Honiara, Open for Business

Today took me a long time to accomplish only a little. I guess I need to work at slowing down a bit and recognizing that I have a long way to go and sometimes it's just going to take a bit of time. Easter got in the way and I just kind of feel like I've been spinning my wheels for a couple of days. And I guess, in a way, I have.

I went to the visitor's bureau and got some information. Then I tried to get some form of guide or tour or something to get out and see some of the war history of the area. It took a while to find the office, but it was closed, so I had to find another one, which turned out to be right next door. In the end, it seems that it will be a no go on any sort of organized tour. I opted to book a guide to take a short hike to a waterfall in the area tomorrow. It's not too expensive.

I got some internet time for my computer and booked a ticket to Fiji from Tarawa, fulfilling Kiribati's requirement to have an onward ticket, and then the nice woman in the local airline booking office kindly printed it out for me.

And I booked some time out of Honiara. There is a boat operator here who runs a trip daily from here to Malaita, a nearby island. When I went in in the morning, he outlined a bunch of options for me, and said if I came back at 2, his assistant Doris would have a quote for me. The whole plan sounded to me as though it was going to be rather expensive. And it was. When I returned to the office to see Doris she told me the three day trip was going to cost 4500 Solomon dollars, which I think comes out at roughly 600 dollars. Aagghh! That's too much, I told her. So she and I set to work trying to find something that would work. She was very nice and helpful and in the end, I convinced her to take a photo with me.

So I guess it wasn't such a bad day. I just didn't get much in the way of traveling and seeing anything interesting done. I did meet some nice people though.

And then I looked in the little guidebook that the woman at the visitor's bureau gave me. At the back there is a little table of useful phrases to use when speaking with locals who don't speak much English. Of course, the languages here are English and a pidgin language that is based on English. And when I was looking through it, I found it rather amusing. See if you can figure any of these out:

English                                  Pidgin

See you again.                      Lukim yu moa.

When                                   Wanem taem

Little                                     lelebet

Quick                                   kwiktaem

Where are you going             wea nao yu go

Where are you from              yu bilong wea

I'm from Australia                 Mi blong Australia

It's prohibited                       Hem taboo

I'm a vegetarian                    Mi no kaikai meat