Time flies….we’ve already been in Vanuatu for 5 days and I must say haven’t done much. There is one point we oversaw when booking the cheapest flights possible from Perth to Port Vila: one night without sleeping and 20 hours in transit makes you kaput! I think we needed to take it easy for a few days anyway. So we enjoyed our real big bed (he Marcel could lay on his back with the arms on the side without touching me!), visited Port Vila, spent some time at the national museum and just lounged around in our living room (with TV!).
We were happy to have found such a nice place at an affordable price, it was a super clean apartment with bedroom and separate living room/all equipped kitchen, 2 balconies and friendly people. It was a bit outside of the city center but that didn’t matter because Port Vila has the most efficient bus system I have ever seen. No kidding. Buses here are privately owned mini-vans (7-8 seaters) with a red B on their number plates. You just stand on the side of the road and when you see one you wave and they stop to pick you up, anywhere. You tell the driver where you want to go, and he drops you off in front of the door. Since he offers this service to all the people in the van or whom he picks up while you’re in the vehicle you don’t go directly to your destination, but that’s even better, because he then takes little back streets full of potholes and you can spy on local people! All this for 150 Vatus (about 1.50$ or 1.50CHF).
We had shortly read about a local beverage called Kava, so when Liline (one of the nice ladies working at our hotel) suggested we go with her have a drink one evening we thought that was a super idea. If you read in a book it will say that Kava is made from a root and has properties like an anaesthetic, it sort of relaxes your muscles too. Now trying it is a different experience altogether!
First of all try to forget the noisy, busy and brightly lit place where you live. There are not so many buildings here, it’s mostly small houses hidden behind vegetation. Only the main streets are paved, the others are just dirt roads. At night the streets are dark, there are no street lamps. In this more quiet, more relaxed scenery, Kava bars are spread out a bit everywhere, you recognise them by the lantern hanging at the entrance of the site. What I call “the site” is a small area outside, say 5m x 10m, with either grass or dirt on the ground. On one side are a few benches, really just a couple of wood planks nailed together. On the other side is a line of little booths about a meter wide, some of them with a small lantern or a candle lit on the narrow counter. These are the ones selling kava that evening, you just choose amongst them where you’ll get your drink. I suppose every one has his favourite “brewer”. You have the choice of a 50 Vt or a 100 Vt shell (nowadays a bowl), and after you’ve purchased it you step aside and down it in one shot (I made the mistake of stopping halfway and almost didn’t make it to gulp the whole grey-brown chalky liquid down). Some people then start spitting, others take a drink of water (bottles for everyone to use on the counter). Afte rthat you return the bowl and sit down on one of the benches to “listen to the kava”, fashionable people would say “chill out”. The first effect you feel after you drink the kava is a slight numbing of your lips and tongue, not much, you almost have to actively be attentive to notice it. Then after 3-5 minutes comes the “anaesthetic” part of it. . I can’t say I have much experience in that matter, but if you ask me: it feels like if you had smoked one puff of a joint. Marcel (who is an expert about such things) couldn’t even describe the feeling: after having 3 of the 50 Vt portions he still didn’t notice anything so gave up on it.
I had one of them and was already very “easy man” in my head, although it didn’t last long, maybe 20 minutes altogether. Now we understand why there is this kava custom here: it makes you all woozy for a while and it’s cheap, it’s harmless and it’s legal. Pretty cool stuff he?!

?By the way: we are now Santo and are going to dive the biggest wreck in the world tomorrow. My first wreck dive (Boden lake doesn’t count)….wahh!