Vanuatu

We have always prioritized seeing the less touristic areas of the world while they are still unhomogenized by westernization, and the string of volcanic islands which comprise the country of Vanuatu is definitely one of these places. Although tour companies can arrange package tours to this country, we opted to travel in our "figure-it-out-as-you go"style of travel, which gave us access to a more remote side of Vanuatu that delivered just the right experience were looking for. During the West's imperialistic period, England, France and Germany all attempted to colonize and/or Christianize these islands with mixed results. There's a lot of "Christianity" mixed in with some traditional culture. For example, during a particularly violent rainstorm, we were invited into one guy's hut for food and lodging. Right after serving us our food, we paused, making sure it was OK to start eating. He noticed our hesitation and asked if we wanted to pray first. We said "sure." So he said the following prayer while holding out his right hand like a handshake and wiggling his fingers like "spirit fingers": "Jesus, bleeeesss this food. Amen."

John Williams, the first Christian missionary to Vanuatu in the early 1800's, set foot on the island of Erromango, where he was promptly cooked and eaten by the locals. They did, however, first take the time to splay out and chip around the outline of his stout body on a boulder, where his body print can be seen to this day. The same thing happened to some of the other first westerners until an astute white trader began to use the Vanuatuan peoples' cannibalism to their favor. In exchange for local riches, the trader would pick up a boatload of slaves and sell them to the Vanuatans who would cook and eat them. Although the locals claim that they disavowed cannibalism some time ago, several people claimed that in some remote areas it persists to a lesser degree even to this day. This isn't too surprising since Vanuatu, although officially a government controlled republic, is, in actuality, largely ruled and policed by local tribal chiefs. One islander told us that back in the day, as punishment, they would give the offender a drink of Kava (an indigenous root-derived depressant) and bury him alive while ants ate him. Wow!

Kelsi, in a known cannibal site, posing beside the alter stove.

The people of Vanuatu were an absolute delight, and the most friendly people we have ever encountered. Just after arriving on the remote island of Malekula, we decided to check out the remote bush areas of the island, so we thumbed a ride from a pick-up truck (where we rode in the back along with an enormous sword fish). When we arrived at our intended village, which was nothing more than a collection of a dozen thatched, bamboo bungalows, we asked directions and set out on a footpath we had read about. After some distance, we came to a small clearing and a gathering of six or seven huts. We called out and were soon greeted by several women, children, and tribesmen.

One of the tribesmen identified himself as the chief of the area (they speak a form of Pigeon English called Bislama left over from the colonial era). We explained to the chief that we wanted to see some traditional dances, which seemed to please him. He promptly decided invited us to "sleep with him" and began making preparation and orders to his tribesman to prepare food, blankets, and dancing for us. Although we must admit that it was a bit rough sleeping with bed bugs on the ground of a hut, and the enormous spiders were even enough to scare Rusty, it was well worth it!

The "Small Namba" people where we stayed with the chief's family. They are called Small Nambas because the men's leaf sheath coverings are "smaller" than those worn by their neighbors:

The Small Namba's performing a traditional dance for us:

In addition to showing us the dancing of his own people, the Small Namba's, the chief also took us to a neighboring tribe where he introduced us to the chief of the Big Namba's (picture of the chief below). They were kind enough to show us a few traditional dances as well.

Big Namba's dancing:

In addition to dancing, staying with the chief gave us a wonderful opportunity to visit with the locals. We were tickled by some of their questions and comments and they found some of our comments equally funny. Both we and they revealed an unfamiliarity with each others' worlds. For Example:

"How many pigs to buy a wife in America? Here in Vanuatu, a wife is very expensive." --We didn't quite know how to respond to this one...

"Will your wife live with you and your father's family" --Rusty had to explain that his father didn't have several acres of jungle to throw up huts for his children when they marry, unlike the custom in Vanuatu.  The time we spent visiting with the chief and his family was very good, and we thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them.

Geographically, Vanuatu is located in the huge area described as "Oceania," which includes Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and all the other pacific islands. You can sort of think of this area like you would Europe or Asia. As a region and culture, Vanuatu is located in Melanesia, which includes such countries as Papua New Guinea, The Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, and Fiji.  We were excited to discover that the people of Vanuatu also have a range of natural hair colors, especially predominant in children:

Naturally Blond and Loving it!

