We awoke this morning to the sound of our phone
ringing. We must have been exhausted, as we were still fast asleep when the phone rang, but as we looked out our porthole we
could see land and a tug along side us guiding us into the dock where we were
going to be moored for the day.
It only took us 15 minutes to get ready and we met our
friends Ian and Kathy and headed down to the Waterfront Restaurant for an early
breakfast.
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| Ready for breakfast and a day in Vila |
Once again we met a lovely
couple who joined us for breakfast. We met Karen and Beryl from Adelaide. Beryl has been on several cruises before but
this was also Karen’s first cruise. They
were having a Mother Daughter week away together. Just made me wish that my mum was still
around so that I could have done something like this with her…
We left the boat somewhere around 9.30am for a day of
sightseeing in Villa. We decided not to
go with an organised tour, and I am still wondering if that was a mistake. We hired a taxi for three hours to have our
own personal guide for a personalized sightseeing tour. As soon as you get off the boat you are met
by hoards of taxi drivers or bus drivers, all wanting to take you in their
taxi. A little overwhelming…. We ended
up with a driver called Tommi who wanted to charge us $250 for half a day for
the four of us. Steve bartered with him
and got our price reduced $30 and he probably could have got it a bit cheaper
if we had of let him keep going rather than feel sorry for the driver. As it was our first time here we have definitely
learnt a thing or two for the next time we would come and visit…. Tommi was lovely but he takes you to visit
all his relatives, who then proceed to charge you additional cost to see
things…
One thing I observed about the Vanuatu drivers, is that there
are not road rules here and very few bitumen roads, even in the main capital of
town. The bitumen roads that are around
are full of pot holes and are really quite dangerous. There are no speed limits on the road, and
cars just overtake you anywhere. They
all honk their horns at each other constantly too. It seems they are a very friendly lot of
people
Our first port of call with Tommi was to a lookout
overlooking Villa . Beautiful view of
the bay. Tommi did oblige us and took a
group photo for us.
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| Views of Vila from the Lookout... |
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| Our first views of Vila |
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| The four of us at the Lookout... |
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| War Memorial at the Lookout. |
Vanuatu and Vila were a lot poorer than I thought they would be. There are lots and lots of markets in Vila, after leaving the lookout, we drove past these food markets..
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| Food Markets in town... |
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| The locals shopping for their fruit and vegetables.. |
Next we went for a
drive out to visit some national Vanuatu folk who did some cultural dancing for
us. They wanted to charge us each $10 to
see it but when we said no… Too dear not interested they dropped the price to
$5 each for us to see it. It was
probably worth the $5 but definitely not $10, as they performed about five
dances for us and one of the dances they encouraged us to join in. Steve managed to get some good photos…. They
were all Tommi’s relatives and friends.
First they showed us how they make fire....
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| Making fire |
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| Didn't take long for it to start smoking... |
They then showed us several of their culture dances.
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| Dancing for us |
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| These folk have never been educated but are encouraged to learn and past on their traditions... |
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| Very interesting to watch... |
The ladies and the children looked on and often sang....
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| They were very friendly... |
This lovely lady took a real shine to me, and when it was our time to join them in a dance, she provided me with a grass skirt to put on. Then when we were leaving she gave me their custom farewell transfering her face paint onto my face....
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| A very special gesture from this lovely lady |
We were invited to join them in their dancing... Didn't take much to get us to join in. they loved that we interacted with them also,
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| Ian joining in the dancing... |
Kathy and I got involved with the ladies also...
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| Joining hands with the locals.. |
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| Dancing in my grass skirt. |
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| We had such a lovely time dancing with these lovely women and children. |
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| Ian getting into the groove.... |
One of the interesting things I learnt today was that there
are 83 islands in Vanuatu, and each of them has their own dialect and
language. Also the only work in Vantuata
is in Villa, so therefore most folk have to come to Vila.
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| Their farewell dance for us |
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| My face painted by a farwell gesture by a beautiful native woman. |
From here we drove through one of the Villages.
It was a very poor village…. It kind of made
me really sad to see the poor conditions that they live in.
Their homes were no different to the fishing
shack that the boys have up at Corio Bay where they go fishing.
