Hapi krismas blo yu

Mi wanem se olgeta frends blong mi "Wan hapi krismas blo yufula ol". 

Thanks to Eslyn for sending me this Vanuatu Christmas greeting

The Vanuatu adventure came to end last Monday (20 December 2010) morning when I left Port Vila but that won't mean I will close this blog straightaway. I have a few pictures and stories to add. 


I managed to pick up a nasty bug while I was away and its effects are still with me. I have no idea from what (water, food, ???) or when and where I ingested the offending item but whatever it was it certainly packs a bit of punch - an excellent way to lose weight but it does mean I am missing out on all the treats of the Christmas table.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone...

What's new

Woke up this morning at 05:30, kava effect seems to be lingering and I couldn't sleep. So before I left for work I updated a couple of things.

Video - there is a new scene from South Pacific in the video below, Bali Hai sung by Juanita Hall from the original musical. South Pacific trivia: Apparently the director wanted all the men to be shirtless during this scene, obviously some felt a little modest and wore a t-shirt and a shirt.

Comments - if you would like to leave a comment choose the anonymous profile before posting the comment. I don't know why this is necessary but you won't be able to leave the comment with selecting that profile.

Music - still can't work out how to add music. Hopefully I will be able to by the end of the week.

Last week's student farewell - here are a couple of shots from the student farewell dinner last Friday night at Sunset Bungalows




Solomon Island student leader (Kennedy) and a couple of SI students in the background preparing for their custom dance





Boskie, student from PNG, making a presentation. That's Ronic, colleague of mine in the background on the right and David on the left.

 

Trip to Tanna Part 2 and Mighty Mt Yasur

I have just returned from dinner which was preceded by a coup le of shells of kava at the Felix Nakamal (Bislama for kava bar) on the Second Lagoon in Port Vila. Felix is known as an expat nakamal principally because they serve beer and food. The kava was quite good as far as kava goes. Two shells was probably my limit although I know of locals, white men as they are referred to, who manage up to five shells in one session. I don't think I would be able to turn the computer on let alone write a few words if I had had five shells beforedinner and coming home tonight. The perfect combination for me is kava and a beer chaser and tonight it was Tusker beer. But I digress as this post is really about the second half of the trip in Tanna and more specifically the visit to (Mighty) Mt Yasur, I say mighty as it is the most accessible active volcano in the world and although I usually eschew cliches, a visit to Mt Yasur is truly amazing and an opportunity to see nature at its most powerful.

In the previous post I talked about the trip from Whitegrass International Airport in Lenekal to Mt Yasur along the unsealed road. Well at a certain point we turned off that road and headed along iomething even more basic and finally drove up the side of the volcano for about 300 metres. There we had to exit the vehicle and make the climb (about 1 km) to the rim of the volcano. In this picture (below) I stopped at the base of the walkway to post a couple of postcards. I can't remember who I sent them to so if you recieve a postcard this year (judging by the speed of Vanuatu Post) it came from this very postbox. Oh and I forgot to mention that owing to the late onset of the kava effects I cannot be held responsible for the lucidity of this post.



There are two crazy postboxes in Vanuatu - one underneath the water at Hideaway Island and this one on Mt Yasur just before the walkway leading up to the rim of the volcano.



As you can see in the picture above I am wearing a raincoat, I also had a torch. The climb to the rim of the volcano is quite steep and high and windy. I would recommend sturdy footwear and a raincoat regardless of the time of year. As you walk up the ash hill that is Mt Yasur nothing prepares you for your first experien\ce of erupting volcano. When it first went off I think I was about 200 metres from the crater's edge and this is the first picture I took. I think the drop in the volcano edge gives you some idea how close I was to the crater and how steep the edges were all around the crater. Fortunately, Sam was as good a guide as he was driver and he was on hand to guide me all the way to the viewing area which was another couple of hundred metres from this spot. I was standing there thinking to myself this is pretty impressive and then all of a sudden there was this enormous bang, the earth (or volcano to be exact) under my feet shuddered and a spew of red hot lava shot into the air - right in front of me. I can't describe the feeling or impression accurately but it is still quite vivid in my imagination...

Mt Yasur about to erupt, almost on cue as I arrived to look down into the crater

The quality of this picture is not fantastic but it gives you some idea of the red hot lava shooting into the air. We arrived in daylight about 17:30 and had about one hour of daylight to enjoy the volcanic fireworks before the sun set and then the show really began. We stayed until 19:00 and then left partly because Sam wanted to beat the traffic so to speak and get a head start on the five other vehicles parked at the base of the volcano. I remembered the section of the road earlier where we emptied the vehicle to get past and I thought just as well only three of us were returning but I was still a little concerned we would not make it up that particular hill. As it was Sam floored for about 300 metres before the hill and we slid and swayed all the way up the hill and made it in one piece.

Another eruption from Mt Yasur, by this time I was standing directly above the crater; frightening but fascinating at the same time

I think the picture on the left is one of the best I took while standing above the crater. I can't describe the noise accurately but is was like a low grumble and then an enormous bang followed by complete silence as the hot lava fell to the ground or back into the crater. When it was dark I watched one piece of lava shoot high into the sky and fall slowly and gracefully and hit the ground, not far from us, with a dull thud. It looked the size of a car wheel, I have no idea what injury it would have caused if the wind was blowing in our direction and it landed among the 15 or so spectators gathered around the edge of the volcano.

