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blangschpeer

Kava bars in Vanuatu

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Hey people,

My awesome wife has planned a holiday to Vanuatu as a 30th birthday present so I'm hoping to indulge in some of the locals favorite drink while I'm there. Just wondering if anyone who has been there has any recommendations about their favorite Kava bar or just general experiences.

I'll be heading off on the 4th of July for 10 days and I can't wait! We'll be spending the entire time on the main island Efate.

Also looking to do a bit of game fishing too, back at the start of the year my wife chartered a game fishing trip for me as my 30th present but it was a bit of a disaster... She was sick for 11hrs straight, my sister was screaming having a nervous breakdown the entire trip and the only marlin we saw was hooked for a total of 30 seconds before throwing the hook. No other fish were seen :(

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sounds like a trip man!!!

love fishing allot myself,... not that much into marflin,... I'd probably check with some locals to see if they want to take me out,...and go aout for mahi, wahoo & tuna. Not aware of how the locals fish over there,.... I grew up fishing with handlines, so I would love do that. more fun in my opinion,... have some lines burn through your skin.... wouldnt want a 50kg or larger marlin on a handline if it's your first time hahaha. handlines can be very dangerous.

taking the woman fishing,... hahaha,.... have them take half a seasickness pill the night before they go to bed and a whole in the morning. also let them eat a light to normal breakfast. (avoid fatty stuff) I suspect the seas there to be pretty calm,... at least they look so in the surf movies of the popular breaks in Fiji

check this out http://www.windguru....x.php?sc=208778 really calm in my opinion. Otherwise there is always the option to suprise your woman with a day of papmpering at the spa while you go fishing.

Kava bars,....unfortunately can't help you with that. I am sure that dirty sock wash water is easy to find if you ask the fierce looking local with the pig bone through his nose! ;-)

Edited by woof woof woof

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there is always the option to suprise your woman with a day of papmpering at the spa while you go fishing.

Love it! Awesome advice :worship: ......unless she can pull the anchor and cast the bait net of course :wink:

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Hey mate,

I drank Kava a few times when I was in Vanuatu. If you go on one of the 'Cultural Tour/Dinner' things they should serve it there*. You can also buy kava at the supermarket and mix your own, but it probably wouldn't be as good as a Nakamal, which is the best place to get potent kava and mix it up with the locals. Just ask one of the locals where to go and they will direct you. I asked a guy who was just finishing work and he told me to come with him as he was on the way for a post-work shell. They give you a bowl and from memory it was $1 for one full ladle and $1.50 for a double. The guy I met recommended a single scoop for my girlfriend and a double for me. One bowl gave me a bit of euphoria, an overall feeling of relaxation, and a numb mouth. After 10 mins (the recommended waiting time between bowls) I had a second bowl. This increased the euphoria slightly and made me more relaxed. I waited again and then decided I would push the limits and have another bowl. This did little more to the euphoria (there is a pretty low ceiling when it comes to kava) and gave me a clear-headed drunkenness, or what I would describe as mentally sharp but physically sedated and basically paralytic. I then headed out for dinner but I felt really nauseous and lethargic. I think I can contribute a lot of the nausea to drinking so much numbing liquid on an empty stomach (even though it is recommended that you drink kava on an empty stomach). Having said that, that night I crashed out hard and woke up feeling like I had a perfect sleep. Two last comments on kava: 1. It isn't pleasant to drink. I describe the taste as a peppery mud with a numbing feeling similar to difflam. i.e. Slam it down. 2. Don't expect too much from it. When I mention euphoria above it is nothing like the euphoria that can be obtained from other substances, but rather a mild and underlying feeling of contentedness and happiness. There is only so far kava can take you before the physical symptoms start to take over.

Other things I would recommend doing while in Efate:

- Check out the Mele cascades.

- Check out the markets in town.

- Go on a waterfall/kayak/hiking tour (I would recommend Vanuatu Ecotours)

- Go for a day cruise (I used an operator called Coongoola and we went out to some nice secluded beaches and a really nice reef for snorkelling)

- Try some different foods. Coconut crab is delicious (but also expensive and sometimes not available due to its conservation status). I also tried Fruit Bat at a French restaurant called L'Houstalet. I probably wouldn't recommend that though as it has a very gamey taste.

- Have dinner at Aqua Restaurant on Erakor Island. You get a free boat (24 hours) to Erakor Island by walking through to the jetty at Warwick Le Lagon Resort. When I was there they had a cheap pasta night on Tuesdays at Aqua but I'm not sure if they still do it. Either way I would still recommend it as the restaurant is right on top of the water and you can watch and feed schools of fish/sea snakes/starfish/etc.

- Hire a car for the day and drive around the island. It's an easy drive and you can see lots of things that aren't easy to get to without one. Some of the the things you can check out: the coca-cola bottle museum, Eton beach, some local villages, secluded beaches, WW2 musuem and sunken WW2 plane (you get taken out on a canoe and you snorkel around it). Actually here's a good link for everything you can do on the drive: http://www.vanuatu.travel/efateBrochure.pdf .

Anyways that's all I can remember off the top of my head (I'll post more if I remember). Hope you have an awesome time mate. The Ni-Vanuatu are some of the friendliest people in the world and there are people smiling everywhere. Some last points:

- Don't haggle. It is looked down upon in Vanuatu as the people hate any sort of confrontation.

