Honiara

I haven't boarded a plane home, I'm staying & have loved our time in Honiara. We arrived tired & are leaving fully recovered. For those of you who haven't got a clue where in the world the Solomon Islands are, get onto google earth! It's east of Australia & south of Papua New Guinea. The name Guadalcanal may ring a few bells. This is where the Japanese & the Americans battled it out during WW2. I have trekked over hills, through jungle & jumped in & out of Japanese fox holes & imagined what those men went through. Much of the island is as untouched & undeveloped as it was back in 1942. Rusting Japanese & American WW2 tanks, jeeps, planes equipment lay where they were left. A few days of discovering war paraphernalia was enough for me so I left the boys to dig up fox holes whilst I sat by the pool with a good book.

Honiara is not a pretty town by any standard but it wove a magic spell on me & I love it. I will admit to feeling apprehensive upon first walking down the street. Metal grates pulled down over every shop & drunk guys loitering on the street, one of whom took offence when Bobby won't hand over his ice cream! The pavement & shop fronts are littered with red splodges. It looks like someone has taken a pot of red paint & flicked a paint brush everywhere. This decorative red that the Solomon people put all over their towns & villages is the result of betel nut. Every country & society has its drug of choice but this is the worst I have seen to date! You chew a green looking nut the size of a small kiwi fruit, your mouth is then full & you look like a hamster storing food in your cheeks! You then dip a green bean (like a runner bean) into a ground white lime powder & put that in your mouth. The combination turns your mouth bright red & at some point you have to spit the contents out & apparently the nearest bit of pavement is acceptable! In this country you don't see “do not litter signs” instead there are “no spitting” signs & job adverts in the paper state the list of qualifications required & “must not chew betel nut”! Bobby, a willing guinea pig to try anything once, only managed to cope with the nut in his mouth for a matter of seconds before spitting it all out due to the horrible taste. I just wasn't quick enough with the camera!

Honiara quickly grew on us. Yes, it looks a little rough & Sunday is not a day to walk around town as all the men have been spending the weekend drinking but underneath the rough exterior the people as with all the South Pacific are wonderfully friendly & smiley. Honiara has a big expat community. Due to the ethnic tension the country experienced a few years ago the Australians have stepped in & assisting the country to get back on its feet again. The yacht club here in Honiara is the expat & local hang out. Only about 3 boats actually remain here in Honiara & there were no other cruisers when we arrived so we were somewhat of a novelty. The local people were much friendlier that the expats & the staff at the yacht club just couldn't do enough to assist us.

We met Laurie, an ozzie guy working out here who became a firm friend. He drove us up to the villages where we all clambered about the ridges where battles took place in the war. The local boys picked a bunch of wild flowers for me which I placed on the American War Memorial. Bobby & Laurie seemed to be having a competition over how many grenades (still with pins!) they could find. I made sure I was standing some distance from them! We took a walk through the fantastic jungle to an amazing waterfall. Bobby was given a piggyback through the many rivers as he didn't want to get his boots wet (check photo gallery for his embarrassing photo) whilst I waded through like a real man! Towards the end of the walk (some four hours!) his boot totally gave in & the sole completely came off! Walking through a field past a village church with beautiful singing pouring out & the children running out of church towards us – not too sure the vicar would have been too impressed with us unintentionally interrupting his service!

We have stayed here much longer than we expected, there is no beach & you can't swim in the ocean here due to the raw sewage but have I have enjoyed every minute. It's time to leave we have too keep going, we did consider staying for a year & getting jobs but after weighing up the options we are moving on. Its time to get to those islands & Thai curries!