Walking Around Vila
09 November 2008 | Port Vila
Randy
We took a tour around the harbor in our dinghy today. This is a good way to see the waterfront, and most things you might want to see are on the waterfront. There are two good spots to tie up your dinghy. The best is perhaps the Yachting World dinghy dock at the Waterfront Restaurant at the south end of town. The other is the small dock at the Nambawan Cafe on the north end. The dock at the Cafe is used by the dive shop so you can't tie up there but you can unload or load, and the wall has bollards in the area that are good for tying up.
When the US was here in World War II they had three radar stations, #1, #2 and #3. Now the districts of town are named after them, thus the Nambawan Cafe. The Bislama (Pidgeon English) spoken around here (and variations of in the Solomons and PNG) is really fun to try to translate out. The currency says, " Long God Yumi Stanup". Which more or less translates to, "We will always stand for God", akin to "In God We Trust".
We did the 2 hour Lonely Planet walking tour of the town in the afternoon. We had to make a few modifications. The great breakfast place they identify is no longer in business. Nambawan Cafe is very good though. The Court House had burned down but they are working on rebuilding it. Other than that it was a nice walking introduction to the town.
String bands are big in Vanuatu and Fiji. They consist of a few guys on guitar and uke, a few percussionists (drums, tambourine and maybe bottles tuned with different levels of water) and Bush bass (which is a big wooden box with a broom handle and a string). We saw a couple of good acts around town as it was a music festival week.
We wrapped up the day with dinner at the waterfront. They have a micro brew here in addition to the Vanuatu mass produced Tusker. The micro was nice. Dinner was pretty good too. It is a nice location right on the water and a few yachts and sport fishers tie up to the wall stern to here.
We had a great introduction to Port Vila today.