I can't see what the picture above is as the internet has just dropped out (for the umpteenth time this evening) but I think it is another shot of an eruption. The volcano erupted more than 20 times while I was there and each time it was different in terms of colour and movement, ash cloud and sulphur cloud, noise and spectacular lava shooting into the air. As the sun set and it become dark you could see the second crater glowing menacingly in the background and then all of a sudden it too erupted and we received two for the price of one with both craters erupting in unison - now that was spectacular. I was particularly taken by the colour of the glow around the very edges of each crater - more like a hot orange than a red glow - and I can only imagine the temperature down in the crater if it can melt whatever it melts (showing my geological ignorance I know) and then spew it into the air. I feel another cliche coming on.

Anyway the kava is taking its effect and so it's time for bed. I will leave you with one more picture, here I am standing at the top of the outer crater - you can see how high it is by looking at the landscape in the background. The ground is ash that is firm to walk on but the edges are very steep and I thought it was safer to remain standing rather than sit and run the risk of sliding down the front or back of the outer crater. Next post will be boring by comparison - a few of my favourite things in Vanautu.

Standing on the "viewing deck" at Mt Yasur, as you can see the OHS police haven't ruined this attraction with myriad fences and safety controls. The drop to my left is about 90 metres at the base of which is a small plateau and then...the crater.





Trip to Tanna Part 1

Two weeks ago (time has really flown by) I was fortunate enough to travel down to Tanna Island, one of the southernmost islands of the Vanuatu archipelago, to review plans for a program that is scheduled for delivery on the island in early 2011. Tanna along with Santo are the two most visited islands in Vanuatu after the Efate, the island with the capital Port Vila. Transport to Tanna at the moment is via a plane (17 seats and two propellers, one on each wing) and takes about an hour or boat (actually it's a barge) and I have no idea how that long that takes but the chap who captains it said he can't take passengers anyway due to the occupational health and safety risks. I wasn't sure if this was referring to the seaworthiness of the vessel itself or the lack of life saving aids on board.

Anyway I digress, as you can see below I am standing in front of the rear door - trusty Venetian Panama in hand and ready to embark on the trip to Tanna. I forgot to add that the check-in experience includes being weighed after you check in your luggage. Fortunately, there were no, how shall I put this, larger size passengers travelling down to Tanna that day.



Port Vila from seat 12A. You can't see my place but just imagine it is off to the right of the picture.



After years of flying and one particularly close scrape a couple of years ago (some of you will know what I referring to), I am a very calm and controlled passenger and I have learnt simply to accept whatever comes when flying, especially when you are in the air, as there is nothing you can do about it and it's probably better to leave it in the hands of the crew...but imagine my consternation when I looked down minutes after take off in the 17 seat, two propeller Air Vanuatu plane.

What did I see? No, it wasn't rubbish left on the floor from the previous flight or the remains of a previous passenger's lunch. See below - it was the arm of the aisle seat in front of me lying on the floor at my feet. Given no hostess was in sight, in fact there was no hostess, I thought it churlish to bother the pilots who I could through the open cockpit up front and chose to ignore the offending item. Fortunately, it was a smooth flight so there was no chance the object could fly through the cabin taking out the passengers.

Seat arm of 11A resting on the floor in front of 12A

There is less than 200 metres of sealed road on Tanna Island and the picture below was taken from inside the 4WD we were travelling in after being picked up at the Whitegrass International Airport at Lenakel (I am not sure what the international flights are in and out of Tanna but perhaps they are private charter flights from the US) by the tour guide (Sam) from Tanna Lodge. We drove straight away to Mount Yasur (more about the volcano later) along the roughest roads I have ever experienced. In fact I thought driving across the island that this trip was the most remote location I had visited, even more remote than places I visited in Australia and certainly the least developed, not that I minded that at all. In fact, the drive was fascinating, there were sections I thought we would not pass because of the state of the road).

We passed this tree (Banyan?) on the way to Mt Yasur - that's our truck underneath it and the people in the tray we picked up in Lenekal and delivered to their village at the base of the volcano. These trees are true wonders of nature, I have seen some that you can walk right through at the base, with all the twisted roots and gnarled branches. Next to the tree was a small village market. Well a trestle table really with a few locally-grown foods and produce for sale. In front of the table on the ground were these bundles of roots (see below) that one of the villagers told was kava root ready for processing.



I have been reliably informed the kava in Vanuatu is much stronger than the kava in Fiji and the kava in Tanna is the stongest in Vanuatu. That must have something to do with the unique method of preparation of kava in this part of the world - the root is chewed by uncircumsised boys and then the partly masticated root is blended with water and strained before drinking. Now I know one needs to be culturally sensitive but if aTannese offered me kava I would seriously have to think what was more important - avoiding an infection or committing a tabu.

Here we are (see below) half way between Lenakel and Mt Yasur. We had just driven down, or to be more accurate Sam the driver had just driven down, a stretch of almost unpassable road and the only way we made it was to lighten the truck by getting out of the truck and walking down the hill. I took this picture at the bottom of hill just as we were about to get back in the truck and continue our trek towards the volcano. We had four generations of the one family in the back and you can see great-grandmother (frizy hair at the back), grandmother (blue Island dress in the front), mother (yellow and red sarong standing on the tray) and sundry children.