Chantillys On The Bay Port Vila

... imprints in our hearts. A trip to Vanuatu is like stepping back in time, an opportunity for one to cast off the shackles and complexity of modern life, to experience the blissfulness of simplicity, to renew their faith in humanity, and to return to a communion with nature. For most of us, it remains a destination quite far off the beaten path, but with a bit of courage, the intrepid traveler will reap its abundant rewards.

... it's the people. Nowhere can you find the indefinite smiles and the bottomless joy these people attach you with. And let's not forget that they have very little in terms of materialism, but that does not disable them to be happy. On the contrary, on all our journeys the less you have the happier you are. Thanks Vanuatu and see you again!

... Americans wanted to sell all their gear to the British and French, who used to rule the place jointly. Apparently their allies could only afford a million dollars (you may have read in history somewhere they were pretty poor after the war) but the Americans wanted more. Probably only a little bit more. So they threw a "tantrum" - again not my words - and built a pier, drove everything into the sea, and for good measure blew the pier up too. This version of the story ...

Yesterday we learned how to round up the chicken, kill it, and gut it. It was the most interesting/fun/scary/cruel activity I have done so far since training started. It was interesting and fun because we were split up into groups of 6-7 and the mamas pointed at a chicken for each group as our target. We are then supposed to work as a team and try to round up the chicken and one of us would some how grab it and ...

... ground level we headed through a gap in the trees & into the side of the mountain which runs parallel to the other side of the runway. As we approached the runway with it being 90° on our right hand side, at the last moment we pulled a hard right to line up with the runway. As the plane tilted over to the side you could clearly see the coconuts in the trees not that far below us. I'm sure the pilot was trying to clip them with his wing. Because the plane ...

... stuff. That night we ventured over to the mainland and tried to find somewhere decent to eat and miraculously found a restaurant that was nice and cheap. Good score but by this stage, we're shattered so we head back to our Fare to try and sleep. Day Two Word or warning... nothing is open on Sundays except for a dodgy bar called Shooters and unfortunately we made the mistake of going there for lunch and I paid the price. I missed the concert & ...

... what were they going to do, go without us? Although I was half-tempted to do a runner into the jungle shouting "asylum" just to see what they would do. We didn't get a stamp in our passport but we did mange to scrounge another entry in the travel pod which is almost as good. Then we headed off back on the plane to Fiji to begin our holiday. Hoping of course that we would be able to land which when we did we would be over 4 hours delayed!!.

... opened an account in the supermarket and stationery shop for school supplies ad building materials, I was almost run out of the school by the caretaker. Each time he sees me now he gives me evil looks as he feels done out of a free handout that would never have got to the children. The are totally corrupt here - they make off with any money given to the school, people in jail just walk out when ever they want and most of the criminals are people ...

... were so confident that the ship would stay where it had been lodged on the reef, there was no attempt to unload any of the stuff on the boat at first - they thought they could come back to it later. Some stuff was salvaged but there's still loads of stuff in the ship. I did a total of 6 dives on the ship - enough to get a feel for it but I could easily have spent a couple more ...

Day 206 - 207 - Port Vila Vanuatu's main attraction is its diving and given Kirsty and I's eagerness to cram in as much as possible before it gets too cold, the last two days have been organised around this new found hobby. Some of the other islands of Vanuatu boast some hugely appealing dives - notably the SS President Coolidge (the largest accessible wreck dive in the world) and the chance of an encounter with a dugong (a herbivorous hybrid of whale and sealion)- but ...