Most of their homes were made from corrugated
iron, on dirt floors.
Lots of old
fashioned clothes lines with brightly coloured clothes hanging on them, and
pigs wandering around through the village itself.
It is
hard to describe just how poor these people really are… They don’t seem to have
much at all.
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| One of the villages... |
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| Drying their vegetables in the village... |
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| Close up of the drying of their yams |
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| They have pet pigs who live in their homes with them... |
From
here we were taken to Mere Cascades, which is one of their famous
waterfalls. Again there was a cost
associated with it. $25 a head and you
had a half hour climb up to see the falls through creeks and water to get
their. We all had sandshoes on and
didn’t fancy doing this or paying an extra $100 on the already over $200 we
were spending on hiring the taxi.
We
were then taken to some beach markets near a water taxi, which we were able to
catch for free to take us over to Hideaway Island.
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| The Markets on the beachfront.. |
Chloe visted here when she was in Vanuatu, and suggested that we should stop over there also. It really is a pretty island... the only thing it misses is the sand. The water is beautiful, but the beach is just coral.
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| First view of Hideaway Island. Very popular with the tourists... |
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| The Water Taxis take you over for free but you have to pay $15 to spend time on the island. |
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| Hideaway Island... You can walk over to it on the low tide... |
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| Waiting on the jetty for the Water Taxi... |
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| Heading over to Hideaway Island. It was the perfect day... |
We had just over an hour on the island.
We decided to have a swim here and test out
the beauitul cool clear clean water…. It was very refreshing although the
beaches here are no where near as nice as ours back home.
There really wasn’t any sand on this beach,
just lots and lots of coral.
.
The reef though was very close to the island
and you could snorkel around and see lots of very beautiful and colourful fish.
Had to take this photo for Chloe to show her that we too visited her island.
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| Arriving at Hideaway Island |
The water was crystal clear, and you could see the reef very clearly here. Lots of people snorkeling. this is also the site of the only Underwater Post Office in the World.... It was difficult to get into the water and I needed to wear thongs as it was so hard to walk over all the coral...
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| the beautiful relaxing water of the Coral Sea... |
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| The beachfront on Hideaway Island... |
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| The beach has lots of layabouts for you to lay on, on the water's edge... |
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| This is the beach... Quite painful to walk over.... No sand whatsoever... |
We had a bit of a sunbake on the beach before having a swim.. The water was beautiful... Quite cold when you first got in but beautifully refreshing..
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| Relaxing on Hideaway... |
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| A lovely swim at Hideaway Island... |
We really enjoyed our time on this pretty island....
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| Looking out to the surf from Hideaway Island. |
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| Solid coral on the shore, would be perfect if it were sand. |
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| Almost time to farewell this little piece of Paradise. |
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| All packed ready to go.. |
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| Time to depart this lovely Island |
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| Out on the Platoon waiting for the Water Taxi |
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| Ian and Kathy in the water taxi heading back to the mainland... |
We spent just over an hour on the island and caught the
water taxi back to the mainland where Tommi was waiting for us to drop us back
into town.
We got into town around
1.30pm where we went and checked out a couple of duty free shops looking for
perfume for Chloe.
The prices still
seemed pretty dear here so in the end we didn’t worry about getting any.
We then wandered through to the markets along
the water front.
Lots and lots of hippie
pants and tops,
all pretty bright, so we
ended up buying two pairs for Chloe.
I
made sure I got her some really bright ones
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| Main Street in Vila |
We headed into Vila to do some duty free shopping. We were mainly after perfume for the girls but found it difficult to find the Marc Jacobs perfume that Chloe was after. Also the prices weren't as cheap as we had hoped. If you were a drinker, you would have been happy as the price of alcohol in Vila was very cheap...
The streets are pretty poor with lots of potholes in the roads...
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| This was taken in the main street of Vila |
Chloe had also put an order in for some more hippie pants. She bought some when she was in Vanuatu and gave us specific instructions on where to find them at the markets in town.. This was our next stop.
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| Checking out the markets in town... We bought Chloe's hippy pants here... |
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| Markets on the waterfront... |
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| I thought the coconut trees would have been taller... |
From the town centre we caught a water taxi back to the
ship, and we put down on another private little beach close to a little
village. It was a five minute walk back
to the ship.