Two Red-heads!

This brunette child with a knife is a typical site around Vanuatu. No one goes around without a knife (just like a second arm to these islanders), and they are used for everything from food processing to hacking through the bush and jungle. They start training their kids for life by handing them a knife at the tender age of 3 or 4...

We have a few more things to tell you about a different island in Vanuatu, so we elected to put that in a different blog to keep things "bite-size."

New Zealand

New Zealand is full of spectacular scenery and outdoor adventures... but it's expensive by our shoestring budget standards! So, we rented another station wagon and spent our time on a South Island Road trip (New Zealand is broken up between a North and South Island). Altogether, between Australia and New Zealand, this made almost two weeks sleeping in the back of a car! Sleep deprivation aside, it was worth it!

We began the trip by heading South to Mount Cook in a mountain chain known as "The Southern Alps." They are stunning! You have probably seen these mountains in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. New Zealand has a climate which is similar to Seattle or Portland, but it gets a lot more rain (seven meters per year in some places). When we arrived in New Zealand it rained every single day, and because it was fall here (the seasons are the opposite of Utah), we often awoke in the morning to see the mountains dusted in fresh snow. Over thousands of years, this huge amount of precipitation and snow accumulates in the mountains and has formed thousands of glaciers. We chose to visit the Franz Joseph glacier to hike and climb on it.

Franz Joseph Glacier from a distance:

Checking out a glacial crevasse:

Kelsi Climbing up a vertical ice hole using crampons and Ice picks (A good refresher of our climbing in Nepal!)

After exploring the Franz Joseph Glacier, we spent several days hiking through New Zealand's lush, tropical rain forests. Many of them abut beautiful fjords, and the views were beautiful! The picture below doesn't do justice to the view we saw (asking other people to take a picture for us doesn't always work out the best).

The grand finale for our trip was swimming with wild Dusky Dolphins. They aren't coaxed, fed, trained, or caught... they are completely wild! Dusky dolphins are naturally gregarious and very curious, and when we got into the water with a pod of over 300 dolphins, they circled and swarmed around us to see what we were up to. Dusky dolphins are very playful and are often seen playing with whales and seals, so they probably thought we could be potential playmates. Unfortunately, the waterproof housing for our camera leaked while we were out with the dolphins, so we only ended up with a couple of short video clips before our digital camera was destroyed. All the same, this image from Google shows exactly what we were seeing:

Australia Road Trip

We knew Australia would be more expensive than India, so after considering our options between expensive bus tickets along with expensive hostels (approximately $20-$30 US per person per night), we decided to rent a reasonably priced station wagon that would let us sleep in the back and road trip around.

Here's a picture of us picking up the beauty:

Right after we got our station wagon, we headed to a travel agent to see if we could find any travel deals. This is where we met Marion, our travel agent. We enjoyed visiting about travel so much that she invited us out for dinner after she got off work with her partner, Nic. We all had such a great time visiting over dinner that they invited us to spend the night at their house! They offered us an extremely comfortable futon and our first hot shower in over 2 months! We felt like we were back home! Then they barbecued us up some bacon for breakfast. Barbecuing is the big thing in Australia. We'd never had BBQ bacon before. That was pretty fun, besides being really hospitable of them. We're on a great track for meeting extremely kind and generous people upon entering countries (we had some similar experiences when we arrived in India). Hopefully some of the great friends we've met abroad are enchanted by our ravings about how great Utah is so we are able to reciprocate some hospitality. Meeting such great people is such a memorable way to travel. Here's a picture of the 4 of us at their place:

After our amazing breakfast that morning, we hopped in our station wagon after saying our grand goodbyes, and the key wouldn't turn over. A repair guy came, sprayed some silicon in the tumbler, cussed a little, and ultimately gave up and called a tow truck. Apparently this happens all the time with that version of vehicle, but we had to wait for a tow truck to come take us all the way back to the rental shop to exchange for our new and improved station wagon as seen below at our first roadside "campsite."

