Day one !WARNING! a long day and lots of pics

Day one – Vanuatu here we come!

I always find myself being rather nervous on the 1st day of travel, its all those "i hope everything goes to plan!" like will the taxi man arrive, will the plane leave on time, will we get our connecting flight, is everything ok with the tickets, all this just means I don’t settle and hardly ever eat prior to leaving on the first leg of any trip. The taxi man arrived in time, but what a scary driver he was, hassling the drivers in front of him and scaring the hell out of us.

Arrived nice and early at the airport, an hour an a half before our flight, we tried to get a direct transfer of baggage thru from Wellington but couldn’t be done because there was no connection between these particular airlines. But she moved us to an earlier flight as the plane we were booked on was delayed leaving Dunedin!! So we flew half an hour earlier than we were originally going to.

And as we took off from Wellington you could see the fog starting to roll in making us really pleased we had been bumped to an earlier flight. (later we found the airport had closed due to fog so we had been really lucky).

Had a nice young man sitting beside us and would you believe it he was also heading to Vanuatu. He was off to film a reality show over there, Aussie survivor…he said …but going over to film for a month – what a lucky sod!

Arrived in Auckland and had heaps of time to book in, eat (some people dont ever lose their appetites!) and get ready for the flight. We even got the seats we wanted beside the emergency exit…however we were asked if we were fit and healthy?!?!?!? And also if we would be willing to assist in an emergency….huh?!?!?!?! Well sure we would after we were out of the plane and safe!! OH its because we are beside the emergency door and it needs to be opened by one of us in the case of an emergency…….now I understand.

Looked like it was going to be a pretty empty plane from the people sitting around us in the waiting area, but by the time we boarded and the local Vanuatu soccer team loaded themselves into the plane we were full to bursting.

There’s nothing like the first drink on a plane, it has that ear mark of HOLIDAY TIME written all over it, however there are certain people who think that just because its free booze (well paid for with the ticket) that you must consume as much as you can in a 3 hour flight or at least as fast as the hostess will bring it to you. There were 3 rather loud men sitting behind us, all heading over to do the filming of this reality show the young man had been telling us about. After one drink they got louder and rather obnoxious with the hostess for not bringing their booze to them as fast as they would have liked. Kinda ruins the flight when you’re sitting cringing all the time.

Airplane toilets, aren’t they just the best!! Not!! But when you have to go you have to go, so after a gin and tonic which went right through me I was getting up to go when the “fasten your set belt” sign goes on……OH NO!!!!! Its ok I tell myself, I can wait while they get through this bit of turbulence and also thinking I wonder what people do if the turbulence lasts longer than one can wait….well I found out what happens, you say stuff this its either go or wet their seat, wonder which one they would prefer, I know which one I preferred so I got up and walked to the toilet. The hostess didn’t stop me which is just as well as they would have got a mouth full from me cause by this time I was in pain and needed to go badly. When I got back to my seat Djd tells me that after I got up and went so did half a dozen other people, and just as I buckled up bing bong the seat belt sign goes off….so I was glad I went as I then avoided the stampede of all the other people who needed to go.

Arrived and breezed through formalities, the only custom people we have ever seen who smile so readily. Even a nice band playing away at the airport.

Got into our transfer bus andthe nice driver turned bus on so we could have the air conditioning on thank goodness cause it was pretty hot and humid!!!

As we arrived at the resort we were greeted by the band

 And a large coconut filled with fruit juice.

We had a beautiful bungalow by the lagoon, minor birds flitting about, and fish jumping in the lagoon. We couldn’t have asked for a better view if we had tried.

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The heat and the shear beauty of the vista in front of us was immediately enough to make us both relax and sigh with the sheer delight of being back to this wonderful country.

Mum on her way to pick up the family

And then the family off to do some fishing

and all from just in front of our little bungelow.

There’s a saying about being here on Vanuatu and that is to do with being on “island time” which basically means nothing happens in a hurry or sometimes not at all.

But oh no a broken air con unit, its flooding the bungalow. Rang to advise them, half an hour later nobody had turned up to have a look, so we went for a walk to reception and advised a man who looked like he was in charge that that having run half an hour ago nobody had been up to look at the flooding and the water was flowing out of the air conditioning unit and all over the floor and all over their telephone jack. 10 minutes later the repair man was there, and then cleaners turned up in mass to mop up, and them more cleaners and then more cleaners. All fixed within half and hour. Did get offered another bungalow but already we had fallen in love with the view from this one.

Dinner, was Melanesian night, taro lap lap, yam lap lap, beef, beef curry, fish in coconut milk, something wrapped in a leaf, wonderful food, wonderful band.

Part of the culture of Vanuatu is that they have a village system with a chief(male) so that makes for a culture of male dominance. Not necessarily in a harsh way but none the less already having had the djd talk about “now you wont get annoyed will you mcd” I was happy to sit back and let “the big fella” as djd was referred to, deal with everything….yeah you can really see that happening cant you!!  But our 1st experience of their cultural “men hold the positions of dominance” happened when we ordered the bottle of wine with our meal.

Wine ordered, glasses delivered, djd goes to get his food, the wine bottle then arrives but not opened. So the waiter says “I have to go get a wine opener” ok fine, and then he hovers behind me and keeps hovering even though I can see he has the cork skew in his hands!! Djd turns up and says “so wine but not opened?” and like magic the waiter appears and opens the bottle, he was waiting for “the big fella” to turn up!!! Wine opened and he filled the glasses 3 quarters, a few minutes later not even having had a sip from the glass another waiter appears and fills the glasses up to top. After that we decided we better start to drink the wine before they pour more in!! Then when I had a quarter of a glass full and djd had none they filled his to quarter!!! While we are laughing about that the next waiter came along and filled both glasses up…can you see a pattern here!!

There always seems to be special moments on holiday and ours was this beautiful little girl who was very intensely watching the band.

It was a local band made up of 7 men playing string instruments and one banging on a set of bamboo poles. This little girl was just fascinated by the music and watched almost every song they played. She wasn’t a shy wee girl either as she got brave enough to speak to one of the men in the band and ask for a song. As much as they wanted to understand her they couldn’t so her father stepped in and must have told them what she wanted and the next thing you know the band are playing the Lion King song and the little girl was smiling and dancing to the music…..oh so very cute and such a nice gesture from the band.

Night time brings all kinds of interesting creatures out but the best one is the gecko that sits by the lights and catches the moths as they flitter by. Cute little things aren’t they.

Our first day over already but we had so much to see and do in the next few days.