We had lovely views of these little bungalows on the water front and the ship as we cruised out to meet it.
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| Bunglalows along the water's edge |
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| The Pacific Dawn in all its slendor... |
Our taxi back across the bay...
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| Our water taxi back to the boat. |
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| This little private beach that we were dropped off at... |
t dropped us at this little beach, a couple of hundred metres from our ship... It was another small village...
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| Heading back to our ship... |
We arrived on boat just
after 2.30pm where we had to be cleared by customs first. Once we dropped off all our gear in our
cabin.... we headed upstairs to the Plantation Restaurant to have lunch. Arriving in our cabin we found this cute little fellow on our bed... Love what they do with our towels...
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| Our cute little monkey |
We obviously made it just in the nick of
time, because not long after we were seated with our meal, they closed the lunch
bar.
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| A cuppa to finish off our lunch... |
We had a lovely leisurely lunch and sat and chatted for
probably and hour or so. Ian and Kathy
decided to go off and have a snooze, whilst Steve and I decided to go up to Deck 12 and have a lie
down by the pool. I was keen to see the
ice sculpturing which was happening at 4pm.
This is such a relaxing holiday and I am sure we both dozed off their
for a little while.
We
watched the ice sculpturing at 4pm. It
was pretty interesting and it took Edwardo about half an hour to work with the
ice. Managed to get some photos.
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| Edwardo with his block of ice... |
We learnt that you couldn't just do this with any block of ice. It had to be a special block without any bubbles. They have a supplier in Brisbane...
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| Using a big chisel like tool to chip away the ice... |
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| They had a guessing competition to see if we could guess what he was going to sculpture |
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| Nearly finished. He was able to do all this in less than half an hour. |
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| With his completed sculpture |
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| It was two fish.... |
Time now for a bit of a rest before the night program
starts. Another busy night ahead.
We arrived back up on deck to see us set sail from Vila... It was sad to leave.... all the island adverntures were over now... It meant we were now on our way back home...
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| All the markets set up along the road leading from the dock. |
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| Up on the deck of the ship... |
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| Pulling away from the dock... Farewell Vila |
Our parting gift from Vanuatu was this amazing sunset... It was so nice to sit on deck and watch the setting sun.
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| Sunset over Vanuatu |
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| Sunset over Vanuatu |
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| Sunset over Vanuatu |
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| Sunset over Vanuatu |
Tonight was Island night on the Pacific Dawn... That meant party time up on the top deck...
We ended up have dinner in the Plantation Restaurant tonight as we had trouble getting into the Waterfront Restaurant before 8pm, and we really wanted to take in the show before the Island Party... We all had to dress up in Island gear... This is us..
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| Great photo of Ian... |
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| Enjoying his cuppa before we party |
The Island Party started at 9.30pm on Deck 12.... We were there....
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| Enjoying Island Night |
Out by the pool...
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| It was such a fun night... |
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| Loving our time with Ian and Kathy on board. |
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| Ian and Kathy |
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| Love this photo of them both. |
They had all sorts of things happening on board... Dancing, competitions,
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| Everyone partying around the pool |
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| Fire twirlers entertained us.. |
We indulged in mocktails..
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| Island Party Mocktails |
I had a watermelon one
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| My watermelon mocktail... |
Steve had a lychee one...
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| Steve's lychee mocktail... |
Enjoying our mocktails
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| Ian with his Watermelon Mocktail |
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| Kathy with her Lychee Mocktail |
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| Enjoying my watermelon Mocktail... |
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| Steve enjoying his Lychee Mocktail... |
Ian and Kathy turned in earlier than us... The night air was getting a little cool, We stayed on for an extra half hour or so and enjoyed one more before turning in and heading to bed...
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| Last night cap.. |
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| Love spending time with this man.. |
It has been a lovely night... fun, relaxing, good company. It is going to be so hard to head home... Ian and Kathy are really the easiest people to be on holidays with...
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| Goodnight to all.. |
The rest of our holiday will now be spent at sea. We have had a couple of early mornings as we were on the islands, but tomorrow we get to sleep in. We have to be no where in a hurry...
