Malaita - Langga Langga Lagoon, and my Birthday in Auki

Hi all

Well, we have deifintely had a busy busy weekend. Matt arrived on Thursday afternoon after a long trip from England. For those who don't know, he is Anna's boyfriend. So we had dinner out at Jina's, a chinese/vietnamese/japanese restaurant, and met up with the Birmingham students as well. I think we ate more than we could ever have imagined, but it was such good food. We then headed over the the Casino, and realsied we were the only non-chinese people in the entire place, with the exception of the staff!!! Was sun though, and we all lost some money, except Anna, who made a fiver! lol
Friday, myself, Anna and Matt were up early to go catch the boat to Malaita at 9 in the morning. It took 3 hours, and was the coldest boat in the world. It was nice to goutside to warm up! We arrived in Auki on Malaita and were greeter by Sereh, of Sereh's Hideaway, where we were going to be staying for the next few days. So whilst waiting for the public boat down to the Lagoon, we sat eating coconuts etc in the shade. Then we took the boat, just as it started raining, so it was quite a wet trip. 45 minutes later and wearrived at Sereh's, which is a gorgeous, idyllic, peaceful little place in Langga Langga Lagoon. It was amazing, so so quiet and just a little bit of paradise. We served lunch and then just chilled out and did a bit of snorkelling. The food we had was amazing, lots of traditional Solomon food - barracuda, coconut rice, stir-fired veg, sweet potato chips, mangrove fruit stew. All unbelievable, and she always made far too much so we could never finish it. There was however a very willing and persistent cat who was happy to eat what we couldn't.
Sereh's place was quite basic, and only had limited water, so the shower was a bucket and smaller bowl, and there was no electricity at all. So by 1815 every evening it was pitch black and we ate our dinner by the light of kerosene lamps! The stars were stunning though and worth the lack of electricity. We were in bed at 9 each evening after playing a fair amount of cards.
The rooms were nice though, but I did get horrifically munched on by mosquitoes, and the bites are still really itchy! We were all up by 0630 as it gets so light and the whole lagoon is up by then, so sleep is really an option. Our days consisted of reading, playing cards and swimming in the lagoon and snorkelling. not bad, eh?!! Was so nice to relax and do nothing. We also saw and fed some reef sharks, and a couple of moray eels.
Shell money making is prolific in thsi area of the SOlomons, and they break down shells and make small round 'beads' with them and make them into chians, which they can exchange for other things, such as wood and canoes. It was really interesting to see the process they have to go through to make it all, and then we bought lots of necklaces to bring home.
We left Sereh's on the Sunday afternoon and she showed us around the other lagoons on the way back, telling us about the history of the place. Sereh helped us to find a place in Auki, as the motel we were meant to be staying in was fully booked. Stayed at the Travellers Inn, which was basic but would do for a night. Had dinner at the one and only restaurant, and we all had chilli squid. We were 3 of 4 people in there! Went vack to the Inn to play cards and have some drinks. However, mid game the power cut off (as it had been doing all afternoon) and we were left sitting in the dark, and it was pitch black! Managed to get a torch to carry on playing but the room got so hot as the fan and air conditioning went off. The power came back about 2 hours later, by which point we were quite drunk and now ready for bed! The power kept going off during the night so we would wake up hot and sweaty! Oh well.
I woke up on my birthday listening to Matt singing Happy Birthday at me from across the room, lovely! We went back to Auki motel for breakfast - so good. Toast, cereal, fresh fruit and a pot of tea. We then met up with Silas, who was going to take us to the caves in one of the local villages. After getting a cab to the top, we trekked down through some villages to the caves, got a ladder and the started climbing down! We only had 2 torches between the 4 of us, and they were of the wind-up variety!! But was awesome, and really dark. It was so muddy as it has been raining and we were covered in mud pretty quickly. The small cave opened out into a big sink hole, full of trees and vines, and across the other side was the big cave. We walked in and were deafened by screeching bats! It was amazing, there were loads of them. We carried on further into the cave through some small holes until we got to an area full of little pools of water, which ended up bigger and bigger. We emerged from that cave trip very hot, very sweaty and very muddy! We met the cab driver back at the top of the hill who took us back to Auki, and then we walked to the beach on the other side of a little village. The beach was gorgepus, white sand and crystal clear sea. But the moment we sat down we were surrounded by small children, about 25 of them, all staring at us and giggling. So Matt broke the ice and played some football and we tried to chat to them but there English was non-existent! Still we had fun and took lots of photos of them, which they loved! We left the beach still muddy and sweaty. It started to rain so we took cover and ate some ice cream. I was happy to run around in it for a while though as I was so hot! We managed to clean up and get changed at Auki motel and they drove us to the airport. I say airport, where I actually mean a concrete hut with 1 x desk and 1 x weighing scales, and the runway was barely concrete, mainly grass and chickens! The plane was tiny - big enough for 8 passengers and 2 pilots. There were 6 of us and the pilot, and it was definitely one of the most surreal moments of my life. Really scary but so so good and the views over the sea and the islands were amazing. The flight only took us 30 minutes and then we were in Honiara once more. We met Joff at Kiwi House and ended up at Club Havannah, a french restaurant at Honiara Hotel. It was defnitely pricey, but worth the money. It was Joff's last night and my birthday so we ate a ridiculous amount of food! I had a seafood soup to start and steak with a blue cheese sauce. I couldn't face dessert. The others had sashimi/french onion soup to start and canneloni/snapper stuffed with a shallot mousse, and then Anna and Joff had desserts! Amazing food. We then went to have a cheeky cocktail by the pool and then home to bed!!! SO an action packed birthday. Thank you everyone for lovely messages etc, was really nice to read when I got back.
Today - Joff has gone back to Australia. We have shown Matt the delights of Honiara and are heading to the Yacht Club for dinner. Matt is staying at Kiwi House tonight for the full Solomon experience! We are hiring a car tomorrow so we can see all the war memorials and opther beaches, and then we will be heading to Australia ourselves on Thursday.

Hope everyone is well

Lots of love

Kylie, Anna and Matt

Love Kylie, Anna and Matt xxx