Today's activity was a buggy ride through the main and back streets of Vila, along a beach and through the jungle. The tour company warned not to wear white, and given the recent rainfall, we were in for some mud. Traveling through the back streets of Vila was quite an eye opener, it's hard to believe there were people living in such poor conditions, when around the corner you have 5 star luxury resorts. As we were driving along, the children of the villages (called pikininni in the local language) came running along side the buggy and were waving and high five-ing us. Also running along side the buggies were the local dogs; they were not as friendly and gave Mick quite a scare. His driving technique was to allow quite a bit of space between him and the buggy in front so that when the dogs came to our buggy he could floor it and leave the dogs behind. That worked most of the time :)
The buggies are extremely low to the ground, so whenever we hit a puddle or pot hole, water would come gushing up the floor of the buggy and we'd receive (what Mick describes as) a mud enema. We can assure you that the tour company did not warn about/advertise the mud enemas. It was during these moments we were glad we have been taking the malaria tablets. Given Mick was driving, he was attempting to avoid the potholes (on his side of the buggy), which often meant that Damo had more mud baths. However Mick got his just desserts, at one point the buggy in front was almost getting bogged and was spinning mud up - this was at the same time Mick was trying to get away from a dog - the end result was Mick getting a face (and mouthful) of dirty Vanuatu jungle mud.
Other buggy highlights included getting bogged in the beach sand and having the local pikininnies come help dig us out. We also visited a jungle village, which was what you'd consider to be truly third world. This was quite an amazing site to see....The village had 'refreshments' for us... Mick decided he didn't care if he insulted these poor villagers, because there was no way in hell he'd be eating anything made, cooked, or sliced in this village. The lady offering the refreshments did not looked pleased that Mick was not eating, and she kept giving him the evil eye. Damo was brave and took a slice of salted cucumber. He discretely threw out half of it after taking a bite .
We made it home in one piece, but covered in mud! It was a great experience (dogs included), and made us think about how lucky we have it back in Sydney! We thought about this at happy hour by the pool sipping on beers and espresso martinis (that Damo taught the barman to make).
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