After a great night's rest (by station wagon standards), we went for a run in the lovely countryside, then ate breakfast from our cooler and stumbled across our 2nd fabulously warm shower at a local municipal park where we also washed some clothes.




Throughout our road trip, our campsites were usually rest stops, but occasionally, we ended up in random parking lots. We were also able to take various interesting roads along our drive North from Brisbane on our way to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef. One detour that caught our eye was a place called the "Glass Mountains." These are volcanic "plugs" where the earth wore down around the lava core that had turned solid. We hadn't heard of this type of inactive volcano before. The main volcanoes we are familiar with are mountain looking mounds with a depression in the middle. It was an interesting and beautifully scenic drive. Here's a picture of the "Glass Mountains":

We finally reached the southern-most tip of the Great Barrier Reef and found out that the best diving to be found was actually not on the reef itself unless you wanted to spend upwards of $1,000 to go remote, so we opted for a "less expensive" amazing dive on the Yongala Shipwreck. This dive is considered as one of the top 10 in the world and is unique because it is in the same Eco system as the Great Barrier Reef, but isolated between sections of the reef by a several hours boat ride in a sandy bottom section of ocean. This makes it the only area for miles with any hard structure, so the coral have overtaken the ship and it has become a major feeding site for sea life. The fish here grow ENORMOUS and look like they're on steroids! While we were diving, we decided to get our Advanced Diving certificate since the cost difference was and we've become fond of traveling education certification :)

Because this is Jellyfish season, we were required to wear full body wetsuits including head-covers. Here's Kelsi all suited up:

The sea life was spectacular. Near the beginning of our first dive, we saw this sting ray:

We saw several more sting rays as well as several turtles. Below is a picture of Kelsi touching a turtle after her guide had given permission.

Below is a picture of our guide holding an Olive Sea Snake, one of Australia's most poisonous (and Australia is famous for poisonous snakes). We saw dozens of these venomous snakes, but fortunately they are very docile and don't care to bite. In Australia the main things to worry about in the sea are the crocodiles and the stinging jelly fish.

We found Nemo!

After diving we went to an Australian aboriginal cultural center where they taught us the secrets of the Boomerang, an indigenous Australian weapon, toy, or tool. Rusty thinks he looks fierce in this picture, so we didn't include the follow-up pictures which show Kelsi out throwing him.

Not only did we snap a few pictures in front of the famous Sydney Opera House... we also splurged and went to an opera. Where is a better place to appreciate a dramatic opera performances than the seventh-world-wonder Sydney Opera House?!

The Travails of Traveling

The other day we decided to make a list of the hardest parts of traveling:

• Sewage smells everywhere
• Spending 24-7 with a new spouse for endless months - you can imagine
• Traveling with no home base indefinitely - sometimes it's nice to "be home"
• LOUD talking, snoring, etc. of random people when sleeping in random places, especially on sleeper trains when they board at 2 am and you're getting off at 6 am
• Vipassana meditation - you have NO IDEA how hard even ONE HOUR is to focus and not move ANYTHING even to scratch or adjust or ANYTHING - then try it 10+ hours / day for 10+ days (it was really 10 days plus 2 half days)
• Getting Kelsi to bungee off of a 500 ft suspension bridge!
• Kayaking lessons as a beginner with low safety standards (straight to class 2+ rapids)
• Climbing a vertical ice wall at 20,000 feet (with no supplemental O2!)
• FREEZING your butt off for months straight, but especially over 18,000 feet trying to sleep
• Jostling for a place in lines... we have met some of the most incredibly audacious line cutters we have ever encountered!
• Hand washing our clothes in the shower or a sink more frequently than not
• Alternating between only two outfits of clothes; sometimes you just feel like wearing something different!
• Sleeping in the back of a station wagon in Australia and New Zealand for two weeks... sleep deprivation hurts!
• Bus rides - esp. over night and in the bounciest part of the bus in the back - why did we land the back seats?! I wouldn't call this a sleeper bus. But that's not the end - even during the day time it can get difficult when more people squeeze onto and off a bus than imaginable, shoving and bumping all the time, and your ride is 12 hours long
• Nasty toilets - don't think anything can top Mt Huashan in China where the "squatter" was overflowing and sewage spilled under your feet as you added to the pile - but there were no other options!
• Scheming taxi drivers - highlighted in our scam post
• A man's NASTY STINKY feet removed from his shoes and put up on the bench next to where you're sitting
• Our stink after not being able to shower for a week
• Cold showers for 2 months straight
• Poor sleep - esp. with bad beds, back aches, putrid hostels, noisy neighbors and animals, rats, too many nights in a row on sleeper trains . . .
• Constant indigestion from poor food hygiene
• Communication barriers between languages and cultures. For example: getting a dish that you didn't intend to order (nor especially want) when you're STARVING
• Alternating between which of us runs to the toilet next and hoping that our sudden and explosive urges don't happen at the same moment
• Hacking our lungs out for weeks after catching a bug from who knows where
• Lugging around all of our bags and stuff... which somehow keeps expanding?

