Here I am in the provincial capital of the most western province of the Solomon Islands. A little more West and we’d be in Papual New Guinea. This town is full of various government offices, a tiny office of the World Wildlife Fund, a small medical service by Planned Parenthood, a lovely enclosed market donated by the Australian Aid, a nice hospital donated by the Government of Japan, many Chinese stores, a dive shop in a very industrial part of the town, one main street and a couple of smaller ones, and some 50+ kiosks selling betel nut/green bean/dried coral powder to countless betel-nut enthusiasts, all twitchy, sunken-eyed, slightly crazed looking… Some serious addiction here. Today I saw a young girl chewing betel nut. She was with 3 young girls her age who were not chewing anything and it was just so tragic how hopped and crazed the betel-nut kid was, unable to stand still, laughing and frowning interchangeably and looking dangerously euphoric… Made me really sad.

The town is all about the market, shopping and boats. Many little wooden boats with some 120 hp engines shuttling people to towns and islands around. I took one of these boats from Noro to Gizo. I had previously taken a minibus from Munda to Noro. Well, 3 minibuses really. I had forgotten my wetsuit and my fins at the dive shop so I got to Noro with my suitcase, found a boat that was leaving in an hour, gave the suitcase to the boat owner/captain asking him to please not leave before I return, got onto another mini bus and dashed back to Munda to retrieve my goodies. I had to wake up the oversleeping 18-year old intern/deputy dive shop manager to get the key, rummage around for my stuff, then run like the wind back to the bus stop, get the first bus that was leaving and hope that the captain hadn’t taken off for Gizo with my suitcase. Much to my delight, the captain and some 10 passengers, mainly moms with kids, were all waiting for the moron white space cadet woman.

We packed ourselves and our many belongings into the boat. The moms had theirs stuffed in boxes, tightly bounded plastic bags and small duffels that read Mickey Mouse Disneyland Adventure and Suva Marathon (pretty sure none of my fellow passengers or their families had visited the Happiest Place on Earth or had run 26 miles competitively).

The boat ride was heavenly full of sights and sounds of the lagoon, the many big and small islands, dolphins, frigates, boobies, terns, parrots, mangroves, palm trees, many kinds of blue and a lovely breeze. The boat ride was about an hour and 45 minutes. We stopped twice. Once to offload a young man who worked at a small island resort. And once to let a lady and her kid off in front of the hospital. 

The shuttle-boat parking was full. We managed to push 2 boats apart with a help of a crazed betel-nut casualty who at one point made a Prince-style split between 2 boats to make space for ours and we lodged ourselves in, trudged through water, got our stuff off the boat and dispersed. My hotel was right in front of the shuttle-boat madhouse. The wonderful market was right next to it. Much red spitage all around. The Chinese shop was blaring Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”… I checked in then ran out into the market and loaded on bananas and popcorn.

Dive Gizo has 13 divers tomorrow but a little resort diveshop has 2. So the resort won. They’ll come get me at 8 am. At least that’s what they said. Solomon time is very stretchy… (and thank gods; otherwise I’d still be in Noro hanging out with the workers from SolTuna factory there).

OK, I just finished a bowl of soup at the hotel bar. The Japanese group that I saw in Munda is here as well and they are running around the restaurant distracting me. Also, mosquitos (did I tell you that there is dengue fever and malaria reported in the Solomons?!) 

Will report on the next round of happenings soon… Good night.