Love it. We took a flight up to Espiritu Santo divers mecca for the south pacific. This is typical tropical paradise country with white sands, turquiose water and probally the best coral I have ever seen. Think of South Pacific the book/film and this is where it was inspired from (and Survivor is filmed here). The WWII connections are strong, the waters contain coral encrusted 200m long luxury cruise ships, planes and even million dollar point where America dumped all jeeps, tanks, planes left after the war.

Just another tropical paradise, vanuatu has lots more to offer. It was voted the most friendly place in the world, and this is evident even in the main town/city where a walk to the restaurant will be met with good night from everyone you pass. There are no hawkers, no pressure to buy just lots of smiles and a strong williness for you to have a good time - it is so refreshing. Tribal culture is very strong, inland villages still are completely self sufficient clothing themselves from the forests (there are more languages spoken here per head than any where else in the world). Liuckily canibalism was banned in the 60's.

We took a flight to Santo from Port villa and then got a taxi up the coast heading for Oyster Island where there was somewhere to stay. Getting to the island from the main island involved hitting a gas cylinder to attract attention. We were met with a beautiful 25 hectare island with several beaches, lush vegetation and just 10 bungalows set right on the beach. We spent the first couple of days watching the fish and turtles swim past and cooled off by going snorkeling. The food is excellent; as the name suggests oysters are usually on the menu but the chef is happy to cook vegetarian. I have been collecting coco nuts to eat and make coco nut cocktails from some vodka I got in duty free.

We are hoping to see some of the must see natual features of the island before moving onto another (probally Ambryn).