Blogs from Upolu, Samoa, Oceania - page 2

Unlike some other cars here in Samoa our trusty little number hasn’t spontaneously combusted overnight, so we decide to head into the capital, Apia, to have a look around. We’ve been told that the speed limits in Samoa are 40 kilometres per hour in villages and 60 kilometres per hour everywhere else, but there aren’t any signs along the road to confirm this, and there seem to be houses at varying intervals along most of the road so we’re not quite sure how we’re supposed to know when we’re in a village and when we’re not. We wouldn’t want to get deported for speeding, so we play it safe and stick to 40, but now we seem to be in grave danger of infuriating most of the other drivers, and we begin to wonder whether getting ... read more

Today we travel back to the main island of Upolu where we’re booked to stay at a hotel on the south coast for the rest of our time here in Samoa. A few minutes after leaving our hotel we see a police road block up ahead. My blood turns to ice. I wrack my brains to try to remember what we might have done wrong. Standing up while you’re eating is a big no no here, and I think I remember Issy standing up for a few seconds while we were eating lunch at the blowholes yesterday. She says that she was only changing seats, but I’m not sure that this will be a valid defence. I hope that they don’t arrest her; I don’t want to have to pay someone to iron my shirts. The ... read more

There were quiet heavy tropic showers when we got up to day so decided not to attempt the bush walk to Robert Louis Stevenson's tomb today. Just to prove I am doing some work here we went to the Museum of Samoa which has some fragments of Lapita pottery from 3000 years ago and some 'plain pottery' dated 1000 years later. Lapita pottery was a definite decorated ceramic body were as the 'plain' pottery appeared not to have completed the change from clay to ceramic. It is also interesting to note that there were a number of large wooden vessels of a similar time but only a few fragments of ceramics, one could postulate that ceramics was never made here, It may have be brought with the original inhabitants and attempted again unsuccessfully 1000 years later,without ... read more

Had an unexpected day yesterday. We went for a wander around Apia to see what was there and sort out a couple of things for our stay and stumbled on the most amazing cultural introduction though the tourist information centre. We were told there was a free cultural show about to start so we wandered to where we were told and experience a couple of hours of showing umu making, wood caving, traditional tattooing and tapa making, followed by lunch from the umu and singing and dancing - there was commentary along the way explaining the cultural significance of village life.This was an amazing find runs on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We had read a bit about what to do before we came here but this hadn't come up so was a lucky find highly ... read more

24th March Apia Apia is the capital of Samoa The travel blurb has you conjuring up visions of dusky maidens dancing between swaying palm trees. One of the things that struck us as we walked into the town were number of churches. Some 45% of Samoans are in the Congregational church with 20% Catholic. The remaining Samoans are mainly Mormon and Methodists with some minor sects thrown into the mix such as, Church of the Nazarene, Jehovahs Witness and the Bahai faith. They say that Samoa is 'founded on God' and many believe this true when in 1991 a Cyclone VAL flattened the whole of Samoa. The people believed because of their religion that God had mercy as only 7 deaths were noted over the 3 days that the storm raged. The walk from the Pier ... read more