Vanuatu, Port Vila

We spent a relaxing and fairly uneventful week in Port Vila. For me the highlight of the week was running into our very good friend Roy Dickson who sails on a boat called Peggy West. We originally met Roy in 2008 in the Marquesas and it has been our pleasure to run into him again many times. The only small problem this time was that Irene, who is another of our favorites wasn't currently on the boat with Roy since she was on her way home to Ireland to visit her family. We had a couple nice nights with Roy this time. One was out for Friday night happy hour and one night he had us all over for a lovely dinner aboard his boat. He also helped Fred and Jeff repair our dinghy. Thanks Roy!

On the way back from Friday night happy hour we were walking along the waterfront and I was drawn to the sounds of some serious hip-hop music coming from a big bandstand set up in the park. There was some sort of break dance competition going on and one of the Ni-Vans was busting some old John Hughes moves up on the stage. We only saw a couple performers before some sort of break occurred but I was pretty impressed. In the daytime in this same park there are stalls set up selling woven bags of varied construction. Apparently each island has their own style (I got an orange and white strappy number). The contrast with those and the break dancing is the kind of thing I love about the towns in the South Pacific islands.


Port Vila was also the site of our first visit to a kava bar. Kava is a drink found in many South Pacific countries, which is embraced very enthusiastically here in Vanuatu. We've been told by many people that the kava in Vanuatu is quite a bit stronger here than anywhere else, and here there are actually bars set up where you can buy the kava prepared already. The other countries we've been in you could buy kava root in the markets and make it yourself, but we were a bit confused as to how exactly you were supposed to make it. The traditional preparation calls for the root to be chewed by young boys and then their spit is collected in a bowl and that concoction is drunk later. We neglected to bring any young boys with us on the God Spede, so that method was out for us, and although we'd been told there was an alternate method that involved straining stuff through a sock, the instructions for this method were always vague, and we know where our socks have been, so we never tried this method either.



In Vanuatu, however, there are bars where it is sold ready to consume, so we decided to give it a try. We went with Rueben and James, two nice guys we had met earlier that evening when they drove us to dinner. We hailed them down thinking they were driving a taxi. We we asked if they were a taxi, and they said yes, but something about the way they looked at each other first, then looked around a bit and shrugged, made me suspect that they were just two guys out driving around. We later learned that all taxis in Port Vila have a T or a B on their license plate, but at this point we had just arrived in town and were still learning the ropes. Anyway, Rueben and James were very friendly and chatted with us on the way to dinner, and gave us their phone number, so we called them after dinner and asked them to take us to their favorite kava bar. They took us to Ronnie's, which we had read in a book was the place all the ex-pats and government officials liked to drink their kava. I was a little surprised that it was an open air place with plastic garden style tables and chairs on a dirt floor under some big trees with parts under a roof. I guess the word "bar" had led me to expect something else, but open air really is the coolest way to go in these parts, so it makes sense.



We all walked up to the bar and got our first bowl of kava. It was served in little plastic bowls, something like you'd use to serve cereal to a five year old back home, and looked exactly like muddy water. It got scooped into the bowls out of a big plastic bucket. It tasted pretty much like muddy water with pepper added. Truly vile, but we had read enough to expect that and knew to just slug it down and not sip and savor. Even having been forwarned, I was surprised at just how bad it tasted. It's giving me shivers writing this thinking about it. Ugh. Anyway, I thought the effects were quite nice. The first bowl made my mouth a bit numb and gave me a very mellow feeling. The second bowl gave me a nice little happy glow, much like a second glass of wine. I decided to stop there because we'd just had a big dinner (we found out later that you're supposed to eat after having kava) and one of the bad effects of the kava is that it will upset your stomach if you drink too much. As we sat there having a nice conversation with Rueben and James, I became of all the spitting going on around me. It does leave a nasty taste in your mouth, so apparenlty spitting on the ground next to your chair is considered perfectly acceptable. Then I noticed some people getting their kava and taking it to a trough that seemed to be built for that very purpose. They'd drink their kava, take a sip of some beverage, and spit it out into the trough, then repeat the rinse and spit then rinse their bowl and return it to the bar. This was all well and good, but I'm glad that I was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a gentleman a few tables over who was occasionally leaning to one side of his chair and throwing up. Yes, I'm really glad I missed that part!



After a bit Rueben and James drove us back to the dinghy dock and we all went home and slept like babies. Kava was traditionally used for ceremonies and rituals, and women were not allowed in the same room as the kava bowl. Now, it is touted by many people in the US as a cure for anxiety, insomnia and back pain. After talking to lots of people here in Vanuatu, I'd say it's just considered the normal thing to drink after work with your friends. It's kava time, so you go have a few "shells" before dinner.



We also did a day of diving at Port Vila. We dove a wreck in the harbour called the Star of Russia. This was an old sailing ship designed by the same people who built the Titanic. This was my first time inside a wreck and I just wasn't super impressed. The visibility in the water was not great and another group of divers went into the wreck before us and I think they stirred up a bunch of silt, so it just seemed like swimming amongst a bunch of sharp things without seeing much. We have a lot of supposedly good wreck diving coming up so I was sad to be so nonplussed by this first experience, but decided to wait and see, and since then we've done some truly awesome wreck diving, but I'll get to that later. The next dive was on some very nice coral just outside the harbor.

Sorry, for some unknown reason we took no pics in Port Vila.