Aug 2008

I arrived in Vanuatu about a week and a half ago and somehow managed to bump into two other medical students on the plane who were doing their elective at the same hospital, which was helpful.
There are currently 18 students here so there is always something going on, whether it's a day trip to a beautiful beach or island, diving, walking through caves or just relaxing at the hospital and playing frisbee!
It's always warm here and never really gets hotter than about 30 or colder than 25. The locals are all really happy and friendly and will smile and say hello as you walk past and the kids wave and smile at you. It's not hard to see that it really is, as was found in a recent survey, the happiest country in the world!
Kava drinking was a new experience. Kava is an intoxicating drink made from the root of a pepper plant, but it's not alcoholic, it's an opiate! To go for Kava you basically walk down a dark back street until you see a kava bar with a red light bulb on outside (indicating that they have fresh kava). You then go into a dark room and order either a 50 vatu (25p) or 100 vatu (50p) coconut shell of kava. As an indication, 500 vatu worth is enough to get you truly kava'd. It basically tastes like the water you get in the washing up bowl after peeling potatoes, and you have to drink it in one. It really is a strange experience, not least because most of the time is spent sat on wooden benches on a mud floor in pitch black with everyone quiet (kava makes your eyes more sensitive to light).
We're planning trips to Champagne beach, Millennium caves, Port Olry, blue hole and Aore in the coming weeks. More updates should hopefully be on the way soon.

Arrived in Brisbane on monday to a cold rainy morning, 13 degrees! Luckily this was only temporary though and since then it's been 20+ degrees every day. It does still get cold at night though, cold enough to need jeans and a top (I guess it is winter here!). I spent a few days in Brisbane looking round town and exploring, it's a nice city with paths all the way along the river and lots of parks, some things about australia have been surprising though:

- Beer and alcohol in general is really expensive, you can only buy it in off licenses and it's about 10 pounds for six bottles of beer!
- A lot of food is expensive in the supermarket (bread, meat, cheese etc.) to the point that it's actually cheaper to go out to eat than it is to cook something yourself, eating out is quite cheap though)
- if you go in a big supermarket or shop with a backpack on, they ask to look in it when you leave, to make sure you haven't taken anything - they seem to just have a cursory glance, was quite off-putting the first time though.

I also randomly met Carys and Jo from my year at Uni in my hostel which was quite strange! Anyway, after a few days I headed up to Noosa, about 2.5 hours North up the coast. It was really nice up there with some awesome beaches and beautiful scenery. I met two primary school teachers from sunderland and a crazy dutch guy and we went surfing in the morning and then for a walk round the nature reserve in the afternoon - as we walked along the beach there were loads of blue crabs that ran down to the water in front of us and buried themselves in the wet sand. At breakfast in Noosa there were loads of wild parrots that live inside a huge gumtree at the hostel that kept landing on your table and squawking, trying to get you to give them food. They got a bit annoying after a while but it's definitely an improvement on pigeons and seagulls!
I'm back in Brisbane now and I'm just getting ready to fly to Vanuatu tomorrow, can't wait for warm evenings again...