were missing. Dammit, I like walnuts.

Anyway it was such a well balanced plate, everything worked togther and I'm definitely going to try to make this at home.

I was so tired after today that I just couldn't do any posting so I left it until today (Thursday) when it is a bit gloomy and raining, plus I slept for 10 hours straight. I really need to make this holiday thing my full time job.

Port Vila tourism

Today started off with the "free" breakfast at the hotel cafe. And to our surprise, it was free and not just toast and jam. Pretty much all the standards were here, with a few exotic touches.

For example my eggs benedict had dukkah scattered all over it. Yummy!

And here is the breakfast I actually ate, after trying a suspicious looking bit of the dukkah and discovering it was peanuts. Yay. I got them to check, and yes it was peanuts because dukkah is nuts with seeds and spices. So to them any nut will do. I didn't bother to argue that peanuts weren't actually a nut so I just got a quick replacement.

Louie's French Toast was fine, okay for not having to pay.

After a near-death breakfast we jumped in a bus that was just about to leave with a couple of Australians in it. Chatting away to the driver about Vanuatu food, he asked them if they have hangi back home. That gave me a chuckle, having an NZ stereotype being used on an Aussie. The outraged tourist corrected the driver, telling him Australians cook their food above the ground (because you ex-convicts are all too lazy to dig a hole I added in my mind). I have to behave, Louie doesn't like it when we get deported in an international incident.

No sooner had we arrived at the market, a guy with iguanas on him came up and started his spiel. Yes, I was fully aware this was a tourist trap but he did say this was how he makes a living before I took posession of the beasties so it was as above board as it could be. Besides, how cool is this! They were so chill, just sitting there and hanging out. Well worth the $15 I gave him. Not sure if that was a decent amount or not, but it was worth it to me.

We did a couple of laps around the markets, mostly selling green veges and fruit I had no idea the names of and bunches upon bunches of green bananas. I wanted to load up on fresh mangoes but I guess they are out of season so we left empty handed. Passing by the food vendors there was one stall with dried whole fish on a bed of something white and I almost left empty stomached as well.

More markets outside, all selling the same tat with "genuine" bracelets, shirts and dresses tent after tent. There was a bloody great handcraft market next to this, and again it seemed like the same story, carvings and jewelery "made" by the stall holder, which looked identical to the stall next door and the one across the way. We did spot a stall that had shirts that were very different to the rest, and as it turns out they are hand painted by the lady running the stall (or so she told us. I just checked and they are actually hand painted!) so I am now a proud owner of a pretty hideous but unique shirt. And so is my grandson.

The waterfront looks to be in development, and it's really nice to be honest. Loads of locals and tourists out and about. There is definitely a clear difference between the locals and tourists, for the most part the tourists look like... well, us, and the locals don't. At all. And they all seem to have their heads in a phone. Mad as.

The Vanuatu Conference Centre, the design is definitey a choice. I must suggest it for the next work get-together.

A snack, some freshly juiced local fruit which was almost completely passionfruit. The location and view over the water was brilliant but the food here hasn't been much.

Everywhere there are little areas where there are seats and people just relaxing which is really nice. None of the seats have the horrible "anti-homeless" bars and divisions, but we also haven't noticed any homeless people, so maybe it's just not a thing. We've seen a few large areas with some pretty rustic looking houses so maybe they are far more community minded that we are.

We stopped by a shop to get some reef shoes and googles for Louie so here is a typical Port Vila street scene.

Our vague destination was the local mall, just because and it was only 15 minutes walk so plenty of chance to see the local area.

All along the waterfront the sea is just amazingly clear. There wasn't anyone swimming but it is the dead of Winter & the water is only 25c so everyone is probably avoiding hypothermia.

It's the Pak n Save Hotel!

A local sign, and it's surprisingly easy to work out what it says, more or less.

This place is safe area to swim. But it is not safe time when we get heavy rain.

Some welcome signs, kind of along the main road but no real way of getting a decent photo in front of it, or explanation of why the Olympic rings are there. The guy on the truck is a pretty common sight. We've even seen a police truck with a bunch of them sitting all over the back.

Not a local, you can tell because the face isn't in a phone. Plus some other signs.

These are locals, with phones.

Yes, that is how restuarants usually do it. It doesn't really work out very well in any other combination.

More excellent local signage. I was particularly proud of myself for working out the bit above the door. But no, I did not come and check them out.

One of the "famous" French patisseries, which had a pretty good selection. The mall took all of 10 minutes to walk around including getting cash out of an ATM so it really wasn't worth the walk. 

Some sort of cake that was quite dry and an eclaire which was nothing special.

My mille-feuille with what I thought was very crispy chocolate pastry layers, but it just turned out to be burnt. Very fitting I guess, like everything else French, it looks good but is a bit shit.

Another bus ride back to the hotel, with some pretty snazzy interior decoration going on. There is some pretty heavy duty plastic covering as well; hard wearing and fashionable! These bus rides are always a bit awkward, some initial confusion before they agree they are going where we want to go, then the friendly questions and chat and then silence for the rest of the trip. It's a great way to see the daily life of the town though, and Vanuatuan drivers must be some of the worlds most tolerant and polite. We haven't seen a single cyclist so they must be pretty accurate as well.

One of our stops was at the Ministry of Pretty Much Everythiing Else We Didn't See Yesterday. Maybe not the ones responsible for the roads because the entrace and exit roads were rugged. This reminds me of one thiig I realised on this ride. We've seen posters on power poles all over with some words and a pretty grim photo of a person. I assumed they were wanted posters, or maybe protest at some political prisoner. Nope, they are promoting a candidate for some election. Definitely something we need, get rid of all the airbrushing and photoshopping out the circumcision scar on Luxton's forehead, and just have the cold light of day.

Back to the hotel and the weather definitely turned sunny. Still pretty windy but a lot warmer - time for a snorkel!

The little coral reef bay thing was at the perfect height, at the deepest up to my neck, so quite shallow.

The prescription goggles worked a treat, I absolutely loved just floating about being able to see all the fish and whatnots. Having a lot of natural buoyancy meant I was able to tootle about for ages just enjoying myself. The cheapie GoPro underwater case worked a treat so that will definitely get more use as well come Summer.

The fish were pretty much tiny or mostly white so I didn't get any blog-worthy ones, but here are two starfish and an anemone.

And here's a Louie after he got used to using a snorkel and goggles. It was a pretty challenging area, there were waves coming up to the edge of the coral which meant there were some currents moving everything around. At one point I was dragged over the coral, but there was just enough water depth that I didn't drag my carcass over it all.

After our extreme (for us) sports and a lovely few hours just relaxing outside reading it was time for dinner. Just a few sections away from the hotel was a pizza place so we went for a walk. As it turned out, the "shortcut" wasn't and we ended up in a paddock blocked by a barbed wire fence so back we went and around the long way. This involved walking down a long unpaved road / driveway at night with a few zig zags and some uncertainty untli we arrived at the most unlikely sight of a fairly decent looking restaurant. 

The place faced the ocean but there's a blasting wind at the moment so we escaped the serial killer vibe and took it back to our room.

It was fine. The walk was more memorable, and most of that was in the dark.

One final oddity for the day - someone saw fit to leave some nose candy for us in the bathroom. Weirdly it smells like laundry powder but who are we to turn down such a generous gift.

Tomorrow for Louie's birthday we are off on a day trip to Lelepa Island for snorkelling, bush walking, relaxing and a village visit so it should be a fantastic day.