Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Sols... Part 2

Ok, so after nearly two weeks of fighting poor internet connections, uploading failures, and chronic laziness, I have finally got around to posting the next installment of my trip to the Sols.

Part 2 (and Part 3) is for the particular appreciation of my friend B at Not Going Gently, who grew up in the Sols in a village that we island hopped over on my previously mentioned, terrifying, flight in the little plane.

Part 1 left off at our arrival at the Gizo Hotel in the beautiful Western province of the Solomon Islands. The photo below is the front of the Gizo Hotel and its store front on the main street in Gizo. It doesn't look like much at the moment, but is in the process of being renovated to include a mobile phone store, internet cafe and IT servicing business. By now the green netting should be down and people should be able to access the stores behind. Upstairs is the staff quarters of the Gizo Hotel.


This is the view of the main street and Gizo bay from the restaurant of the Gizo Hotel. Directly opposite the restaurant is the main wharf where the cargo and passenger ships dock, and down the road to the left of the picture is the market house where an assortment of fresh fruits, and vegetables are available for sale, as well as fresh fish (we saw the fishermen bringing in freshly caught yellowfin tuna to be sold at the market), and the ever present betel nut (which is a whole other story to be covered in a future post).


If you walk out of the hotel and turn to the right and walk down the main street, away from the market, you pass all the government buildings, such as the police station, the magistrates court, and the hospital. The building below is a new hospital being built in Gizo using funding from the Japanese Goverment. The hospital below will be 3 stories and is expected to be completed early next year. it will be the largest hospital in the country and the people of Gizo are pretty proud of that fact!



Some people call the Japanese Government's aid to the Pacific "reparations for the war". I'm not sure I can be that cynical about the whole thing.

Will get Part 3 up ASAP... Honiara, here we come!!!

4 comments:

OldLady Of The Hills said...

All very interesting! It interests me that you feel it is cynical of people to think the Japanese are doing whatever they are doing as "reparations of the War"....if it is true, I think it is a wonderful thing. The Soloman Islands were in the middle of some horrible terrible battles during WW2 and much was destroyed, and by The Japanese. If the Government is trying to make up for all the Horror, I applaud them. I'm certainly not a WW2 buff, but I did live through the war, though I was only 10 when it started.
An interesting document of the War In The Pacific IS, the ten part series called "THE PACIFIC". It is a very moving and hard look at that period and that area of WW2. If you haven't seen it, it is worth renting.
You had quite a trip! And I look forward to seeing more pictures of your experiences and the places you went.

Anonymous said...

I certainly have suffered the scars of WWII! I have a nice scar on the bottom of my right foot where I got a large piece of rusty metal embedded in it while playing on an old ship wreck. There are ship wrecks all through the islands. We also met an old man who fought during the war. I think he told us stories, but all I remember is the pomello he gave us to eat. It was very yummy.

Sounds like Gizo has changed quite a bit since my day. Multi story buildings!

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