Hello from Gizo!
We arrived in the Western Province yesterday on a rickety little plane with no air conditioning - not pleasant! Although they did give us a very nice chocolate wafer biscuit. Ha! We got here in the pouring rain and soon realised that on a sunday taxis dont run. not a great start! we managed to contact our accommodation and they came and picked us up in their jeep with no working clutch which surprisingly got us all the way up the huge hill to phoebe's resthouse which is where we're staying!
Anyway, before I start raving about Gizo - we had a very eventful last few days in Honiara. On one of ourmany days at Honiara pool some of the girls bumped into the British High Comissioner of the Solomon Islands! Who knew they even had one! He was a very well spoken Cambridge graduate (of course!). Lovely young 'chappy', who has had the pleasure of meeting generations of medical students it seems! He invited us to use his house (which is more like a work of art) for showers, washing, food, guitar hero... We later got an invite to a cocktail party at the 'Residence of the British High Commissioner' (theres a very posh sign outside). We turned up and had to be buzzed through the huge securtiy gtes, it was a very posh affair, and we spent the evening mingling with other high commissioners of new zealand, people working for the world bank, people from various different ministries and political stuff! needless to say we felt very out of place in our slightly unclean, well travelled clothes! But a few champagne cocktails in the moos soon lightened up! We ended up on guitar hero until early hours of the morning! It was a very surreal night! And a nice change from our usual ventures to club extreme! (which we did later end up at on this same night...!)
We made some Fijian friends at extreme who were also keen to offer their house for showers and washing! It's a shame we're leaving honiara really just as we've made a load of new affluent contacts!
So, Gizo - Phoebe's Resthouse is a very sweet shack in the middle of a mini jungle type setting - perfect for mosquitoes as im beginning to find out! The view is stunning from the balcony. We met upwith some of the med students we first met in Honiara who moved to gizo a few weeks back which was nice.Theres also some others here who we are bonding with! There is a tv! GASP! and a shower with running water - although this is apparently very temperamental.
Internet and life generally is even more expensive here than in Honiara. Brilliant. But its much quieter and way more like what I would imagine the Solomon Islands to be. We are venturing to the hospital tomorrow.....
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