What not to do when travelling: And then, Tulagi

Well, I woke up at Serah's and it was still cloudy. I got up and Serah had gotten some doughnuts for me for breakfast. I had thought that if she had put together a reasonable breakfast, I would not say anything about having paid the full price for the meals portion of staying with her. But doughnuts? And not very good ones? I said that I thought it was kind of steep to have paid so much for meals for the food she had served. She said that I had had all the meals promised, but I mentioned the quality of the meals and she hung her head a bit and asked if I wanted some money back. I said yes and she asked how much. I told her how much and she didn't even really put up a fight. She just agreed. She said that she would get it for me in town as she had paid out the money I had paid her to other people already. That was agreeable to me.

Then we got ready and went out to meet Ronnie, who had said he would be around to pick me up at 8 o'clock. We waited. And waited. And waited. By 8:30, Ronnie still had not shown up and we were wondering if he had the days mixed up. Serah was calling around trying to find him and to get her daughter to pick some things up for her. It was a bit of a scramble. Finally Ronnie showed up at 8:45. He had had to take a cousin somewhere for some funeral preparation of some sort. But he hadn't bothered to call and let us know. He has some work to do if he is going to become trusted and someone that people would recommend. But he arrived in the end. As we drove back to town, he was stopping by almost anyone headed in the right direction and asking them if they were headed to town. If they were, he was getting them in the back of his truck and bringing them along. For a fee, of course. Now I had hired the truck to take me to and from Serah's place. He already had that fee, and he was getting more “taxi” fees on top of that. It's just one more way that a foreigner and a traveller gets ripped off, I guess. But Serah understood the way it was going. She didn't give him any money for the ride and tried to give it to me later, despite my having kicked up a fuss about the meals fee while staying with her. And she also helped me find a place to stay on a little island halfway back to Honiara, called Tulagi, as well. I didn't take the transport fee. I almost gave her all the money, but held back on principle.

Then it was just sitting in town waiting for the ferry cat to come in. The ride was fairly uneventful, although as I watched the sky, I was worried. The days have been getting slowly more overcast and rainy. Yesterday was a bit stormy with thunder and lightning in the mix. If a storm comes in and the seas get too rough, the ferry will not run and I will be stuck here on Tulagi, possibly able to watch my plane take off without me. On the other hand, even with the rain and all, the ocean has not gotten at all rough. So there is probably no problem. That leaves only the problem of how many people will be getting on the boat tomorrow. It being Sunday, I am really hoping that it isn't too busy. I may have to muscle my way on in front of someone else. I hope I don't have to do that. That would suck.

However, whatever happens on that score, this little island is a gem. It is very small, I can probably walk around it on the little road in an hour or two. And it has loads of history. Tulagi, on the island of Gela, was at one time the seat of government for the Solomon Islands. In addition, one of the major battles in the campaign to liberate Guadalcanal was fought here. There are apparently a number of wrecked planes and such on the island from the war. It's odd actually that there isn't much tourism here. With so much history here, I would have thought that there would be plenty of people coming here to have a look around. There is also a nice little town here and (would you believe it?) lots of nice people as well. Serah had called a friend of hers, or maybe a relative, who runs a guest house here, and arranged to have me stay. He was actually on the boat with us, but phone service cut out before that was established. I met him as we were both coming off the boat after arriving at the island. His name is Lonsdale (Now that's a name.) and he walked me to his guest house, the Florida Palms Lodge. It's on a little sand beach that looks out towards Honiara through a couple of nice little islands. The overwhelming feeling I had when we got here was the same as when I used to visit my grandparents when they owned a cottage on a lake in Ontario. It was neighbourly and peaceful and homey.

I will explore tomorrow, but Lonsdale took me out for a short walk to see a little bit of the town. Then, as we were returning for dinner, we passed a little beach with a bunch of canoes. It was the fish market. And Lonsdale went shopping for tomorrow's meals. The men with the canoes go out fishing during the day and then return with their catch to sell it on the beach. Those who want to buy fish, go over and haggle the price out with the fishermen and then carry their purchases home. It's really kind of neat.