Our trip to Tarawa started very early in the morning. We had to go to the airport at 2 am. Air Pacific changed the flight to four hours earlier.
After a smooth flight we arrived at Tarawa at 8 am. The immigration officer did his job very seriously and so did customs. After another 2 hours we were ready to leave the airport.
We were supposed to be picked up by a man named Joe, but he had an appointment with the dentist (I thought it was a joke) so his college picked us up. After paying an enormous amount of money for a 4 night stay at Tarawa we took a small canoe that brought us from South Tarawa to North Tarawa.
During our way up there we could see that the islands were overcrowded and that it was true that they shit on the beach and litter everywhere, where possible.
North Tarawa was not so overcrowded but still had all the other problems. We had a buia (shed) on the beach. We found out that we had to share the toilet, but we didn’t care because we were happy we didn’t had to shit on the beach as the locals. We could do our thing on a toilet and than flush it onto the beach. What a relieve. The water in the shower came from a well and smelled like rotten eggs and the dinner was as usual fish and rice or rice and Fish.
After 3 nights we decided it was not such a good idea to stay on Tarawa for 2,5 weeks and we send Air Pacific UK an email we wanted to leave Tarawa on the first flight out of there, Monday.
We received an email that it could be arranged and that the head office would take care of it and we would receive our e-ticket in a day. Perfect! So with that in mind we moved back to South Tarawa the next morning.
We were told that Mary’s was a great place to stay, so we went there. No luxury at all but a lot of expats stayed there and we had a lot of fun with them during our last days on Tarawa.
They took us on a WW-II trip, what was the only relevant history highlight of the island and we had amusing dinners with them.
During those days, we kept an eye on our email but we never received an e-ticket and after calling with Air Pacific it got clear to us that they, for some reason, didn’t want to change our ticket.
The last day we took an boat ride to a secluded beach on North Tarawa. Te beach was great. No litter and a relatively clean beach. The only thing bad about the trip was the ride with the boat. The boat was too small, or the waves to big, what made it such a bumpy ride that that night we couldn’t sit on a chair thanks to the bruises.
On Sunday night, we still had not heard from Air Pacific and we decided to go to the airport the next day and play the stupid tourist and talk ourselves into the plane.
On Monday morning we went to the check-in. That was not at the airport but at an travel agent. That the logical way they do it in Tarawa (!?!?!). Anyway, they could look into the system of Air Pacific and they told us we had a booking for the flight for that day but no e-ticket. Our original e-ticket disappeared as well and there we another 5 (!!) bookings on the original date. After looking very upset, the guy at the travel agent felt so sad for us that he cancelled all those flights an gave us a totally new e ticket on the flight that morning.
At 9 AM we took off from Tarawa to Fiji. What a relieve. This was not a tropical paradise..no wonder nobody heard from Tarawa before..
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