We arrived in Vanuatu and it was ridiculously hot. The queue for customs was humongous and they only opened one desk for non-nationals until all the locals had gone through.

Check-in for our next flight was just a little desk with a hand painted sign saying 'santo' and the gate is simply a door with someone collecting boarding passes and the departure tax ticket (a whole £1.50). On the flight we were given some oragnge juice and when we looked around only us 2 and all the other children had the juice!

When we arrived to meet our friend Chris who had already been here a week, we found ourselves in a house of 14 medics all playing drinking games. Let the madness begin. Our first night in Vanuatu was spent playing card games, making silly bets and I snorkled an Atlas. Atlas is a local beer of 12% volume and comes in 500ml cans. Lethal!! Someone gave up his bed the first night and we eventually crashed and burned at about 1am.

Thursday

We rocked up at the hospital about 0830 on Thursday and introduced ourselves to Lester - a nurse who works there whose only purpose in life seems to be to look after the 'baby docs' and keep us away from the hospital. He welcomed us to Vanuatu and told us we looked really tired and go and spend the first week lying on the beach. We trotted off into town, bought some food (inc more atlas) and headed back. We went to Aore island on the Thursday - this involved getting a free ferry over to the island and then we had lunch at the resort. The beach was beautiful and white and the sun was certainly shining. I went for a quick snorkel in the sea and saw some beutiful coral that looked like its tips had been dipped in blue paint.The fish were classic 'nemo' fish but yellow and black with a few 'trigger' fish swimming about. Trigger fish are really territorial and took a good bite out of a couple of people when they got in the fish's way!

Friday

We went for a tour round the hospital on Friday morning. The wards are all pretty cramped and the bed sheets can be seen drying on the line. The pharmacy is set up inside the old theatre block and the new theatre block, ED and labratory are situated over the other side and were opened a year ago at a cost of £2million. We didn't go into any of the wards (this would probably be classed as work if I stepped over the threshold so more info on that will come next week). Our bislama lesson for the day turne dinto a chat about the Millennium caves and general life here in Vanuatu.

The rest of friday was spent chilling out before going to Mama Lioni's house for dinner.Mama Lioni is one of the cooks at the hospital who takes all the med students under her wing. We got a taxi to her house (simply by saying Mama Lioni's as though she is a big celeb) and arrived to a delicious spread. She'd cooked yams (bit chewy and a bit like bland stuffing), curry, mince and lemon & pomplemousse juice. We all sat on a mat on the floor and listened to real ballads. Randomly there was a Scottish flag hanging on the wall too. The heavens opened during dinner but this didn't stop us trekking in the pitch black and in the rain to a reggae concert. The concert cost us £4 to go in and we were sat right at the front. It was pretty good for the first hour but it started to drag after that and our bums were numb and are clothes damp!

Saturday

Saturday was supposed to be a trip to the Millennium caves but given the rain overnight we deiced to just sit around the pool at the lodge down the road and take some timeout. I went for a run, which despite it being a cool day, was horrifically hard work! It was so so humid! In the evening we went to a party at Deco Stop Lodge and had a beautiful buffet, puddings and a Ni Vatu band. There was also a group of Ni Vatu dancers who were dressed in grass skirts and equipped with various wooden weapons and facepaint. They had lots of drums and instruments that rattled and they'd stop the music in the middle of the song and leap onto a member of the audience. They absolutely stank!!

I also tried Kava - the local traditional drink - it smells like muddy water, looks like muddy water and tastes like muddy water. It contains a form of local anaesthetic too! You down it out of coconut shells and it's supposed to have a numbing effect. You're also not supposed to mix it with alcohol! I had 2 and to be honest it had no effect on me other than making my stomach churn a bit!!

Sunday

Sunday was Children's day on the island which celebrates the future of all the children. We went to organise my intro/discovery dive and then headed to Mama Lioni's for a special lunch. She'd baked a cake and cooked yet more food for us to enjoy and then we danced about in the sunshine and lay listening to yet more power ballads! We met her 2 daughters, 3 sons and her husband too, who told us all about meeting the Queen! We then headed to Million Dollar point with Mama Lioni - 13 of us rammed into the back of a pick-up truck!

Million Dollar point is the site where the infamous SS Coolridge sank in 1949 and a major dive spot for any diver. I climbed up the lookout tower for some stunning views of the landscape and the other islands and sunbathed for a few hours. Total bliss.

Monday

This was dive day! We headed down to town really early and got set up for our dive. Tess and I were doing discovery ones as we'd never scuba dived before and didn't really know what to expect. We drove out to near Million Dollar Point and were given some instructions from our dive master Alfred. We then got kitted up and headed into the sea to practice some skills such as cleaning and clearing the mask, changing breathing tubes and controlling bouyancy. Once we'd mastered these skills and had a bit of a swim about we headed deeper down (about 5-10m) for a look around the coral garden. The fish were amazing. Really brightly coloured. He also showed us a few other sea creatures that suddenly hid away when you tickled them!

We then headed deeper down to the Coolidge wreck (read other blog for more info on this). He showed us round the outside of the vessel and then some of the old military equipment including bullets, guns etc. He also showed us this big drum that said SS and 1949 on the top and when you looked inside it contained shoes and gas masks from back in the day. I think at this point we were at about 20m ish. Pretty cool for our first dive!

He also showed us some random orange plant that sucked your fingers when you ran them through it. Alfred fed the fish some chicken bones and attracted some fish as big as a small dog! There were loads around us and like nothing I've ever seen before! I managed to cut my foot on the way out on some coral, which has now been cleaned with numerous alcohol wipes, but all in all it was incredible.

I do find scuba diving a bit suffocating at some points and a tad claustrophobic but it's worth it for all the amazing sights you see at the bottom of the sea bed!

So that's you guys all up to date!!

Much love xxx