- Everything works on island time. Tours may be late but they usually turn up, haha.

- You can save a bit of money by shopping at the Bon Marche supermarket in town.

- Even though it may not seem all that hot it is easy to get sunburnt.

- They drive on the other side of the road.

- You can get anywhere by minivan. Stand next to the road in the direction you want to go to until a minivan with a T on the numberplate pulls up. Just tell the driver where you want to go and he will give you a price. The average tourist price is about $1.50 for short journeys.

* Although I probably wouldn't recommend going on one though as they are a bit lame and the food gives a lot of people an upset stomach or the runs.

EDIT: lol, apologies for the essay - I got a bit carried away thinking about it all. I should be a travel journalist, haha.

Edited by TheExplorer
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nevermind but I would like a kava plant that ships to sweden

Edited by opiumfreak

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the market in town is a good place to start, they were giving it out for free when I visited. just look for the indian guys with red eyes.

Edited by kalika

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Thanks for the replies everyone, the more detailed the better!

Only a few days to go now and I'm going insane with the anticipation!

My wife sat me down to inform me that unfortunately she will be getting caked in mud and wrapped in seaweed whilst scantily clad women walk on her back when I'm off game fishing. No way willl she ever go on a boat for any extended time ever again! For our honeymoon we went on a P&O cruise to Noumea and Vanuatu but struck 2 cyclones, the weather was so bad we spent most of the time trying to not be seasick and we only made it to 2 ports of call out of 5.

I'm looking forward to stocking up on kava so hopefully nothing has changed and we can bring back our 2kg each. The last time I had kava was close to 8 years ago when my Fijian uni friend came back from semmester break, that was a messy afternoon... He insisted that we do it the way he did in his village, which was 3 shells then a joint. After 9 shells and 3 smokes I could barely feel anything below my nose but it was happy hour at the uni bar so we all slowly rose to our feet to try to make the (normally) 3 minute walk. As I got to the door there was a loud thud and a splash, I turned around to see that our other friend had faceplanted into the mixing bowl. We all laughed and then my Fijian friend informed us that the traditional punishment for spilling the bowl was to eat a spoonful of the wet kava grit from the stocking. My other friend regretfully obliged as he did say he'd do everything the traditional way. This provided another 10 minutes of pure laughter as my friend chewwed the grit, pulling faces of pure disgust, trying not to vomit and drooling what looked like diahorrea. As soon as he finished we set out for the uni bar. Half way there my Fijian friend suddenly started cracking up and revealed that the grit wasn't a traditional punishment, he just wanted to see if our friend would do it then he told him "If you thought it was hard to walk before, in half an hour you're going to need a wheelchair". Ahh, good times :lol:

The other tours we'll be doing are:

An evening cruise on the first day

The Mele cascades on the second day

Hideaway island on the third day

Kayaking and snorkelling on the fourth day

The original plan was to leave a day between the tours but we found out yesterday (when my wife went to ask where our tickets were) that everything was fully booked on the days we wanted. It would have been nice to get an email or a call (hell, even our plane tickets!!!) but they were just a bit too "busy".

I'm guessing the travel agents were trying to give us a taste of "island time" lol :rolleyes:

Apart from that, we're thinking we might hire a car or a 4 wheel bike and check out the less touristy beaches and wet a line. My wife is also determined to see a turtle so we may have to check out the turtle hospital on Tranquility island.

Now my only challenge will be to sneak the rod that I bought this morning into the luggage without my wife noticing... :slap:

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So here I am sitting in the hotel room, the shaking and the sweating has finally subsided. A word to the wise, kava given to you by a local in their village at their favorite nakamal is much stronger than the stuff you get at the shopping centre; pay attention though when they say they don't keep their pigs fenced and don't mind the shit everywhere... 3 days I've been confined to the hotel room, fearing to venture any further than a metre from the toilet. Giardia sux pigs balls!

Have to say though the people have been great to us, rescheduling tours has been no problem whatsoever and the operators actually seem concerned about my wife and I, not the money. The operator of the turtle feeding safari we were supposed to go on thismorning drove me to the chemist and made sure I could get the meds I needed without any hassles.

Of the tours we actually did go on before the sickness hit, The Mele cascades were beautiful and are well worth going back to if we have any spare time towards the end of the trip.

Hideaway island was also fun, that included a glass bottom boat trip and a snorkel on the reef. We decided to post a letter in the underwater post office and got so caught up enjoying the waterworld that we missed out on the included lunch and were herded back to the ferry as soon as we emerged from the water. The fish here are pretty feisty too, when I was trying to get a picture of a giant clam we were obviously invading the backyard of some little black fish. They were pissed off at my black camera so they smacked into it repeatedly while making angry clicking sounds. My wife also made the mistake of wearing a black swimsuit... Let's just say I nearly choked from laughing when I heard her underwater scream.

The evening cruise on the first night was nice but probably not worth the amount we spent on it, we were hoping for something a little more informative and for the cruise to show more of the island not just the harbor that we could already see from our room.

If all goes well, tomorrow I'll be going on a full day game fishing trip so fingers crossed the weather and my stomach hold up.

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