It was a day starting out with so much promise but we were thwarted by both our lack or organization and Vanuatu's lack of tourism experience.

Let me explain.

Vanuatu has a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If you follow our travels you will know that we try to see UNESCO sites wherever and whenever possible. The site is listed as "Chief Roi Mata's Domain" but it was extremely hard to find any info on how we would get to see the three different sites to the listing. Emails to Vanuatu tourism went unanswered . The cruise ship shore tours mentioned nothing about the Chief either so we decided to do what we often do and that is just wing it. Surely we will be able to get a tour when we arrive we decided.

We were straight off the ship when it docked and got a quick photo with a sign recognizing our 100th country, then started the 4 kilometre walk into town. Water taxis were offering rides for $5A each across the bay but being our usual selves, that is, careful with money, we decided we'd walk - big mistake!

We arrived at Vila's tourist office at around 8.45 am.

"There is only one tour and it left at 8.30" was the crushing news delivered by the girl at the desk.

undaunted I said "Can we org anise a private tour please?"

'No, no private tours, only one and only 8.30am"

Well I grumbled about how there was no information on the web and my emails had not been replied to but there seemed no solution as she then said the sites were closed to all, other than the one tour operator - who had left at 8.30am. So we should have paid the water taxi to get us there earlier! Swallowing our disappointment, we asked for directions to the museum and headed off up the steep hill in the steamy heat to see what we could find out about the Chief there.

The museum was quite run down but did have some displays on the history of Chief Roi Mata. We discovered he was a powerful 13th century Melanesian chief. His elaborate grave, containing the bodies of over 25 members of his retinue, was discovered in 1967. According to legend, when Roi Mata conquered the land, his first goal was to unite the tribes. His reign is reputed to have been a peaceful one. Sadly, Roi Mata was poisoned to death by his brother. That didn't seem very peaceful to me!

We were pleased to have a local man demonstrate sand drawings and to do a talk on Vanuatu culture just for us at the museum. We walked around some more of the city streets all high on the hills above the Port finding some monuments and Government house.

After hiking back down the hill to the waterfront, we decided to have massages to celebrate our 100th country, then a fabulous gelati for a fraction of the Australian price before taking the water taxi back to the ship.

Footnote: Chief Roi Mata's Domain is UNESCO World Heritage Listed.