These are some of the hard parts of travel we thought we'd share. Although our travels don't go without travails, we definitely wouldn't trade places with anyone!

Our Last Days in India

After we finished building the guitar, we wrapped up our study of Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine). They even gave us a certificate proving that we completed 100 hours of Ayurveda and massage studies, although Kelsi was the sterling scholar in our class of two. We had personal classes taught by three doctors of Ayurveda as well as two therapists. The photo above is four of our staff and the photo below is the 5th staff member, during the theory class.

After "graduating" from Ayurveda school, we decided to check out the far southern state of India called Kerala, which means land of coconuts. The first item on our agenda was a Kathakali drama performance. Before the performance started, they allowed us to watch the application of the makeup, which really added to our appreciation.



Kerala is also famous for it's backwaters. We couldn't come all the way down here without taking a boat tour.



A backwater-style houseboat that we would like to recommend for our next family reunion:

Chinese fishing nets:

Because of it's location in the backwaters area, we also decided to check out the ashram of Amma, India's most famous female guru, who has been dubbed the "hugging guru." She wasn't there when we stopped in to bestow a blessed cuddle on us, but we hear that her hugs are really world class. Aside from hugging, she is building tens of thousands of homes for needy people among her other impressive accomplishments. All pictures of Amma and her Kerala ashram are from Google images, as photography is prohibited in her ashram

Nearly every town in India of almost any size is blessed to have a Missionaries of Charity branch, set up by Mother Teresa and her volunteers. Different branches specialize in meeting the needs of different groups of desperately needful people, from babies to the dying. Although Missionaries of Charity is a worldwide organization, we were interested in seeing once of her centers while in India, so our final destination in Kerala was to visit an orphanage for severely handicapped orphans. We spent our time there playing, visiting, coloring, singing, and drawing with the children. We pulled an image of Mother Teresa from Google Images.

After seeing what we wanted most in Kerala, we spent the rest of our time catching up on things: haircuts, internet, one last bollywood movie, and we payed $15 (that's 2-3 nights worth of accommodation) for going to the gym FINALLY once in 6 months. And we can tell it's been that long... ouch!

After working out, we left Kerala on the night train to Trichy in the state of Tamil Nadu, where they speak mostly Tamil rather than the Hindi language of Northern India. They fed us a really nice traditional meal on banana leafs. You are supposed to mix up and eat the rice and sauces with your fingers. We find this quite enjoyable...

We also took some time to check out the Hindu temples while we were in Trichy. Look at how ornate this temple entrance was!

We spent our last evening in India climbing up a 100 meter hill to watch the sunset from Trichy's famous Rock Fort, which has an amazing Hindu temple at the top. We have spent over 3 months in India, and we can now brush our teeth with the magical tap water without even getting a tummy rumble (not sure if that's good or not). Although, we've really only experienced a sliver of the experiences that this country has to offer, we felt it was time to move on to the next country, Australia...

Our Favorite Books

We got a lot of inquiries about which books we liked the most, so here are the top 5:

The Secret Life of Bees
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The End of Poverty
A New Earth
The White Tiger (not on original list of books)

We were originally going to mention our recommendations, but liked every book on the list so much (except for Twighlight), so really, they're all great. Enjoy!