"The Travel Diary That Never Quit ..." a Vanuatu Travel Page by trixee

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Arrivals at Bauerfield International Airport

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

This travelogue is a transcript of my attempt to keep a travel diary during our holiday. The reason it never quite eventuated is this.

Saturday 10th November 2007
sometime in the afternoon

When the tourist guides to Vanuatu say to bring everything, it's a good idea to bring... everything.

My intention to use a "Vanuatu" memento journal for my travel diary resulted in me using a very basic spiral-bound writing pad intended for schoolchildren.

No pretty touristy Vanuatu or Iririki logo on the front, not even any pretty frangipani flowers on the cover.

The locals in Port Vila seem to have decided that sourvenirs should be restricted to tacky Chinese imports.

C'est la vie!

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A sidestreet in Port Vila

Shooters and Playboy Bunnies

Saturday 10th November 2007
night time

We just got back from dinner at Shooters Bar on the main street. It was interesting. It was like a local bar that had decided to try and be more touristy by adding a "fine dining" section. That sounds like I'm being disparaging, but it was actually quite charming.

Their menu was quite decent. I had coconut prawns for entree (delicious!) and Brazilian Lobster for main (interesting and tasty but also a bit NQR). The Brazilian part was basically a sweet chilli sauce with other stuff in it. It was actually rather nice in and of itself, but I'm not convinced it went with the lobster. Leighton had garlic bread (OK) and Beef Cordon Bleu (delicious!).

The service was possibly the most interesting part. They appeared to take great pains with some of the finer points of etiquette (they pointedly handed Leighton the menu from the left) but neglected some of the more obvious points, such as taking my plate away while I was still chewing! And the service was also very slow.

The place aslo had this bizarre payboy bunny thing happening, which was rather disturbing. They had t-shirts and framed prints... distracting. And Leighton kept saying "hooters" at me all night.

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Powerlines running from Iririki Island to the city

Luscious Cocktails

After dinner we decided to check out the cocktail bar at the Sebel Hotel. All I can say is, wow! Incredibly lush chocolatey velvet decor, reminiscent of Luxe Bar. Leighton commented that it was the sort of bar that every hotel should have, and I have to agree.

The Sebel is new, I think not even a year old? And as far as I can tell caters mostly to foreign aid workers and the like. Such as the girl Diana and her friend whom we met on the ferry over. She said she was working on some sort of strata development, which sounded a bit bizarre.

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Crab!

Hermit the Crab and Blackie the Cat

On the walk back to our fare, (up the steep steps!), we spotted a hermit crab of some sort, that was out for a walk, and we tried to take some photos.

Then Leighton decided he wanted to take a photo of the Sebel, so he missed the next part. While he was doing that, a rather large black cat stalked along the side of a fare. It paused for half a minute when I spotted it, then melted away into the night. Leighton still doesn't believe me.

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Lagoon Pool at Snorkeller's Cove, Iririki

A Hard Day Doing Nothing

Sunday 11th November 2007
10pm

For a day when the intention was to do bugger all, we're remarkably tired. After breakfast, we showered and changed and decided to do some kayaking around the island (Iririki). Unfortunately all the kayaks were out, so we decided to go for a swim at the Lagoon Pool in the Snorkeller's Cove area. The pool was nice and had a swim-up bar, where I decided I really need to have a Sex on the Beach cocktail.

When we arrived the pool area was mercifully child-free, and there was a number of young couples there. We had our cocktail and our swim, however the pool service area was out of towels, so we had to drip dry before heading off. We decided to leave when there was a sudden invasion of screaming kiddies. We're so thankful we're staying in the adults-only section.

So back to the kayaking place below Watermark Restaurant, where they now had a free kayak for us.

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Meridian Charters boat

And off we paddled. It probably took us around half an hour to get around the island. It was nice, but otherwise unremarkable. On the rocks on the north-west side of the island, we did see plenty of crabs scurrying around. And a grey waterfowl of some sort.

After kayaking, we got changed and had lunch at Watermark Restaurant on Iririki. We had Tusker beer and a meat and seafood BBQ platter for two. The pork, prawns, and chicken wings were nice, but the meat skewers were overdone and dry.

Back at the fare, we had a rest, and then got ready for our sunset cruise with Meridian Charters. The cruise was on a cute sailboat with red sails and party-rope lights. It pushed off from Cafe du Village, a cute French cafe with a gorgeous ambience, but uninspiring menu.

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The cruise ship sails off

Au Revoir My Pretties!

Friday 15th November 2007
Mid-afternoon

Our last day in Port Vila was spent walking, shopping, and lazing by the pool. Not bad really. The weather at the moment (~3pm) is a bit chilly. The sun is warm but the wind appears to be unusually cool. Although it could be that it feels that way only because I'm sitting around in wet bathers.

I'm having a fresh lime juice at the moment, mainly because I'm planning on coming back for happy hour, which is from 5-6pm every day.

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And thus ends that pitiful attempt at diarying. The Tips section contains all the relevant info on what we did anyway.

It was a lovely trip at a lovely resort on a beautiful island in the sun. Perfect!