Off to Auki on Malaita

Bright and early, I got up and headed to the main wharf in Honiara to catch the boat/ferry to Malaita. It's a seacat, and so it's quite stable and fast. The journey was to take between 3 and 3 and a half hours. Because it was Thursday, it was going to stop at a place called Tulagi. Tulagi is another of the places mentioned at the US War Memorial as having been the site of a significant battle. I will stop there on my way back to Guadalcanal and stay overnight on Saturday. The trip itself was quite easy, although for most of the way there wasn't much to see until we reached Tulagi/Florida Island at the halfway point of the trip. There the vegetation was very green.

There were some nice looking houses...

...and some shabbier looking houses.

And there was this lone tree sitting out in the water, way off shore. I think it's a mangrove, but with no buddies as of yet.

People use these canoes to move about. They are cut from one log and hollowed out as one piece.

The edge of the island seemed to have a bunch of shallow areas nearby.

And there was this remnant of something that has sunk, but was very close to the surface.

Upon arriving at Auki, it was raining fairly heavily and it seemed that many people were waiting for the rain to stop before disembarking. That was alright with me, even though I did have an umbrella. When I got off the boat, a guy named Ronnie appeared to be waiting for me. At the hostel in Honiara, the manager told me that I should contact him when I got there (he is her cousin or brother-in-law, or something like that), but apparently she contacted him to let me know I was coming. In any case, I didn't have a chance to get the lay of the land before I had someone seeking to fill up my time, for a fee of course.

Initially, Ronnie told me about an opportunity to get out to a village to experience the real culture of the Solomon Islands, with villagers who still live much as they used to live a couple hundred years ago. The price wasn't bad either for the opportunity to do that, about 50 dollars a day, when you convert the money. But then he told me how it would cost to get there, the equivalent of about 200 dollars. Hmmm... So, it was going to cost about twice as much to get to the place as it was to spend a couple days having the experience. And then there was going to be a fair amount of time involved in getting to and from the village as well. It became out of my budget. Actually doing things here in the Solomon Islands is fairly reasonable pricewise, but transportation is a bit ridiculous. If they really want to start improving the tourism situation here, they need to address that somehow.

Well, after I kaiboshed the village, Ronnie came up with plan B. There is a lagoon here in Malaita called Langa Langa Lagoon. It is also a cultural spot where one can see shell money and manmade coral islands and get out of the city atmosphere. He suggested that I could go and stay there for a night and that would give me a feel for the culture here as well. Although he couldn't give an exact price on it (which seemed kind of weird to me, since it seemed to be his business), it sounded interesting and I decided to take that opportunity.

Meanwhile, I had checked into the Auki Motel. They are really friendly there (and where in the Solomon Islands are they not friendly?). But remember now, they are not that kind of motel. (Read rule 6.)

I talked to them a long time. They were telling me about traditional medicine in the islands and how local healers can heal almost anything, including cancer, tuberculosis, diabetes, and even holes in hearts. They told me one healer even wanted to get a patient with HIV. I'm not sure how much was really true, but I do believe that traditional healers need to get more attention. And if the diabetes thing is true, I ought to send my brother here.

I took a little walk around town. Auki is quite small and it is easy to have a good walk around and see the place in about half an hour. It's quite a typical seeming place for the Solomon Islands.

Of course, maybe it's not. I ought to be careful, since it's always the outsiders who are the scapegoats.

Then I met another of the guests at the motel. He is a volunteer here in the islands helping people with some form of media development and presentation infrastructure. He had come to Auki to participate in some sort of big meeting with many other volunteers in his program. I talked to him for a long while about volunteering and how he got involved. I might have to consider some sort of program like that. It really sounded interesting.

I met him at the dinner table. I think there were other people at the motel, but he and I were the only ones who were foreigners and able to afford the fare at the motel. But it was definitely tasty. Eric, the motel's cook, is really good at his job. I highly recommend the motel for a stay if anyone comes here.

Then it was off to beddy-bye as I was to be picked up by Ronnie around 6-6:30 in the morning to go out to Langa Langa Lagoon.