First Day in Vanuatu

I had a few things on my to-do list today. Get cash out, getting a SIM card, and booking my flight to Tanna Island and back.

After checking the ATM fees of all the different banks, I found BSP (Bank of the South Pacific) was the best at only 490VT (~$6). As everywhere takes a 3% cut on credit card transactions, I wanted to pay for my flight in cash, so I took out over $700 worth in cash so I only had to pay the atm fee once.

I found that Vodafone, one of the providers here, has a free tourist SIM card valid for 5GB for 3 days. So my whole time in Vanuatu I just kept going to different Vodafone outlets and putting in a new free SIM card, as I didn’t care about the changing numbers. Nice to have free data!

Booking the flight to Tanna and back via Air Vanuatu was a whole ordeal haha. They’ve just gone bankrupt and are going through a liquidation but the government gave them an injection to be able to continue domestic flights as they’re needed in an island country. But anyway, their website doesn’t allow you to book online. You either have to email them or book in person. They take forever to reply to emails (they replied to mine after I was already on Tanna lol) so I decided to book in person at their main office. The only problem is their main office is nowhere to be found on Google Maps. After some asking around, it turns out it’s just down the road from the airport, so I went and booked my flights! So weird paying for flights in cash. Ended up being 35,190VT (CA$423) for a round trip to Tanna and back!

With all my to do items checked off, I walked back to my place, and decided to record a tune as it was St Paddy’s Day back home!

I then caught a bus into town to do some grocery shopping for the next few days. The bus system here is hilarious, with vans driving all around that you just flag down. You can tell they’re busses by the B on their license plates, but they have no routes and no schedule, you just tell them where you want to go and they take you there. Kinda like a fixed rate shared taxi lol, for only 150VT ($1.80)!

Walked through a market that was right beside the grocery store and bought some passion fruits! The ripest and cheapest passion fruits of the trip!Walked around the town a bit, you can see some of the damage from the recent huge earthquake and all of downtown is still blocked off due to building demolition.

Came home and made a dinner of spaghetti and hotdogs which I’ve been having lots of on this trip lol. The pasta sauce was a bit pricey so I just bought a can of whole tomatoes and cut them up lol.

Nice to have my own room to go to sleep in!Read more